Australian Dictionary of Biography

  • Tip: searches only the name field
  • Tip: Use double quotes to search for a phrase

Browse by:

Cultural Advice

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people should be aware that this website contains names, images, and voices of deceased persons.

In addition, some articles contain terms or views that were acceptable within mainstream Australian culture in the period in which they were written, but may no longer be considered appropriate.

These articles do not necessarily reflect the views of The Australian National University.

Older articles are being reviewed with a view to bringing them into line with contemporary values but the original text will remain available for historical context.

Award of ADB Medal to Beverley Kingston for long and distinguished service (2022)

Citation

Associate Professor Beverley Kingston has served on the ADB’s New South Wales Working Party since 1970 and has chaired it superbly since July 1994. Her wide-ranging knowledge of Australian history and her retentive memory have been crucial factors in the achievements of the NSW Working Party. From August 1996 to December 2021 she was a member of the ADB’s Editorial Board. For a quarter of a century she has been section editor for New South Wales, reviewing hundreds of entries with skill, wisdom and diligence.

Bev’s association with the ADB predated her formal role by some years. As Jill Roe noted in the ADB’s Story (2013), Bev began researching for the ADB “when she was a student at Monash University in the 1960s, writing entries on Queensland pastoralists”. She researched Queensland parliamentarians and other key figures for Duncan Waterson who was working on the Biographical Register of the Queensland Parliament: 1860–1929 (1972) for the ADB. As a consequence, in 1966 Bev was commissioned to write the ADB entry for Christopher Pemberton Hodgson (1821-1865), who, among other occupations, was a grazier. It appeared, with her article on Charles Boydell Dutton, pastoralist and politician, in ADB Volume 4 (1972). Her most recent entry, a fine article on historian Russel Ward, appeared in Volume 19 (2021). We look forward to more to come.

Bev finished her PhD having worked part-time in publishing before taking up a lectureship at the University of New South Wales where she taught history for 30 years. Her publications include one of the classic works of 1970s feminism, My Wife, My Daughter, and Poor Mary Ann: Women and Work in Australia (1975). She also published a deserved classic in the Oxford History of Australia series, Glad Confident Morning (1988); a pathbreaking history of shopping in Australia, Basket, Bag and Trolley (1994); and an important history of her adopted State, A History of New South Wales, in 2006. Not surprisingly, nearly 30 per cent of the “missing people” in the supplementary volume of the ADB which she edited with Christopher Cunneen, Jill Roe and Stephen Garton (2005) were women. Nearly half of her own ADB entries have been on women subjects. Bev supervised many postgraduate students over the years, a number of whom have gone on to write biographical entries for the ADB.

Bev’s commentary on the “Blues”, as the section editor’s review is known, were used as models for other working party chairs. She related to many of the entries she was commenting on. In her most recent commentary on Ella McFadyen, a journalist, editor, and writer of books for children, Bev revealed:

I had a copy of Pegmen tales as a child and made my own set of pegmen from dolly pegs. I vaguely remember trying to sail them in a toy boat in the drain outside the laundry when we lived in Maitland so I would have been going on for five.

Her contribution to the Australian Dictionary of Biography and to the study and teaching of history in New South Wales has been outstanding. Bev’s longevity and the key roles she has filled with distinction for the ADB make her a very worthy recipient of the award of the ADB medal.