The work for this book commenced during an Australian Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Technology, Sydney, funded by the Australian Research Council (ARC). It continued when I was granted a Sesqui Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Sydney. I thank both universities and the ARC for their generous support of the project. In 2002 I was supported by the National Library of Australia (NLA) in Canberra, home of the R. H. Mathews Papers, which granted me an honorary Harold White Fellowship in 2002. I acknowledge the collective support of the NLA staff and offer particular thanks to Margy Burn, Sylvia Carr, Mary Gosling, Graeme Powell and Susan O’Neill. Many of the graphics reproduced in the book come courtesy of the NLA.
From the outset, Aboriginal History Inc. showed tremendous enthusiasm for the project. I thank all members of the editorial board and offer special thanks to Peter Read and Ingereth Macfarlane for keeping it moving, to Luise Hercus and Harold Koch for their attention to linguistic detail, and to Isabel McBryde who gave so generously in a multitude of ways. Isabel’s entry on Mathews in the Australian Dictionary of Biography was a starting point for me, as it has been for so many others. Her constant affirmation of Mathews’ importance was one of the factors that kept me going.
The book could not have happened without the support at home of Naomi Parry and our son Aaron. I thank you both. Friends and colleagues helped in a multitude of ways. Special thanks to Val Attenbrow, Badger Bates, Richard Barwick, Tamsin Donaldson, David Kaus, Ian Keen, Anna Kenny, John Mulvaney, Brad Steadman and John Strehlow. I owe a unique debt to the descendants of R. H. Mathews—to Susan Upton, her husband Ron, and to Jane Mathews. Their support and friendship have been some of the many privileges of carrying out this work.
Among other institutions, I thank Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru, Aberystwyth (the National Library of Wales), for allowing me to reproduce letters from R. H. Mathews to E. S. Hartland. The Strehlow Research Centre, Alice Springs allowed publication of the letters from Moritz von Leonhardi. For access to manuscript resources, thanks to the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, Canberra; the American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia; the Mitchell Library, Sydney; the National Anthropological Archives of the Smithsonian Institution, Washington; the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford; the Royal Anthropological Society, London; the Royal Society of New South Wales, Sydney; and the State Library of Victoria, Melbourne.
My greatest debt is to Mathilde de Hauteclocque and Christine Winter for their wonderful translations, and for making the hard work enjoyable. Our efforts have been enhanced by the keen eye of Kitty Eggerking who was up and running as soon as she arrived as an editor for Aboriginal History. I am grateful for the attentiveness, good humour and professionalism with which she steered the book through the production process. Thanks also to the team at ANU E Press.
Finally, I acknowledge the ‘founders of the feast’, though they are not here to share it. Still, it is only appropriate to recognise the energy and enterprise of R. H. Mathews and the many Aboriginal people with whom he worked. I hope that this volume is an apposite tribute to their collaboration.
M. T.