Vaughan Evans OAM

Vaughan Evans OAM (1924-1993) had a life-long passion for maritime history, and in Australia he did much to advance its standing and profile. He was an advisor and consultant on maritime history issues to Federal and State governments and institutions, and as such both advocated and gave shape to the Australian National Maritime Museum. In addition to donating his personal collection he became a mentor subject knowledge and skills honed in answering enquiries about ships and maritime history over many years. His collection had a great focus on sailing ships and early works on seamanship, naval architecture and a resources form part of the most heavily comprehensive collection of material on Australian maritime history. These used section of the collection, referred to on a day-to-day basis in a range of activities from interpreting historical evidence to researching ships on the Australian trade. His unpublished manuscript 'Shipbuilding in Australia' (1993) is one of the few references on the topic of Australian shipbuilding.

Vaughan Evans was a founder of the Australian Association for Maritime History and the first and longest-serving editor of its newsletter. The Association's scholarly journal 'The Great Circle' is a part of our large periodical collection that deals with Australian maritime history. The journal of his voyage to Australia as a migrant aboard the NEW AUSTRALIA in 1955 is part of our diary transcript collection, giving insight into what it was like to travel to Australia by ship.

Extract from: Frances Prentice, 2000, 'The Vaughan Evans Library', Signals: 51, p28.