Annual General Meeting - Saturday 21 October

             

KHS 2023 AGM
Followed by Guest Speaker:
Dr Judith Godden

Join us in Gordon Library Meeting Room 1

at 2 pm on Saturday 21 October 2023

for our Annual General Meeting
after which Dr Judith Godden presents...

Lucy Osburn – Controversial Nursing Founder

Our guest speaker following our AGM will be Dr Judith Godden, professional historian, Secretary of Ku-ring-gai Historical Society, and honorary associate of the Department of History at the University of Sydney.

Judith will talk about the controversial subject of her first book, Lucy Osburn, a Lady Displaced: Florence Nightingale’s Envoy to Australia (Sydney University Press, 2006) which was short-listed for the National Biography Award.

Osburn learned her vocation at Florence Nightingale's school of nursing in London, but her relationship with Nightingale was not the smooth discourse of 'Victorian ladies'.

Celebrated as the founder of modern Australian nursing, Lucy Osburn (1836-91) was sent to Sydney by Florence Nightingale to reform nursing in Australia. After arriving here in 1868, followed by 16 tumultuous years at Sydney Hospital, Lucy Osburn eventually succeeded, thanks to her immense resilience – despite considerable mistakes that led to her being repudiated by Florence Nightingale.

In her enthralling and enlightening biography, Judith Godden has collected Lucy Osburn’s extensive and frank correspondence, which is used to build an intriguing picture of life for an independent middle-class woman.

Lucy Osburn also pioneered the employment of high status professional women in public institutions. Her triumphs and trials in NSW typify the struggles the colony faced in its relations with Britain, and with new roles in the workplace for women.

In this presentation, you'll find out about the tumultuous 16 years Lucy Osburn spent at Sydney Hospital, and why she is celebrated as the founder of modern Australian nursing - even though Florence Nightingale effectively disowned her!

Find out too, why Judith thinks we should all know her story.

As always, please keep an eye on our website in case of any last-minute changes.

The venue is Gordon Library Meeting Room No. 1, in the Old Gordon Public School, which adjoins the Gordon Library, 799 Pacific Highway, Gordon (corner Pacific Highway and Park Avenue).

It’s just a 5-minute walk from Gordon Station.

For a map and parking information, see our Contact page.

September 2023 General Meeting - Saturday 16 September

            

Guest Speaker:
Dr Ian Hoskins

Join us in Gordon Library Meeting Room 1

at 2 pm on Saturday 16 September 2023
when Dr Ian Hoskins presents...

Australia and the Pacific

Our guest speaker will be award-winning author and professional historian, Dr Ian Hoskins.

In his most recent book, Australia and the Pacific: a History, Ian examines a timely subject – our place in the Pacific and our relations with the myriad Pacific island nations, as well as those with larger players – from our ties with Papua New Guinea and New Zealand to our complex connections with China, Japan and the United States.

This revealing, sweeping narrative history begins with the shifting of the continents to the coming of the first Australians and, thousands of years later, the Europeans who dispossessed them.

About Ian Hoskins

Ian has worked as an academic historian, a curator and a professional historian in Sydney for more than 30 years. He researches and writes when he is not working as the North Sydney Historian, where he researches and interprets the local area.

Ian is passionate about history (both local and broad) and landscapes (both cultural and natural) along with the architecture, modifications and plantings that make up those places — and the literature and artwork created to represent them.

As always, please keep an eye on our website in case of any last-minute changes.

The venue is Gordon Library Meeting Room No. 1, in the Old Gordon Public School, which adjoins the Gordon Library, 799 Pacific Highway, Gordon (corner Pacific Highway and Park Avenue).

It’s just a 5-minute walk from Gordon Station.

For a map and parking information, see our Contact page.