Traces

Hello and welcome to Edition 34 of Traces! We begin 2026 with excitement, knowing that each year brings fresh insight to old stories. New research, newly accessible records and changing perspectives continue to reshape what we think we know about Australia’s past. Sometimes these revelations are headline-grabbing discoveries; other times, they impact only those closest to the history. As always, this edition of Traces embraces that spirit of rediscovery. From grand narratives to the intimate human stories preserved in archives, pieces of history continue to emerge, deepening our understanding of who we are and where we’ve come from. Our cover story this edition, on page 32, helps you re-examine parts of your family history that might have been overlooked. From clues in old photographs and heirlooms, to records commonly forgotten,…

DINGOES OLDER THAN EXPECTED New research analysing ancient DNA has revealed that Australia’s dingo populations were already regionally distinct thousands of years before European settlement. In a landmark study led by researchers from The University of Adelaide and Queensland University of Technology, scientists examined DNA from 42 ancient dingo remains, some dating back nearly 2700 years, and compared them with modern dingoes and dogs from around the world. The findings show that the east–west population divide seen in dingoes today likely formed naturally long before colonial-era interventions, such as fencing and culling. The study also found less interbreeding with domestic dogs than previously assumed, meaning modern dingoes retain much of their original genetic diversity. Researchers say the work highlights the value of ancient DNA in conservation and protecting culturally significant…

Built by Hobart Town’s first wool buyer and exporter, Westella has served many purposes over almost 200 years – a home estate, a town hall, and even a modern office. THEN Located at 181 Elizabeth Street, Hobart, Westella was first built in 1835 by Henry Hopkins. Hopkins was born in 1787 in Deptford, England, and spent 16 years in the English wool trade before making the journey with his wife (and first cousin) Sarah Rout to Hobart Town. Hopkins and Rout travelled aboard the Heroine and arrived in 1822. Hopkins brought with him a shipment of boots, which quickly sold due to local scarcity in Hobart Town. After this, he partnered with Robert Mather – a retailer and fellow passenger on the Heroine – and they opened a small shop…

In 1886, the world-famous African-American Fisk Jubilee Singers (Fisk Singers) arrived in Melbourne from England and Ireland with their sacred folk songs – then known as ‘Negro spirituals’ – and ‘prayer meeting hymns learned in bondage’. Thousands of colonial Australians packed the halls to hear them. To white audiences, the Fisk Singers’ rhythms were ‘unconventional’, their singing pure, with a ‘rapture of expression in look and tone [that was] all new to hearers’. There were a few who heard ‘a touch of profanity’ in the way ‘the extremely familiar … sacred names, Bible incidents and hallowed narratives’ were performed, but such a distorted view was swamped by the enthusiasm of the Victorians. The leader of the Fisk Singers, Frederick Loudin – a baritone singer pilloried with racism since childhood –…

Gold was discovered west of the Goulburn River, Victoria, in the second half of 1853. As word spread of riches, two localities were initially identified unimaginatively as Wet Diggings and Dry Diggings, later to become Whroo and Rushworth. The busy goldfields were separated by just seven kilometres. When a digger died, a few fellow diggers hastily sought out an area of nearby ground with hole-digging potential – no easy task in stony gold-bearing regions. Redeploying their picks and shovels, and with no official to specify ‘six feet under’, a hole was created. A few words were read aloud from a bible as the shroud-covered body was farewelled, with or without a makeshift coffin hastily knocked together. The grave was filled in and the men went back to work digging for…

In 1940, Australian physicist Mark Oliphant claimed that an atomic bomb could be built using uranium. Other great physicists – Albert Einstein, Denmark’s Niels Bohr, Germany’s Max Born, the United States’s J Robert Oppenheimer, and the United Kingdom’s Nobel laureate Sir George Thomson – all said that 100 tons of uranium would be needed at the site of the intended target, which made such a weapon impractical. Oliphant, like tens of millions of the British people, was under siege during the German Luftwaffe’s incessant bombing of cities and towns from the beginning of World War II. Near-death experiences from bombs dropped on his Birmingham University Laboratory was incentive enough for Oliphant, who believed he could develop the weapon to stop Hitler. He hired two brilliant Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany…