Early life

    Gary was born and spent his earliest years in country New South Wales, moving to Melbourne when he was 15. His only childhood interests were in going to sea and archaeology. He achieved the first of these ambitions when he left school at 16   and joined the Royal Australian Navy. After 10 years with the RAN and in the  Merchant fleets of Australia and Britain, he came ashore to pursue his second  interest. (For a brief account of Gary’s sea-going life and how he served under four  flags, click here .)

In 1973 Gary gained a place at La Trobe University as a non-matriculant, and subsequently completed a BA (Hons) degree in history. In 1977 he was accepted into the University of London’s Institute of Archaeology where he was awarded a Master of Arts in 1979.

Working life

Back in Melbourne, Gary became a consultant and then Site Registrar with the Victoria Archaeological Survey. In 1988 he transferred to the Victoria Police department to take up a position as inaugural Manager of the Police Historical Unit.  In 1995, having established the Police Archives and Museum, he was released into the custody of Museum Victoria, where he became the Senior Curator of People and Environment. He was subsequently plucked from obscurity to be the Head Curator of the Museum’s Technology Program. He is a man of many pasts.

He took early retirement in 2000, to allow himself more time for research and writing. In 2001 he was awarded a Thomas Ramsay Fellowship at Museum Victoria, and in 2005 completed a PhD in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at The University of Melbourne.

Gary lives in Box Hill with his wife Helen D. Harris OAM and Helen’s two ginger cats. He is a long-standing member of the Archaeological and Anthropological Society of Victoria, as well as a number of local historical societies, including Victoria Police, and Box Hill, the latter of which he has served as president for the passed six years. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society of Victoria and an Honorary Associate of Museum Victoria. Gary is also closely involved with the Field Naturalists Club of Victoria, where (on Tuesdays) he is Hon. Librarian and Archivist and (on Thursdays) an Editor of the Club’s long-running journal, The Victorian Naturalist.