On April 28th 2019, a Remembrance Ceremony will be held at Stuart’s statue, Victoria Square/ Tarndanyangga, Adelaide, South Australia, at 1:30 pm.

A wreath will be laid by three of the great great great grandchildren of FW Thring, third officer on the 5th and 6th of Stuart’s expeditions.

Following that event, Mandy Paul will present the 2019 Annual John McDouall Stuart Address, at the nearby Flinders St Baptist Church Hall.

Her talk is titled “Objects and histories: representing John McDouall Stuart through collections”.

National, state and community collections hold many significant objects relating to John McDouall Stuart and the expeditions he led between 1858 and 1862. This lecture will explore what some of those objects – particularly those in the collection of the History Trust of South Australia – can tell us about the man, his times, and the practice and development of collecting. Can objects tell us the truth about the past? Or do the questions we ask reveal the changing nature of historiography, of how we understand the past in the John McDouall Stuart Memorial Address present?