• Entry type: Person
  • Entry ID: AWE0014

Ryan, Lyndall

  • AM, FAHA
(1943 – 2024)
  • Born 14 April 1943, Paddington, New South Wales, Australia
  • Died 30 April 2024, Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia
  • Occupation Academic, Educator, Feminist, Historian

Summary

Lyndall Ryan was a member of the first Sydney Women’s Liberation Group in 1970. In 1974 she joined the Commonwealth Public Service as a policy analyst on women’s health and child care. She became an academic in 1977 and has held positions in Australian Studies and Women’s Studies at Griffith and Flinders Universities. She was appointed to the position of Foundation Professor of Australian Studies and Head of School of Humanities at the University of Newcastle in 1998.

Details

The daughter of Edna Ryan and a committed feminist, Lyndall Ryan was one of the early wave of scholars who examined the extent of violence perpetrated against Aboriginal people by white colonisers. Her book The Aboriginal Tasmanians, first published in 1981 and based on her 1975 PhD thesis, presented a critical interpretation of the early history of relations between Tasmanian Aborigines and white settlers in Tasmania. A second edition was published by Allen & Unwin in 1996, in which she brought the story of the Tasmanian Aborigines in the 20th century up to date.

Her scholarship since then continued to confront this violent past. In 2013, she led a team of scholars in a four year project to map the frontier massacres in Eastern Australia, a project funded by an Australian Research Council (ARC) grant investigating Violence on the Australian Colonial Frontier, 1788-1960.

Ryan was elected as a Labor member of the ACT Advisory Council in September 1967 and resigned in December 1968.

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Events

  • 1977 - 1986

    Comparative Social History and Australian Studies, Griffith University.

    Lecturer and Senior Lecturer
  • 1986 - 1998

    Women’s Studies, Flinders University.

    Reader/Professor
  • 1998 - 2005

    Australian Studies, University of Newcastle.

    Foundation Professor
  • 1984 - 1986

    Queensland Committee on Discrimination in Employment and Occupation.

    Chair
  • 1996 - 1998

    South Australian Committee, Winston Churchill Memorial Trust.

    Member
  • 1999 - 2003

    School of Humanities, University of Newcastle

    Head
  • 2004 - 2005

    School of Humanities, University of Newcastle, Ourimbah Campus.

    Director of Research
  • 1973 - 1974

    Leichardt Women’s Community Health Centre.

    Founding Collective Member
  • 1974 - 1976

    Policy Analysist, Priorities Review Staff and Women’s Affairs Branch, Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, Canberra.

  • 1977

    Australian History, Australian National University, Canberra.

    Tutor
  • 1970

    First Sydney Women’s Liberation Group.

    Member
  • 1971

    Mejane

    Founding Collective Member
  • 1972

    Refractory Girl

    Founding Collective Member
  • 2018

    Australian Academy of the Humanities

    Fellow
  • 2019

    Order of Australia – Member – AM

Archival resources

  • National Library of Australia, Manuscript Collection
    • Correspondence of Warren Osmond and Lyndall Ryan, 1972-1996 (bulk 1974-1982) [manuscript]
    • Papers of Julia Ryan, 1947-1982 [manuscript]
    • Waterloo creek: the Australia Day massacre of 1838, George Gipps and the British conquest of New South Wales (Melbourne: Penguin, 1992)
    • Papers of Manning Clark, 1907-1992 [manuscript]
    • Papers of Dymphna Clark, circa 1930-2000 [manuscript]
    • Papers of Lyndall Ryan, 1968-1992 [manuscript]
  • National Library of Australia
    • [Biographical cuttings on Lyndall Ryan, Dr., author, containing one or more cuttings from newspapers or journals]
  • National Library of Australia, Oral History and Folklore Collection
    • Julia Ryan interviewed by Sara Dowse [sound recording]
    • Interview with Lyndall Ryan, Professor of Australian Studies, University of Newcastle [sound recording] / interviewer, Sara Dowse

Published resources

  • Book
    • The Aboriginal Tasmanians, Ryan, Lyndall, 1996
    • We Women Decide: Women's Experience of Seeking Abortion in Queensland, South Australia and Tasmania, 1985-1992, Ryan, Lyndall, Ripper, Margie and Buttfield, Barbara, 1994
    • Getting Equal: the History of Australian Feminism, Lake, Marilyn, 1999
  • Journal
    • Origins of a Royal Commission, Ryan, Lyndall, 1996
  • Resource
  • Site Exhibition

Related entries


  • Sister
    • Ryan, Julia (1937 - 2023)
  • Mother
    • Ryan, Edna Minna (1904 - 1997)
  • Member
    • National Foundation for Australian Women (1989 - )
    • Women's Electoral Lobby New South Wales (1972 - )
  • Related Organisations
    • Women's Liberation Movement
  • Niece
    • Ryan, Christina
  • Foundation Member
    • Refractory Girl (1972 - 1999)
  • Related Concepts
    • Women's Non-party Political Organisations
    • History and Historians