About Barry McGowan

Dr Barry McGowan (PhD, ANU; BA, ANU; BEc, Adelaide) is a historian and heritage consultant who specialises in mining history and heritage. He is a Visiting Fellow at the School of Archaeology and Anthropology at the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra, Australia, and has worked on the Australian Dictionary of Biography on-line project at the ANU Research School of Social Sciences.

His heritage work has involved field surveys, conservation management plans, report and history writing for Commonwealth and State Governments and local authorities. Barry’s publications include four books on mining communities in southern NSW, Lost
Mines, Lost Mines Revisited, Bungonia to Braidwood and The Golden South. Together with Dr Michael Pearson he was also responsible for writing the Mining Heritage Places Assessment Manual which was published in 2000 by the Australian Heritage Commission, and a Thematic Study of Mining in NSW, to be published by the NSW Department of Primary Industries.

Barry has also researched and written extensively on Chinese-European race relations on the goldfields the archaeology of Chinese mining and the role of the Chinese people in Australia’s agricultural and pastoral industries. Along with Dr Lindsay Smith of the ANU he recently completed a study of the heritage of the Chinese people in southern NSW and the Riverina for the NSW Heritage Office. He is undertaking further work on the Chinese heritage of the Riverina and adjacent districts for the Museum of the Riverina at Wagga Wagga.

His two most recent publications are Fool’s Gold. Myths and Legends of Gold Seeking in Australia (Lothian Books, 2006) and Australian Ghost Towns (Lothian Books 2002, reprinted and revised 2004 and 2006). Pending publications include Dust and Dreams (2009), Isle of Fear (2010-11) and, along with Brendan O'Keefe, a history of the Yalwal Goldfields.

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