History, Historians and the Many Earlier Wright College Shapers of New England's and of Australia's Self-perception

Abstract

By a series of peculiarly fruitful juxtapositions of events, persons and much early and long-ongoing stimulus, the numerous Wright College-focussed historians and interpreters of Australian culture must be recognized as constituting one of the great forces in the rise of ‘New England’s University College’ from its impact in the later years of the twentieth century. ‘History’ as taught and studied at New England had, from 1938, had slowly moved from J.P. Belshaw’s impressive work in closely focused regional economic history, E/J. Tapp’s philosophical approaches and C.M. Williams’ studies of 17th century England to an array of European or Ancient World courses with but little recognition, - let alone exploration- as yet of the greater and emergent Australian experience or identity.