About

ABOUT THE PROJECT

Beyond 1939 – The University of Sydney in the Postwar World is an extensive, searchable database of potted biographies of members of the University community involved in the Second World War.

We have built Beyond 1939 using information from the University Archives including Professorial Board minutes, War Matriculation Meeting minutes and student and published source such as the Union Recorder and University Calendars.

The University of Sydney’s, Book of Remembrance 1939 -1945, was published in 1993 and records those 286 men and the one woman who died because of this war. An addendum was included to the book in March 1994 of an additional three men who died, bringing the total of deaths to 290.

The thousands of University men and women who served in WWII – either as members of the armed forces, as civilians or in a voluntary capacity ­- are for the first time recorded in this database similar to an online book of remembrance.

It forms a significant contribution to the University’s commemorations of WWII and provides a unique insight into the lives of these University men and women before, during and after the war.

Additionally, ongoing investigations into this select cohort will improve and expand knowledge of the wider Australian postwar experience.

It is important to note that Beyond 1939 is dynamic and not a complete record of names or life events of these men and women. There is more information to be found and we invite family members and the general public to help complete the database.

The database for Beyond 1939 was built using Heurist, an open-source knowledge management platform for the humanities developed within the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Heurist provides the back-end infrastructure for data management and biographical research, while the Beyond 1939 website provides the public interface to this information.