A lecture by Harold White Fellow, Martin Thomas, at the National Library of Australia, Canberra, 24 October 2002
Let us enter the archive with words from Mathews himself. He is introducing what would be his longest paper, 183 pages in length. Dated 1904, it was called ‘Ethnological Notes on the Aboriginal Tribes of New South Wales and Victoria’. This plain, descriptive title is characteristic of a man who was cautious of pomposity or embellishment. He presents himself in the following way: