Professor Cassandra Pybus, distinguished historian and Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities, explores the intriguing history of Morton Allport, a prominent Hobart lawyer engaged in the secret trade of exhuming bodies. Join us at The Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania for a captivating journey into Tasmania’s past.
Cassandra Pybus is a distinguished historian, author of thirteen books and Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. She has been the recipient of several Australia Council Fellowships and a Federation of Australia Centenary Medal for outstanding contribution to literature. Between 2000 and 2013 she was Australian Research Council Professorial Fellow at both the University of Tasmania and the University of Sydney and has been Fulbright Professor at Georgetown University in Washington DC, Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of Texas, and Leverhulme Visiting Professor at King’s College, London. Her current research interrogates the trade in First People’s skeletal remains for her forthcoming book A Very Secret Trade which is the last of a trilogy that interrogates the destruction of the First People of Tasmania, beginning with Community of Thieves, published in 1991, followed by Truganini in 2020 which won the National Biography Award.
The Royal Society of Tasmania acknowledges, with deep respect, the traditional owners of this land, and the ongoing custodianship of the Aboriginal people of Tasmania. The Society pays respect to Elders past, present and emerging. We acknowledge that Tasmanian Aboriginal Peoples have survived severe and unjust impacts resulting from invasion and dispossession of their Country. As an institution dedicated to the advancement of knowledge, the Royal Society of Tasmania recognises Aboriginal cultural knowledge and practices and seeks to respect and honour these traditions and the deep understanding they represent.
On 15 February 2021, the Royal Society of Tasmania offered a formal Apology to the Tasmanian Aboriginal people. Read more