2025 Awards: The winners were announced at the annual  lunch on Sunday 31st May 2026

ALEXANDER HENDERSON AWARD

Precarious lives on Australia’s ‘Boundless Plains’, the Huntress family history, Volume One, Part One: Thwarted ambition in colonial New South Wales - the Gray and Reilly families.

Andrew Jones

Andrew’s book was almost faultless on each judge’s scoring sheet. He has set himself the ambitious plan of writing the complete Huntress family history in five parts, and this is the first. The Huntress family is his wife’s family, which makes it even more remarkable that he, along with her contributions, put in so much time and effort to produce this award-winning book.

Part One is the history of two families who arrived in the early decades of the colony of New South Wales. It shows the precariousness of life in the early colony, and shows how easily the ambitions of settlers and immigrants could be thwarted.

DON GRANT AWARD

Richard Ridge: convict, trader and bailiff in early colonial NSW. 

Louise Wilson

This detailed and comprehensive history of Richard Ridge, who was one of the Third Fleet prisoners who arrived in 1791, is very readable. Richard went on to do well, and the book would benefit anyone interested in this period to learn about life in early New South Wales.

The judges were unanimous in their decision, stating that Louise has written another very high quality work. It is the model of how the biography of an ancestor can and should be written. 

The book is easy to read,  well-illustrated, has a comprehensive list of sources, and to the delight of the judges, has an excellent index. It scored very highly with all three judges.