Australian Dictionary of Biography

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Award of ADB Medal to Helen Jones for long and distinguished service (2010)

Citation

Helen Patricia Jones has given remarkable service to the Australian Dictionary of Biography, having been a member of the South Australian Working Party more than thirty-four years.  Until just recently, she had missed only one Working Party meeting since April 1975.  She has also produced more than twenty-five ADB entries.  Her articles have been outstanding: well-researched, well-written and awe-inspiring.  She is skilled in the difficult art of compression.

Helen gained her MA and PhD in history at the University of Adelaide and became one of the most successful lecturers in the South Australian College of Advanced Education.  The contribution to knowledge made in her books – most notably, Nothing Seemed Impossible: Women’s Education and Social Change in South Australia, 1875-1915 (1985) and In Her Own Name: Women in South Australian History (1986, revised edition 1994) – was acknowledged by her being appointed AM in 1995.

Helen’s work for the Australian Dictionary of Biography merits separate acknowledgment.  Her research has enabled her to bring to notice many women who otherwise would have been overlooked.  As a result, since work on the preparation of Volume 7 of the ADB began in 1975, South Australia has consistently nominated a considerably higher proportion of women subjects than has emerged from anywhere else in the country.  And the decision to produce a supplementary volume allowed Helen to bring forward significant women who had been overlooked when the early volumes were in preparation.  The members of the Dictionary’s Editorial Board have much pleasure in awarding Dr Jones the ADB Medal.