Beverley Kingston

Beverley Kingston AM FASSA (born 1941) is an Australian historian. She is author of volume 3 of the Oxford History of Australia.^[1]

Early life and education

Beverley Rhonda Kingston was born in Sydney, New South Wales in 1941,^[2] but grew up in north Queensland where her father was a manager with the Commonwealth Bank. She attended Presbyterian Girls' College in Warwick, Queensland as a boarder before enrolling in the University of Queensland, from which she graduated in 1963 with a BA (hons).^[3] Moving to Melbourne, she completed a PhD at Monash University in 1968.^[4]

Kingston joined the University of New South Wales in 1969 and worked there for 30 years, retiring in 1999.^[3]

She has been actively involved in the Australian Dictionary of Biography (ADB) since 1974, including as chair of the NSW advisory group (1994–) and as a member of the Editorial Board (1996–).^[5] Her thirty contributions to the ADB include biographies of feminist Maybanke Anderson,^[6] poet Dorothea Mackellar^[7] and editor Beatrice Deloitte Davis.^[8]

Kingston was elected Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia in 1994.^[9] She was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in the 2025 King's Birthday Honours for "significant service to community history, and to tertiary education".^[10]

Kingston, Beverley (1975). My Wife, My Daughter, and Poor Mary Ann: Women and work in Australia. Melbourne: Thomas Nelson (Australia). ISBN 0-17-001992-6.
— (1977). The World Moves Slowly: A documentary history of Australian women. Stanmore, Australia: Cassell Australia. ISBN 0-7269-4702-4.
— (1988). Oxford History of Australia, 1860–1900:Glad, confident morning. Melbourne: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195546113.
— (1994). Basket, Bag, and Trolley: A history of shopping in Australia. Melbourne: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-553510-3.
— (2006). A History of New South Wales. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-83384-4.