2021 Awards: The winners were announced at the annual  lunch on Sunday 29th May 2022

ALEXANDER HENDERSON AWARD


FIRST PLACE
Rosie’s people: Hanisch, Schuster, Schrapel and Stengert by John Field.

John won the 2015 Don Grant Award with his book ‘Boots, Shoes and Seeds: the life of Peter
Field.’ The judges’ comments then were that his book was ‘beautifully presented and well-
researched. He used social context throughout to tell the story. Lavishly illustrated, with a
comprehensive index and detailed family trees.’ The same can be said of John’s latest book.
Rosie’s people is an impressive book which traces the four family lines of John’s wife who came
from Germany to (mainly) South Australia. John has done excellent background research on
Prussian emigration.

SECOND PLACE
The issue of gentlemen: he fortunes of James Mills, Henry Mills and their descendants by Sue Reid.

The title is a play on the pretension’s of the author’s ancestors to be ‘gentlemen’, and the second
meaning that this is the ‘issue’ of those ancestors. This is a portrait of a family in England rising
into the middle class, but periodically back out of it. A well-researched and highly detailed account
of three generations of the Mills family, largely around Brighton and Hove, and subsequent
generations in Australia.

SPECIAL MENTION
To cousins Bill and Margaret Fleming or their body of work on the Fleming family.
The judges wish to award cousins Bill and Margaret Fleming a Special Mention for their body of
work on the Fleming family. Margaret submitted A grand old man of Brunswick: John Wood
Fleming 1837-1919 for the Don Grant Award. Bill Fleming submitted Edinburgh to Mia Mia: the
story of Robert & Jessy Fleming for the Alexander Henderson Award.
Both books were considered favourably by the judges, but not chosen as winners. Margaret also
published another book on the Fleming family in 2021 but did not enter it for the Alexander
Henderson Award. This book is Beyond Mia Mia: descendants of Robert and Janet Fleming and
William and Catherine Weir, and it is a companion to Bill’s book.
They are to be commended for all their work on recording the history of the Fleming family, from
Scotland to Melbourne. The Flemings arrived in the 1836 in Melbourne, with the Weirs arriving in
1855. In the 1860s three Fleming siblings married three Weir siblings. Both the Flemings and the
Weirs contributed to the development of the suburbs of Brunswick, Ascot Vale and Flemington.
All these books have been attractively designed, sourced and indexed, and Margaret and Bill are to
be congratulated for their dedication. They are a fine example to us all who wish to record the
history and contributions of our families.


DON GRANT AWARD
No award was made this year.