Lyall Gillespie - book launch
4 May 2025
A casual image of some of the day's participants: L-R
Dr Peter Dowling, Allen Mawer, Ken Heffernan, Dawn Waterhouse, Neil Gillspie, Phil Robson
This year's ACT Heritage Festival event was a very convivial community get-together to launch two Lyall Gillespie books.
The first was in fact a facsimile edition of 'Ginninderra: Forerunner to Canberra', one of the most popular of Lyall's publications.
The second was a biographical booklet 'Lyall L. Gillespie: historian and gatherer' published by Ken Heffernan, and funded with an ACT Heritage Grant.
Local historian and Hall Heritage Centre volunteer, Allen Mawer, welcomed visitors and introduced the two speakers:
Dr Jill Waterhouse - a friend and colleague of Lyall
Dr Peter Dowling - National Heritage Officer of the National Trust of Australia in Canberra, who officially launched the two publications.
Our large gathering of visitors included Dawn Waterhouse (OAM), now 100+, members of the extended Gillespie family and one of our youngest members, teenager Thomas.