Roy MacLeod
Royal Society of New South Wales, in association with Sydney University Press
ISBN: 9781920898809
When Archibald Liversidge first arrived at Sydney University in 1872 as reader in geology and assistant in the laboratory he had about ten students and two rooms in the main building. In 1874 he became professor of geology and mineralogy and by 1879 he had persuaded the senate to open a faculty of science. He became its first dean in 1882. In 1880 he visited Europe as a trustee of the Australian Museum and his report helped to establish the Industrial, Technological and Sanitary Museum which formed the basis of the present Powerhouse Museum's collection. Liversidge also played a major role in the setting up of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science which held its first congress in 1888.
One of his greatest contributions was to science education. He worked tirelessly to secure proper recognition of science in both secondary and tertiary education. In the preface of his book, Professor MacLeod comments: "Liversidge remained confident that Australia's path would follow the route of the `moving metropolis', strengthened by the bonds that tied Australia to its British heritage. In that heritage lay his life, and through that heritage, flowed the genius of imperial science in New South Wales."
For anyone interested in Archibald Liversidge, his contribution to crystallography, mineral chemistry, chemical geology, strategic minerals policy and a wider field of colonial science.
Roy MacLeod is Professor Emeritus of Modern History at the University of Sydney, and an Honorary Associate in the School of History and Philosophy of Science. He was educated in history, the biochemical sciences, and the history of science at Harvard University (summa cum laude), in sociology at the London School of Economics, and in history and the history of science at Cambridge, where he took the PhD degree in 1967.
He is the author or editor of 22 books and about 120 articles in the social history of science, medicine and technology; military history, museum history, Australian and American history, European history; research policy, and the history of higher education.
To order your copy, please do so through the online shop, or complete the MacLeod: Liversidge order form and return it to:
The Royal Society of NSW (Liversidge book)
PO Box 576
Crows Nest NSW 1585
Australia
or contact the Society's secretariat:
Phone: 61 2 9431 8691
Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
The Society's journal is one of the oldest peer-reviewed publications in the Southern Hemisphere. Much innovative research of the 19th and early 20th centuries (e.g. Lawrence Hargrave's work on flight) was first brought to the attention of the scientific world through the Journal and Proceedings of The Royal Society of New South Wales. In the last few decades specialist journals have become preferred for highly technical work but the Journal and Proceedings remains an important publication for multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary work.
The Journal and Proceedings are exchanged with hundreds of institutions worldwide. Currently issues are published around June and December each year.
The Society welcomes scholarly work to be considered for publication in the Journal. (See the links at the right for detailed information for authors.)
Abstracts of doctoral theses are also considered by the editorial board and are most welcome.
Access to electronic copies of the Journal is free via the links below. If you wish to subscribe to a printed copy of the Journal (full-colour, acid-free paper), subscription costs are:
Members of the Society | $70 per year |
Non-members | $150 per year |
These rates include surface postage. |
Year | Volume | Numbers | Full Issue | Individual Papers (by author surname) |
2015 | 148-1 | 455-456 | Volume 148, Part 1 (complete) Contents Awards of the RSNSW, 2015 |
Editorial: Burton Refereed papers: Green, Park, Tran, Laird, Wells, Parker, Nash Discourse: Aslaksen Thesis abstract: Hanna |
The Journal is now being archived and the articles indexed via Informit, with the following link providing access to the J&P-RSNSW entry directly. Please note that your institution needs to have a subscription to Informit to access this without charge. However all Australian universities and Government institutions should have such a subscription. Otherwise the entry will appear with a pay-per-article link in your browser.
The Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) in the USA has scanned most Journals from 1862 to 2000 and made them available via this direct link [for 1862-1865, use the link to the Transactions of the Philosophical Society of New South Wales]. The Journals have been scanned via optical character recognition (OCR) allowing text searches to be made, as well as providing a PDF file for each volume of the Journal. (The Society gratefully acknowledges the contribution made by the University of NSW and, in particular, the Smithsonian Libraries in digitising these.)
These are all in PDF format. For each issue there is a link to the full paper as published with an indication of the file size. For recent issues there are additional links to the PDFs of individual papers.
Nominations for the 2024 Awards opened on 1 July and will close on 30 September 2024.
In 2024, nominations are sought for the:
The Royal Society of New South Wales has long recognised distinguished achievements in various fields of knowledge through its Awards. Some are amongst the oldest in Australia while others are more recent. From its Act of Incorporation in 1881, the Society’s mission has been to encourage “studies and investigations in Science, Art, Literature and Philosophy”. In 2023, the Society determined to broaden and streamline its Awards portfolio to recognise recent and evolving fields and disciplines, and emerging as well as established stars.
From 2023, the Society Awards are made in two main classes reflecting the Society’s history: Career Excellence Medals and Discipline Awards and Medals; with additional Awards, Scholarships, and Citations, including Internal Awards for distinguished service to the Society and community. External nominations are most welcome for all but the Internal and Discretionary Awards which require both the nominator and seconder to be Members or fellows of the Society. Conditions and nomination forms are listed on each Award’s individual webpage, together with some guidance notes.
Nominations for all available Awards open on 1 July each year and close on 30 September. Awardees are announced by the end of that calendar year with formal presentations of their Awards in the following year. All nominations require a nominator and a seconder. All RSNSW awards are assessed relative to opportunity.
Information about historical Awards and their winners prior to 2023 is available from the preceding link.
The new program comprises four categories of awards, with individual awards within each category itemised as follows. Follow the links to information pages and relevant nomination forms for each individual award. Please note that the nomination forms will be available on these pages before 30 June 2023.
RSNSW Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander Scholars Medal
RSNSW James Cook Medal — for lifetime career contributions
RSNSW Edgeworth David Medal — for mid-career researchers
RSNSW Ida Browne Early Career Medal
These Awards are made on a three-yearly cycle, Years A, B and C, as indicated in the listing of the Awards, with Year A Awards commencing in 2023, Year B in 2024, and Year C in 2025.
The discipline awards by year of offer are as follows.
Year A (offered in 2023, 2026, 2029, ...)
RSNSW Clarke Medal and Lectureship in the Earth Sciences
RSNSW Walter Burfitt Award in Medical and Veterinary Sciences and Technologies
RSNSW Award in the Social and Behavioural Sciences
RSNSW Award in the History and Philosophy of Science
Year B (offered in 2024, 2027, 2030, ...)
RSNSW Pollock Award and Lectureship in the Physical Sciences and Mathematics
RSNSW Poggendorff Award and Lectureship in Agricultural and Environmental Sciences
RSNSW Award in the Humanities, Philosophy, and Law
RSNSW Milner Interdisciplinary Award
Year C (offered in 2025, 2028, 2031, ...)
RSNSW Liversidge Award and Lectureship in the Chemical Sciences
RSNSW Warren Award in Engineering, Technology, Architecture, and Design
RSNSW Award in the Creative and Performing Arts
RSNSW Award in the Life Sciences
RSNSW Bicentennial Postgraduate Scholarships (3)
RSNSW Bicentennial Early Career Research and Service Citation (3)
RSNSW Jak Kelly Postgraduate Award
RSNSW President's Award
RSNSW Citations (3)
RSNSW Medal
RSNSW Archibald Ollé Award
The Royal Society of New South Wales publishes in a range of formats—traditional and electronic. The traditional formats include the Journal and Proceedings, which is available in printed and electronic forms (held on this website and through the Smithsonian Biodiversity Library), The Bulletin, which is an electronic magazine/newsletter, made available to members (also held on this website), and books which are published occasionally under the Society's name.
Additionally, there are reports and content (held on this website and in other repositories) that arise from events such as the Annual Forum of the Royal Society and the Learned Academies, and also the open lectures held at Ordinary General Meetings. Video content, including presentations from the Forums, recordings of lectures (from Ordinary General Meetings and Branch Meetings), and special events (such as Ideas@theHouse), is held on the Society’s YouTube channel, launched in March 2020.
Each of these publications/formats, accessible from the publishing menu and from links on this page, is expanded upon below.
The Society’s journal is one of the oldest peer-reviewed publications in the Southern Hemisphere. Much innovative research of the 19th and early 20th centuries (e.g., Lawrence Hargrave's work on flight) was first brought to the attention of the scientific world through the Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales. Over the past few decades, while specialist journals have become preferred for highly technical work the Journal and Proceedings remains an important publication for multi-disciplinary and trans-disciplinary work. The Journal Archive provides links to the contents of Journal issues from 1856 onwards.
The Journal and Proceedings are exchanged with many institutions worldwide. Currently, issues are published around June and December each year, although only a single December issue appeared in 2016.
The Society welcomes authors to publish their research or reviews in the Journal and Proceedings. Abstracts of doctoral theses are also considered by the editorial board and are welcome.
The Bulletin page provides access to issues of the RSNSW Bulletin dating back to August 2007. The Bulletin is the Society’s magazine/newsletter, published monthly from February to December of each year. Its content typically includes an editorial from the Society President, items of news, a diary of forthcoming events and special lectures conducted by the Society and its branches, reports of recent events and lectures, a summary of the contents of the current Journal and Proceedings (when released), and information about new Fellows and Members.
The Books page provides access to information about books that have been published under the Society’s name.
The Forums page provides access to the abstracts, content, and reports from the annual Forum that is conducted jointly by the Royal Society of NSW and the Learned Academies at Government House, Sydney. Video recordings of the content, available from the Society's YouTube Channel, are referenced from this page.
The Presentations page provides access to content presented at meetings of the Royal Society of NSW, where permission to do so has been granted by the author. Such content includes:
The Society has a remit for the whole of the state of New South Wales. In order to achieve this it has established Branches in several major regional centres of the state over the years. Branches of the Society provide local opportunities for residents of the region to participate in events organised by the Branch. Each is run and managed by a local Committee of Fellows and Members of the Society. Branches can be established in any region where there are sufficient numbers of Members or Fellows willing to host regular meetings and its establishment is agreed upon by Council. Membership of a Branch does not involve any additional application fee or Membership subscription.
A long-standing, active branch at Mittagong/Bowral in the Southern Highlands was established in 1994, while new branches were established in the Hunter Region, based in Newcastle, in 2019, and in Western NSW in 2021. Regular meetings are held in each of these locations and are well attended by members and visitors alike. The Society ran a very successful New England Branch based in Armidale for many years until recently and has plans to revive it. A Central West Branch based in Orange has been active in the recent past.
Branches may frame Rules for the conduct of their own affairs within the framework of the Rules and By-laws of the Society. Any Branch Rules are subject to the approval of the Society’s Council. Branches are managed by a Branch Committee which consists of a Chairman, Vice-Chairman, Honorary Secretary, Honorary Treasurer and ordinary members of the Committee. One member of the Committee is selected by the Branch to be the Branch’s representative on the Society’s Council.
The Annual General Meetings of Branches are held each year in March (i.e., prior to the Society’s AGM in early April) at which a written report of the activities and finances of the Branch is presented and at which office-bearers are elected for the ensuing year. A copy of the written report is forwarded to the Society’s Council before 15 March each year.
The Society currently has active branches in the: