About Us

 The Committee (left to right): 

Bob O'Neill, Sally O'Neill, Gary Werskey, Neal Blewett, Babette Smith, Chris Arnott 

(Not pictured: Roy MacLeod and Carolyn van Langenberg) 

The Committee was formed in late 2008 and oversaw the forum's inaugural and highly successful season in 2009.   

Committee Members 

Neal Blewett, AO (Chair) 

Babette Smith (Vice-Chair) 

Babette is a freelance historian and occasional journalist. Her two groundbreaking books 'Australia's Birthstain' and 'A Cargo of Women' challenged traditional interpretations of the convict era.

Gary Werskey (Secretary) 

Trained as an historian at Northwestern and Harvard Universities, Gary's nefarious career has since embraced industrial sociology, engineering education, university fund-raising and management consultancy.   

Chris Arnott (Treasurer)

Chris has had a business career in a range of industries in a range of locations in Australia and overseas. Most recently he managed an international events company. He now operates a consulting and mentoring practice from a base in Blackheath. 

Roy MacLeod

Roy MacLeod was educated at Harvard and Cambridge, and is now an Emeritus Professor of History at Sydney University. He writes chiefly in the history of science, medicine, and technology, in British and Australian history, and in the history of war and society.

Bob O'Neill

Bob O'Neill served in the Australian Army 1955-68, including Vietnam 1966-67.  He is a military historian who held the Chichele Chair of the History of War at All Souls College, Oxford, 1987-2001. He is also a strategic policy specialist and was Director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, London, 1982-87. 

Sally O'Neill

Sally O'Neill is an Australian historian specialising in biography. She worked as a researcher, writer and research editor with the Australian Dictionary of Biography, 1967-2001, both at the ANU in Canberra and in London. 

Carolyn van Langenberg

Carolyn is the author of the novels fish lips, the teetotaller’s wake, blue moon and sibyl’s stories.  In 2000, fish lips was short-listed for the David T K Wong Fellowship, East Anglia University, UK.