Editors’ page

The disruptions to our lives brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic have had only small impacts on Historical Records of Australian Science as several authors brought their work to fruition over the past year and appear in this latest issue of the journal. Thus, we are able to publish three historical articles, a review of scholarship in the field of the history of archaeology, two biographical memoirs, and critical reviews of seven books on Australian history of science themes.

The life and work of Sir Mark Oliphant continues to engage Australian scholars, and Brett Gooden has written about the contributions to Oliphant’s work of his relative, John Gooden, a young Australian physicist who completed his PhD with Oliphant in Birmingham. Gooden remained with Oliphant as project leader for the development of the proton synchrotron but his work was cut short by his early death in 1950. From physics to ornithology: the role of Alec Chisholm in the rediscovery of the Paradise Parrot in 1921 and his subsequent publicising of its plight is described by Russell McGregor. We are pleased that journalist Paul Daley included an associated piece about the Paradise Parrot in the Guardian Australia (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/02/the-story-of-the-paradise-parrot-the-only-mainland-australian-bird-marked-extinct#comment-148983414). Terry Kass has raised important issues concerning Robert Hamilton Mathews, whose sometimes unethical behaviour as a property surveyor in the nineteenth century puts into question veracity of his subsequent ethnographic work.

Hilary Howes, who was guest editor for the articles we published in the previous two issues on the history of archaeology in Australia, has taken a broad view to describe aspects of the historiography of Australian archaeology. This is the third in our series of reviews of particular fields, methods or issues in Australian history of science scholarship.

Fellows of the Australian Academy of Science, Sarah Elizabeth Smith (1941–2019) and James Waldo Lance (1926–2019) are the subjects of biographical memoirs. Sally Smith obtained a tenurable position after many years of short-term contracts at the University of Adelaide, where she showed how mycorrhizal contact with fungi can help plants to grow in soils that are low in nutrients, especially phosphorus. Jim Lance was the first doctoral student of Peter Bishop, whose biographical memoir we published in HRAS in 2018 26(2), 162–171. Continuing the strong tradition of neurology in Australia, Lance was an expert in motor control—reflexes and movement in healthy subjects and movement disorders in patients—and in the mechanisms and management of headache, in particular migraine.

The book reviews in this issue show again the depth of Australian scholarship and, since these are books to be purchased by readers, the broad interest that exists among the general public in aspects of Australian science. They also cause us to reflect on the skill that our book review editor, Dr Peter Hobbins, has exercised in choosing expert reviewers and guiding their work, and on this valedictory note we say ‘farewell’ to Peter as he moves to a new position at the Australian Maritime Museum. In the seven years of our editorship he’s been a valuable member of the team. His successor will be Dr Martin Bush, University of Melbourne, one of our published authors (HRAS 28(1), 26–36 (2017)) whom we welcome back in a different role.

Sara Maroske, Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria

Ian D. Rae, University of Melbourne