An ARC Linkage Project
with Monash University, the University of New England,
the Department of Veterans’ Affairs and State Records NSW
Welcome to ‘A Land Fit for Heroes?’: a website dedicated to the memory of Soldier Settlement in NSW.
Vast tracts of our state were settled by returned servicemen and women in the aftermath of the Great War: the rural communities they established lie at the heartland of regional Australia. But the story of soldier settlement has yet to be told. We know little of the experience of soldier settlers and their families as they battled to ‘make a go of it’ on the land.
‘A Land Fit for Heroes?’ will examine the history of soldier settlement in NSW reclaiming a virtually untouched field in the state’s environmental, social, political and cultural history. It will record the forgotten stories of a generation of men and women who survived the Great War and restore history to the communities that made it.
This project has been generously funded by the Australian Research Council, Monash University and the University of New England under an ARC linkage scheme. Our Linkage partners are State Records NSW and the Department of Veterans’ Affairs. State Records NSW has generously hosted this project and this website. The keepers of the historical record of soldier settlement in NSW (including extensive Land Department files) State Records NSW sees this project as a way of making this invaluable collection accessible to the wider community.
