Australian Dictionary of Biography#Obituaries Australia

The ADB project began operating in 1957, although preparation work had been started in about 1954 at the Australian National University. An index was created that would be the basis of the ADB. Pat Wardle was involved in the work and, in time, she herself was included in the ADB.{{cite AuDB |first=Clarke |last=Patricia |title=Patience Australie (Pat) Wardle (1910–1992) |volume=19 |year=2021 |id2=17092 |access-date=2025-06-03}} Staff are located at the National Centre of Biography in the History Department of the Research School of Social Sciences at the Australian National University. Since its inception, 4,000 authors have contributed to the ADB and its published volumes contain 9,800 scholarly articles on 12,000 individuals.{{cite web |url=http://adb.anu.edu.au/about-us/ |title=About Us |website=Australian Dictionary of Biography |publisher=Australian National University }} Only 210 of them are Indigenous, an imbalance which can be equated with what the anthropologist Bill Stanner has called the white “cult of forgetfulness" about Indigenous achievements.{{cite web|last1=Allbrook|first1=Malcolm|title=Indigenous lives, the 'cult of forgetfulness' and the Australian Dictionary of Biography|url=https://theconversation.com/indigenous-lives-the-cult-of-forgetfulness-and-the-australian-dictionary-of-biography-86302|website=The Conversation|date=31 October 2017 |access-date=20 January 2018|language=en}}

The ADB project should not be confused with the much smaller and older Dictionary of Australian Biography by Percival Serle, first published in 1949, nor with the German {{lang|de|Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie}} (published 1875–1912) which may also be referred to as ADB in English sources.{{cite web |url=https://www.google.com/search?tbm=bks&q=Allgemeine+Deutsche+Biographie+%2BADB|title=Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie +ADB – Google Search |website=Google }} Another similar Australian title from an earlier era was Philip Mennell's Dictionary of Australasian Biography (1892).

Since the project began there have been six general editors {{as of|lc=yes|2021}}, namely:{{Cite web|title=General Editors|url=https://adb.anu.edu.au/about-us/general-editors/|url-status=live|access-date=2021-10-04|website=Australian Dictionary of Biography|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110709162739/http://adb.anu.edu.au/about-us/general-editors/ |archive-date=9 July 2011 }}

• Douglas Pike (1962–1974)
• Bede Nairn (1974–1984)
• Geoff Serle (1975–1987)
• John Ritchie (1988–2002)
• Diane Langmore (2001–2008)
• Melanie Nolan (2008–present)

To date, the ADB has produced 19 hardcopy volumes of biographical articles on important and representative figures in Australian history, published by Melbourne University Press. In addition to publishing these works, the ADB makes its primary research material available to the academic community and the public.

Two supplementary volumes were published as a by-product of the first 12 volumes of the ADB. These are A Biographical Register, 1788–1939: Notes from the Name Index of the Australian Dictionary of Biography (1987) in two volumes. These contain biographical notes on another 8,100 individuals not included in the ADB. Each entry contains brief notes on the individual concerned, gives sources, lists cross-references between entries and the ADB and there is an occupation index at the end of volume II.

On 6 July 2006, the Australian Dictionary of Biography Online was launched by Michael Jeffery, Governor-General of Australia, and received a Manning Clark National Cultural Award in December 2006.{{cite web|url=http://adb.anu.edu.au/onlinelaunch.php|title=Launch of Online Edition of the ADB|access-date=9 June 2007|archive-date=28 June 2007|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070628215355/http://adb.anu.edu.au/onlinelaunch.php|url-status=dead}} The website is a joint production of the ADB and the Australian Science and Technology Heritage Centre, University of Melbourne (Austehc).

• {{cite Q |Q672680 |publication-date=1966–{{CURRENTYEAR}} |mode=cs1}}

Obituaries Australia (OA), a digital repository of digital obituaries about significant Australians, went live in August 2010, after operating as an in-house database for some time, using Canberra Times journalist and deputy editor John Farquharson's obituaries for its pilot. The National Centre of Biography encouraged the public to send in scanned copies of obituaries and other biographical material.{{cite web | title=National Centre of Biography – ANU | website=Obituaries Australia | date=18 May 2010 | url=http://ncb.anu.edu.au/newsletter/obituaries-australia | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160313164132/http://ncb.anu.edu.au/newsletter/obituaries-australia | archive-date=13 March 2016 | url-status=unfit | access-date=15 November 2021}}

The fully searchable database also links the obituaries to important digitised records such as war service records, ASIO files and oral history interviews, in libraries, archives and museums. and will link to a search on the name in Trove, the National Library of Australia's database of newspapers, library catalogue holdings, government gazettes and other material.

The database comprises obituaries about "anyone who has made a contribution to Australian life"; some have not even visited Australia but had political or business connections and interests. There are links between ADB and AO on each entry where articles exist on both databases.{{cite web | title=About Us | website=Obituaries Australia|publisher=Australian Dictionary of Biography | url=https://oa.anu.edu.au/about-us/ | access-date=15 November 2021}}

{{Main|Slavery in Australia}}

In 2018, Clinton Fernandes wrote that ADB is conspicuously silent on the slaveholder or slave profiting pasts of a number of influential figures in the development of Australia, including George Fife Angas, Isaac Currie, Archibald Paull Burt, Charles Edward Bright, Alexander Kenneth Mackenzie, Robert Allwood, Lachlan Macquarie, Donald Charles Cameron, John Buhot, John Belisario, Alfred Langhorne, John Samuel August, and Godfrey Downes Carter.Fernandes, C. Island Off the Coast of Asia: Instruments of statecraft in Australian foreign policy (Melbourne: Monash University Publishing, 2018), 13–15.{{cite news |first=Paul |last=Daley |title=Colonial Australia's foundation is stained with the profits of British slavery |newspaper=The Guardian |date=21 September 2018 |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/sep/21/colonial-australias-foundation-is-stained-with-the-profits-of-british-slavery |access-date=4 April 2019}} The NCB subsequently launched its Legacies of Slavery project, which aims to expand coverage of people who had links to British slavery.{{cite web|url=https://peopleaustralia.anu.edu.au/project/legacies-slavery|title=Legacies of Slavery|work=People Australia|publisher=National Centre of Biography|access-date=29 February 2024}}

• {{Portal inline|Australia}}
• {{Portal inline|Biography}}

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{{Wikidata property|Q672680}}

• {{Official website}}
• {{Cite book |author1=Nolan, Melanie |author2=Fernon, Christine |year=2013 |title=The ADB's Story |url=http://epress.anu.edu.au/titles/anu-lives-series-in-biography/the-adbs-story |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131029224110/http://epress.anu.edu.au/titles/anu-lives-series-in-biography/the-adbs-story |archive-date=29 October 2013 |url-status=dead |location=Canberra |publisher=Australian National University |isbn=978-1-925021-20-2}}

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Category:Australian biographical dictionaries

Category:Melbourne University Publishing books

Category:Publications established in 1966