Lyndall Ryan
{{Short description|Australian academic and historian (1943–2024)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=October 2016}}
{{Use Australian English|date=October 2016}}
{{Infobox scholar
| name = Lyndall Ryan
| honorific_suffix = {{postnominals|country=AUS|size=100|sep=,|AO|FAHA}}
| image =
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| birth_date = {{birth date|1943|4|14|df=y}}
| birth_place = Paddington, New South Wales, Australia
| death_date = {{death date and age|2024|4|30|1943|4|14|df=y}}
| death_place = Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia
| era =
| region =
| workplaces = University of Newcastle (1998–2005)
Flinders University (1984–1997)
Griffith University (1977–1983)
| alma_mater = University of Sydney (BA, DipEd)
Macquarie University (PhD)
| thesis_title = Aborigines in Tasmania, 1800–1974 and their problems with the Europeans
| thesis_url =
| thesis_year = 1975
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| school_tradition =
| main_interests = Indigenous Australian history
Australian colonial relations
| principal_ideas =
| relatives = Edna Ryan (mother)
| major_works = The Aboriginal Tasmanians (1981)
| awards = John Barrett Award for Australian Studies (2013)
Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities (2018)
Member of the Order of Australia (2019)
Officer of the Order of Australia (2025)
| influences = Manning Clark
| influenced =
| website =
| footnotes =
}}
Lyndall Ryan, {{postnominals|country=AUS|size=100|sep=,|AO|FAHA}} (14 April 1943 – 30 April 2024) was an Australian academic and historian. She held positions in Australian studies and women's studies at Griffith University and Flinders University and was the foundation professor of Australian studies and head of the School of Humanities at the University of Newcastle from 1998 to 2005. She was later a conjoint professor in the Centre for the History of Violence at the University of Newcastle.
Early life
Ryan was born on 14 April 1943 at the Royal Hospital for Women in Sydney. She was one of three children born to Edna Minna Ryan ({{nee|Nelson}}) and John Francis Edwin Michael Ryan.{{Cite news|url=https://www.womenaustralia.info/leaders/biogs/WLE0732b.htm|title=Ryan, Lyndall (1943 - )|work=The Encyclopedia of Women & Leadership in Twentieth Century Australia|access-date=1 May 2024|first=Sharon M.|last=Harrison}} Ryan's parents were left-wing activists who were former members of the Communist Party of Australia; her father was a butcher by profession. Her mother, a public servant, was a prominent feminist and represented the Australian Labor Party on the Fairfield Municipal Council in the 1950s and 1960s.{{cite news|url=https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/ryan-edna-minna-31769|title=Edna Minna Ryan (1904–1997)|work=Australian Dictionary of Biography|first=Melanie|last=Nolan|year=2022}}
Ryan was raised in the Sydney suburbs of Woollahra and Canley Heights. She attended Woollahra Public School and Canley Vale Public School before completing her secondary education at Fairfield Girls' High School. After her father's death in 1958 she lived alone with her mother for several years, her older siblings having left home.
Ryan left school in 1959 and worked as a typist for one year, before enrolling in the University of Sydney in 1961 on a Commonwealth Scholarship. She graduated Bachelor of Arts in 1964 majoring in history and government, also completing a diploma in education. Ryan worked as an English and history teacher at Campbelltown High School for one year before returning to university in 1966. She completed a Master of Arts in history at the Australian National University in 1969, during which time she worked as a research assistant to historian Manning Clark.
Academic career
Ryan completed a PhD at Macquarie University in 1975, her thesis was titled "Aborigines in Tasmania, 1800–1974 and their problems with the Europeans".
Ryan's book The Aboriginal Tasmanians, first published in 1981, presented an interpretation of the early relations between Tasmanian Aborigines and white settlers in Tasmania. A second edition, published by Allen & Unwin in 1996, brought the story of the Tasmanian Aborigines in the 20th century up to date. Her work was later criticised by Keith Windschuttle who suggested there were discrepancies between Ryan's claims and her supporting evidence, thus drawing her into the "history wars".{{cite web |url=http://www.quadrant.org.au/blogs/history-wars/2011/04/inventing-massacre-stories |title = Inventing massacre stories – Quadrant Online}} Ryan contested Windschuttle's claims in an essay entitled 'Who is the fabricator?' in Robert Manne's Whitewash: On Keith Windschuttle Fabrication of Aboriginal History published in 2003 and further addressed them in her book, Tasmanian Aborigines: A History Since 1803, published in 2012.
=Colonial frontier massacres project=
{{see also|List of massacres of Indigenous Australians}}
In 2017, Ryan and her team{{Who?|date=October 2023}} at the University of Newcastle released an on-line map showing more than 150 massacre sites in Eastern Australia.{{Cite web|url=https://c21ch.newcastle.edu.au/colonialmassacres/map.php|title=Centre For 21st Century Humanities|website=c21ch.newcastle.edu.au|access-date=2018-03-30}} Within 6 months, the site was accessed more than sixty thousand times and has received coverage in Australia and also internationally.{{Cite news|url=https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/mapping-massacres|title=The Mapping of Massacres|last=Dovey|first=Ceridwen|date=2017-12-07|magazine=The New Yorker|access-date=2018-03-30|language=en|issn=0028-792X}} The on-line tool provides approximate locations, dates and other details of claimed massacres and provides corroborating sources. {{as of|2019|3|3}}, the project claimed at least 270 frontier massacres had occurred over a period of 140 years starting in 1794.{{cite web|url=https://c21ch.newcastle.edu.au/colonialmassacres/introduction.php|publisher=University of Newcastle (Australia)|title=Colonial frontier massacres in Central and Eastern Australia, 1788-1930: Introduction|access-date=4 March 2019}} Ryan has suggested the map is an important step in acknowledging the extensive violence used against indigenous people in Australia's history.{{Cite web|url=https://www.newcastle.edu.au/newsroom/featured-news/mapping-the-massacres-of-australias-colonial-frontier|title=Mapping the massacres of Australia's colonial frontier|date=2017-07-05|website=www.newcastle.edu.au|language=en|access-date=2018-03-30}}{{Better source|date=October 2023}}
Recognition
Ryan was awarded the 2018 Annual History Citation by the History Council of NSW for "her research and teaching in women's and Indigenous history, and her service to the profession in contributing to the development of Australian Studies and Women's Studies". She was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities in November 2018,{{Cite web |title=Welcoming our 28 newly elected Fellows |url=https://www.humanities.org.au/2018/11/19/welcoming-28-newly-elected-fellows/ |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181120101240/https://www.humanities.org.au/2018/11/19/welcoming-28-newly-elected-fellows/ |archive-date=2018-11-20 |access-date=2024-04-30 |website=Australian Academy of the Humanities |language=en-AU}} appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in the 2019 Australia Day Honours in recognition of her "significant service to higher education, particularly to Indigenous history and women's studies",{{cite web|url=https://www.gg.gov.au/sites/default/files/files/honours/ad/ad2019/xklw-03mcv/Media%20Notes%20-%20AM%20(M%20-Z).pdf|title=Member (AM) in the General Division of the Order of Australia (M–Z)|work=Australia Day 2019 Honours List|publisher=Office of the Governor-General of Australia|access-date=26 January 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190315012817/https://www.gg.gov.au/sites/default/files/files/honours/ad/ad2019/xklw-03mcv/Media%20Notes%20-%20AM%20(M%20-Z).pdf|archive-date=15 March 2019|url-status=dead}} and posthumously advanced to Officer of the Order of Australia in the 2025 Australia Day Honours.{{Cite web |title=The late Professor Lyndall RYAN |url=https://honours.pmc.gov.au/honours/awards/3044936 |access-date=2025-01-25 |website=Australian Honours Search Facility}}
Death
Ryan died in Newcastle of cancer on 30 April 2024, at the age of 81.{{cite news |last=Curthoys |first=Ann |date=1 May 2024 |title=Lyndall Ryan's impact on Australian history research will be felt for many years to come |url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/may/01/lyndall-ryans-impact-on-australian-history-research-will-be-felt-for-many-years-to-come |access-date=1 May 2024 |publisher=Guardian Australia}}{{Cite web |date=2024-05-04 |title=Lyndall Ryan Death Notice |url=https://tributes.smh.com.au/obituaries/508505/lyndall-ryan/?r=https://tributes.smh.com.au/obituaries/smh-au/ |access-date=2024-05-03 |website=Sydney Morning Herald}}
Bibliography
{{Scholia|position=left}}
=Books=
- {{cite book|last=Ryan|first=Lyndall|title=The Aboriginal Tasmanians|year=1981|publisher=University of Queensland Press|location=St Lucia|isbn=0-7022-1903-7|author-mask=1}}
- {{cite book|last=Ryan|first=Lyndall|title=The Aboriginal Tasmanians|edition=2nd|year=1995|publisher=Allen & Unwin|location=St. Leonards, New South Wales|isbn=1-86373-965-3|author-mask=1}}
- {{cite book|last1=Ryan|first1=Lyndall|last2=Magarey|first2=Susan|author-link=Susan Magarey|title=A Bibliography of Australian Women's History|year=1990|publisher=Australian Historical Association|location=Parkville, Victoria|isbn=0958751358|author-mask=1}}
- {{cite book|last1=Ryan|first1=Lyndall|last2=Sheridan|first2=Susan|last3=Baird|first3=Barbara|last4=Borrett|first4=Kate|title=Who Was That Woman?: The Australian Women's Weekly in the Postwar Years|year=2001|publisher=University of New South Wales Press|location=Sydney|isbn=0-86840-618-X|author-mask=1}}
- {{cite book|last=Ryan|first=Lyndall|title=Tasmanian Aborigines: A History Since 1803|year=2012|publisher=Allen & Unwin|location=Crows Nest, New South Wales|isbn=978-1-74237-068-2|author-mask=1}}
=Edited books=
- {{cite book|editor-last=Ryan|editor-first=Lyndall|editor-last2=Dwyer|editor-first2=Philip|title=Theatres of Violence: Massacre, Mass Killing and Atrocity throughout History|year=2012|publisher=Berghahn Books|location=New York|isbn=978-0-85745-299-3|editor-mask=1}}
- {{cite book|editor-last=Ryan|editor-first=Lyndall|editor-last2=Lydon|editor-first2=Jane|title=Remembering the Myall Creek Massacre|year=2018|publisher=NewSouth Publishing|location=Sydney|isbn=978-1-74223-575-2|editor-mask=1}}
=Reports=
- {{cite book|last1=Ryan|first1=Lyndall|last2=Ripper|first2=Margie|last3=Buttfield|first3=Barbara|title=We Women Decide: Women's Experiences of Seeking Abortion in Queensland, South Australia and Tasmania, 1985–1992|year=1994|publisher=Women's Studies Unit, Flinders University|location=Bedford Park, South Australia|author-mask=1}}
References
{{reflist}}
External links
- {{Australian Women's Register|AWE0014b|Ryan, Lyndall (1943–)}}
- {{Australian Women and Leadership|WLE0732b|Ryan, Lyndall (1943–)}}
- [https://c21ch.newcastle.edu.au/colonialmassacres/ 'Colonial Frontier Massacres in Central and Eastern Australia 1788-1930' project and map]
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ryan, Lyndall}}
Category:20th-century Australian historians
Category:20th-century Australian women writers
Category:Australian women historians
Category:Fellows of the Australian Academy of the Humanities
Category:Academic staff of Flinders University
Category:Academic staff of Griffith University
Category:Historians of Australia
Category:History of Indigenous Australians
Category:Macquarie University alumni
Category:Officers of the Order of Australia
Category:Academic staff of the University of Newcastle (Australia)