About Dr Meg Dillon is a recently graduated (2008) 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.Her research so far has 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. Currently she is editing 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. Her work on this report will shortly become available on this website. Her further interests include the early settlement of Victoria, especially the Western District and North East Victoria and first contacts between settler society and the Aboriginal owners of tribal territories. |
Copyright 2008 Meg Dillon