John Rickard

John David Rickard (9 February 1935 – 26 July 2024) was an Australian historian who served as Professor of Australian Studies at Monash University from 1995 to 1998 and the visiting professor of Australian Studies at Harvard University from 1997 to 1998. Rickard won the prestigious Ernest Scott Prize in 1977 for his book Class and Politics: New South Wales, Victoria and the Early Commonwealth, 1890‐1910.

Biography Rickard was born on 9 February 1935 and was raised in Sydney, New South Wales. An undergraduate at the University of Sydney (BA, 1955), Rickard read political science and economics at the University of Oxford (1957) before becoming a singer and stage actor in London, appearing in the 1962 stage production of Fiorello!. Rickard returned to Australia for the 1962 production of The King and I in Melbourne and became a lecturer in the Department of History at Monash University, completing his doctoral studies there (1973). He was also the visiting professor of Australian Studies at Harvard University from 1997 to 1998 and the Monash Visiting Fellow of Australian Studies at the University of Copenhagen in 2007. Upon his death in lieu of flowers Rickard requested donations be made to the Melbourne Opera.

Rickard died aged 89 on 26 July 2024 after a short stay at Caulfield Hospital in Melbourne. His requiem mass was held on 9 August at the Anglo-Catholic St Mary's Anglican Church, where he was an active parishioner.

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