Historian in Residence

Historian in Residence Program 2025-2026

The Historians in Residence selected for 2025-2026 are Jane Harding and Dr Samantha Grey. 

Jane Harding 

Topic: 60th Anniversary of Naming of Sunshine Coast

Jane Harding is an accredited professional historian with over 20 years’ experience in historical research and writing. She specialises in local and community history and heritage and loves bringing to life the stories of the people, places and events that make up the broader history of an area and has worked extensively on the Sunshine Coast. Past projects include published books, exhibitions, websites, and oral history projects.
Jane has qualifications in history, library and information management, and communications and is currently secretary of the Professional Historians of Australia Queensland branch. She has been recognised for her work with a GAMAA Finalist Award and a National Trust Silver Award. Jane works as a freelance historian and heritage consultant in her own practice, Dotting the Past.

Project outline - three stories

Jane’s first story will be called ‘Near to what and north of where?’ For many decades, the area from Caloundra to Noosa was known as the Near North Coast. However, it was felt that this had little meaning to potential southern visitors and a search for a more suitable name that better captured the region’s unique offerings was commenced in the early 1950s. This story will document this period, the instigators, the motivations and some of the other names proposed against the context of the evolving nature of the community and region at this time.  

The second story ‘Selling south – the marketing of the Sunshine Coast in southern states to property buyers’, will explore which regions and developments on the Sunshine Coast were the focus of these campaigns, the marketing strategies employed, and the impact on local communities. 

The third story ‘Promoting the idyll: the evolution of marketing of the Sunshine Coast as a tourist destination from the early 1900s to today’. This story will chart the ways the Sunshine Coast has been promoted as a holiday destination from the early days of lengthy descriptive essays in newspapers to early government tourist brochures through the glitzy 1980s to the current era.

Dr Samantha Grey

Topic: Hospitals, Maternity Services and Dentistry: three medical histories of the Sunshine Coast

Dr Samantha Grey is a medical historian and sessional academic at the University of the Sunshine Coast. She researches the interaction between medical institutions and women in the mid-twentieth century, with a particular focus on how medical practice reflected social understandings of gender relations. Her research explores the medical understandings of reproductive dysfunction and infertility in Australia, uncovering the ways in which medical practice interact with ideas of gender, power, the sociology of medicine and the dissemination of knowledge.

Project outline - three stories

Dr Samantha’s first story ‘Hospitals and Health Retreats in the Sunshine Coast’, will draw on the Heritage Library medical collection to trace the early development of hospital practice in the Sunshine Coast community. The findings will provide a historical understanding of the unique needs, concerns, and practices of Sunshine Coast residents and practitioners regarding shifting health and wellness priorities. 

The second story, ‘Maternity Services and Midwifery’, will highlight the shifting roles that local medical practitioners held in the community to support pregnancy, childbirth and childcare in the region. Examining both the practitioner’s perspective and the patient experiences of maternity care in the Sunshine Coast will also be incorporated. 

The last story will be ‘Dentistry on the Coast’. Visiting the dentist is a recurring, if not universally disliked, aspect of health care in Australia. The findings will highlight this underrepresented, yet essential, aspect of the region’s healthcare. It will provide an engaging narrative history of the professionals who have kept the communities on the Near North Coast/Sunshine Coast smiling.

Background

This is the fifth year of the Sunshine Coast Historian in Residence Program.

This flexible program is linked to the following sites where historians can access council’s collections:

1. Heritage Library, Nambour
2. Bankfoot House Heritage Precinct or Landsborough Museum

The program enables historians to immerse themselves in  a project that will reveal, document, and showcase Sunshine Coast’s heritage.

To find out more about the program and to apply, download the guidelines.

For enquiries contact [email protected] or phone 5420 8600.

This program is supported by the Arts and Heritage Levy.