Newcastle NSW Historical Websites - Newcastle Australia

Intent

This page provides a list of existing historical entities and websites with the intent of promoting the interconnection and sharing of historical information and community. Please provide a reciprocal link to this page or a higher page in your relevant websites.

Introduction

Newcastle NSW has a rich, significant and multi-faceted local history.

Often history is studied through broad lenses such as indigenous, colonial or industrial history, but rarely has life existed in such insular subject based silos. In many cases it is the interaction of these aspects of life that create the events that we term history.

Yet as historians or just plain humans we have certain tendencies, idiosyncrasies, passions and limitations that might restrict the possibility of seeing a much greater and more systemic view of how our past unfolded and more importantly the reasons why it unfolded the way it did.

"Looking through a keyhole", "history is written by the victors", "the map is not the place" are metaphors that describe our human limitations to see and understand the much greater and more likely TRUER cause and effects of past time and events.

In the past the collection and documentation of history was severely restricted by the physical properties of material in which the information was stored. The existence of a single photograph, document, diary and the nature of the location, individual or entity that possessed it imposed significant impediments in determining the truest version of events.

Digitisation and the evolution of the internet provides new capabilities to act more as a society or a much larger historical team, potentially all humanity, to contribute resources both human and historical to the curation of historical knowledge.

The pursuit and sharing of knowledge is also multi-faceted, not only in the access and curation of information but also in the bringing together of people and peoples both in friendship and dare I say reconciliation.

Hopefully, under the guidance of the Community Historian, Robert Watson, this site as well as so many others might contribute to a greater and more social determination of history. https://au.linkedin.com/in/robert-watson-9447353