Weston Bate

Professor Weston Arthur Bate OAM (born 1924) is an Australian historian specialising in the history of Ballarat, Victoria.

Bate served in the Royal Australian Air Force during World War II. He studied at the University of Melbourne under Manning Clark, Max Crawford, Kathleen Fitzpatrick and John O'Brien. He taught at Brighton Grammar School, Melbourne Grammar School, Bradfield College (Berkshire), Monash and Melbourne universities. He taught at Melbourne University from 1953 to 1976. From 1978 until 1989 Bate held the foundation chair of Australian Studies at Deakin University, Geelong.

As of 2006, Bate is President of the Royal Historical Society of Victoria and chairs the Museums Advisory Board of Victoria. Previously he had been the president from 1991 to 1997. He has been historical consultant and Gold Museum committee member at Sovereign Hill interactive museum, in Ballarat.

Bibliography

• A history of Brighton (1962)
• Lucky city: the first generation at Ballarat, 1851–1901 (1978)
• Dilemma at Westernport: a case study in land use conflicts and the growth of the planning imperative (1978, with Fay Marles)
• Private lives - public heritage: family snapshots as history (1986, with Euan McGillivray and Matthew Nickson)
• Victorian gold rushes (1988)
• Having a go: Bill Boyd’s Mallee (1989, with Bill Boyd)
• Light blue down-under: the history of Geelong Grammar School (1990)
• Life after gold: twentieth-century Ballarat (1993)
• Essential but unplanned: the story of Melbourne’s lanes (1994)
• Here’s to grandpa!: the watercolours 1900–1940 of C.A. Wilson (1995)
• Sustaining their dream: the Metropolitan Golf Club 1901–2001 (2001)
• Challenging traditions: a history of Melbourne Grammar (2002)

The National Library of Australia catalogue includes a work to be published in 2007: Heads, you win!: a history of the Barwon Heads Golf Club.

References

• Catalogue of the National Library of Australia at http://www.nla.gov.au/
• "Lucky City: Paperback edition - About the author". MUP Titles. Melbourne University Publishing. 2006. http://www.mup.unimelb.edu.au/catalogue/0-522-85065-0.html. Retrieved 2006-12-22. 
• "Contributor Biographies for Keeping the Record Public: A symposium on the history of State Archives in Victoria". Public record Office Victoria. 2005. http://www.prov.vic.gov.au/publications/krpsymposium/krpcontributors.asp. Retrieved 2006-12-22.