2025 Wilson History Oration with Lucy Hair
Revisiting the past: researching Chinese history in WA
In the 1980s and 1990s, Dr Anne Atkinson amassed some 10,000 pages of research notes on the history of Chinese people in Western Australia. This extraordinary resource has been digitised by the University of Western Australia as part of the project 'Two Centuries of Chinese Heritage in Western Australia'. Join professional historian Lucy Hair as she uses this ambitious digital history project to explore the joys and challenges of sharing the work of a fellow historian three decades later, and re-examining the histories of the past from the perspective of the present.
About Lucy Hair
Fascinated by Western Australian history, Lucy Hair joined the Professional Historians and Researchers Association of WA (now PHA (WA)) in 1995 after completing a graduate diploma in public history. As a consulting historian, she has worked with a wide range of people and organisations on a variety of history and heritage projects. Lucy has also been employed by state and local government, as well as several universities. She enjoys trawling through the archives, researching and writing on various aspects of WA history and sharing her findings through publications, articles and radio interviews. Lucy is currently working at the University of Western Australia as the Project Officer for 'Two Centuries of Chinese Heritage in Western Australia'.
