Frank Strahan - ADB Medal citation

Frank Strahan (1930 – 2003), pioneer archivist of Victorian business and labour records, and a staunch supporter of the Australian Dictionary of Biography, was a valued advisor to Dictionary editors and contributors, a vital member of the Victorian Working Party from the mid-1970s, and a contributor of 15 Dictionary entries between1967 and 2002. But his impact on the writing of Victorian history was even wider than these direct services to the ADB.

Frank Strahan’s enthusiasm for the history of commerce and mining, originating in his Albury boyhood, was stimulated during study for his BA Honours, notably by Dr Geoffrey Serle. Strahan became an avid collector of Victorian business records, initially for the Business Archives Council of Australia, and from 1960 as University Archivist. In his 35 years as Archivist, Frank created one of Australia’s greatest archival collections, initially of business papers, but also from 1973 of labour records. When he retired in 1995, a review of the University of Melbourne Archives pronounced the 11 kilometres of records of ‘national significance’.

Most of Frank Strahan’s Dictionary entries, including eight articles he wrote after his retirement, were based on records he had gathered. His gifts as a creative archivist, researcher and writer, as an enthuser of generations of students of Victorian history, and as an advisor to practising historians, strengthened Victorian history writing to the immense advantage of the Dictionary.

22 December 2003

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