Australian Colonial History

Dr Margaret (Meg) Dillon

Dr Meg Dillon graduated in 2008 and is a social historian who lives in Benalla (Victoria, Australia) and has a strong interest in convict and regional studies, especially the exploration of convicts as the first colonial working class in the Australian colonies. Meg has recently developed interests in early twentieth century Australian artists. Her original research focused on Tasmania and the groups of convict workers employed in the Midlands of Tasmania, a rich farming district populated by middle class settlers with the capital to establish farms of several thousand acres. Her thesis is available on this website as well as on the Library of the University of Tasmania website: Convict Labour and Colonial Society in the Campbell Town Police District: 1820 to 1839.

Transported Women

Meg has edited The Report Enquiring into the Present State of Female Convict Discipline in this Colony (Van Diemen's Land}: December 1842 which is only available in manuscript form from the Archives of Tasmania. This report was never printed and made available to the public, but now it provides detailed information for historians about women's behaviour during periods of incarceration as well as the anxieties prison authorities experienced about their inability to reform the general female prison population and break the will of the persistent resisters. You can soon access her edited version of the manuscript and associated papers on this web site. Police District: 1820 to 1839

Australian Print Makers

Meg has recently developed interests in early twentieth century Australian artists.

Convict Data

Meg’s thesis collected data from the Charges Books of the Campbell Town Police District and other sources and aggregated into a database. We are now experimenting with giving access to some of this data via AirTable, a cloud-based database

History of Western Civilisation

History helps us understand some complex issues, even though it can’t and doesn’t predict future outcomes. Today our Western Civilization is strongly attacked as corrupt, militaristic and nihilistic. But is it? How did it evolve and what aspects of should we embrace and be proud of? These history sessions will look at the current situation, then briefly explore those past cultures that have created our complex Western world.