Member of the Melbourne Athenaeum in Queen’s Birthday honours list

A member of the Melbourne Athenaeum, Dr Margaret Bowman, has been honoured in the Queen's Birthday awards for her service to local government as an educator and researcher.

The award was given for work studying and writing about local government in urban and rural communities, both in Australia and overseas. Her doctoral research in 1973 and several publications, such as Reformers, written in 1989 with The Age political editor Michelle Grattan, provided a practical approach to evaluating the roles and responsibilities of local government. This was at a time when the Commonwealth government was considering abolishing state governments.

Margaret also worked at Monash University and the University of Ballarat lecturing on politics. A second doctorate, in art history, was completed after she retired.

Margaret is well-known at the Melbourne Athenaeum for her essays, published in our Journal, about previous secretaries, Mr Curtis and RWE Wilmot. The State Library has recently awarded Margaret a Creative Fellowship to assist with her research on George Alexander Gilbert, who was the Secretary / Librarian at the Mechanics’ Institution from 1844 to 1850.

2011 has proved to be a good year for Margaret Bowman OAM.

The Melbourne Athenaeum 170 years - A journal of the history of a Melbourne institution was launched on 12 November.

The journal includes:

• A wonderful memoir by playwright Ray Lawler, who writes about his experiences of the organisation over the past 50 years.
• The life and times of journalist, author and former Committee member, Marcus Clarke.
• Two articles about former secretaries by volunteer archivist Margaret Bowman.
• A pictorial history of the building.
• Contemporary accounts of different periods of the organisation’s long history.