HCNSW Annual History Lecture & Awards

The Annual History Lecture & Awards is an event produced & presented by the History Council of New South Wales every year, which aims to engage and educate the community about the vitality, diversity and meaning of history and its practice through the eyes of historians and others prominent in public history, as well as and celebrate contributions towards historical practice and theory through the presentation of History Awards.

Annual History Lecture

In 2025, the Annual History Lecture will be presented by Dr Margaret Cook, environmental historian.

Our theme for History Week 2025, ‘Water Stories’, invited History Council members to engage with stories of how water was cherished, contained, diverted, contaminated, looked after and shared, or withheld.

In the Annual History Lecture, following this theme, Dr Cook’s talk will explore how human attitudes to water have shaped our shared history with and along rivers.

Thinking through rivers: an historical perspective on attitudes towards water in Australia

Australians have many different attitudes to water, shaped by culture and socio-economic imperatives. First Nations people respect water as kin and, along with many settler-colonial residents, love rivers as a vital source of life that must be nurtured and respected. Rivers provide sustenance, solace, and recreation for many. However, rivers are also a resource that sustain communities and agriculture, and in a country prone to drought and floods with “unreliable” flows, rivers were harnessed and domesticated by hydro-engineering schemes in pursuit of nation-building. These schemes created an illusion that water was limitless and free which led to overallocation and excessive use. The solution was regulation and, once quantifiable, water could be assigned a monetary value that made water a tradable commodity. Many now fear for the health of the rivers and all that they sustain.

I draw on river histories and stories from the Murray-Darling Basin to explore the ways in which these attitudes have shaped riverine histories. How did the value of rivers as a resource became the dominant way of thinking about water?

HCNSW Annual History Awards

The HCNSW Annual History Awards support and acknowledge contributions towards historical practice and theory and celebrate history in all its diverse forms.

We offer a number of prestigious annual awards and prizes across different fields of historical practice, totaling over $6000 in prize money. Students, early career researchers, continuing historians, and those that produce digital histories are all catered for. Honorable Mention citations will also awarded, where appropriate.

Winners and prize presentations will be made during the joint 2025 Annual History Lecture & Awards event.

Cost: $55 for members and their guests; $75 for non-members and their guests; $40 for concession (limited available).

Where: Barnet Long Room, Customs House, 31 Alfred Street, Sydney

Further details about the event venue, including a map showing proximity to public transport, photographs of the historic venue and a description of venue accessibility, can be found on our event webpage.

Image credits: Design by Programs Officer, Amanda Wells, HCNSW.

The History Council of NSW is supported by a grant from the NSW Government through Create NSW.