Introduction to 'New England Lives II'

Abstract

This volume comprises nine biographical essays, each with a similar regional setting and concerned with a particular life largely spent in the slowly evolving 'New England community'. It is the second book-length text to come from an ongoing research project, then funded by a University of New England Strategic Initiatives Sub-Committee in 1998, the anniversary year for both the Armidale Teachers' College and New England University (College). The aims of the initial seeding fund and the ongoing project are similar - to evolve and bring to publication in a series of volumes a number of biographical sketches or shorter studies of persons who were/have been long time residents of 'New England' - this last term being chosen to include particularly the lower areas of the Northern Tablelands of New South Wales and, as appropriate, relevant adjacent regions. It was also intended that those considered for inclusion would have had a distinctive impact on their own community and/or on the more general Australian life and culture. While certain selected individuals might well have already been included in the 'Australian Dictionary of Biography', the treatment in 'New England Lives' would be different and might well incorporate other details and, perhaps, a more regional perspective than that possible in a national series.