This site offers access to an eclectic collection of magazines from Australian re-enactment clubs starting in the early 1980s and going through to the turn of the century. It provides a view into the history of the movement and how the movement (or select groups) chose to present themselves at that time. There’s some damn fine articles in there too.
While I’ve kicked the idea around for some time, the main impetus for creating the site came from Ian Berger, working on his oral history of the movement project. Thanks should go to Ian, Jenny Baker and Mark Kelly for their work with sourcing documents, preparation, scanning and PDF creation.
The menu to the left links to individual pages for each magazine, arranged in approximately chronological order. Where a magazine has changed name, the various incarnations are grouped together under an arbitrarily selected title (usually the last iteration). The order in the menu is similarly arbitrary, based on my estimate of the start date. Each magazine has a brief introduction, and lightly abridged tables of contents are provided for each issue. The Colonial Re-enactment Society / 40th Regiment of Foot & The Victorian Re-enactment Society, Frontiers Living History Group and Southern Cross free Trappers index pages all link to archives held on the club’s own websites.
Most copies have been drawn from my hoard archive, with help from Egfroth, Paul Fisher, Brett Harrison, Bill McConnell, Stephen Wyley, Rose Payton, Jeffrey Davidson and Ross Argent. You might even see the odd New Hedeby from Steve Rowland. Don’t read too much into it if your favourite publication or issue is missing. I’m happy for you to contact me with offers of magazines (or better yet, scans) to fill the gaps. Just use the form below.