Lyndall Ryan

Lyndall Ryan, (14 April 1943 – 30 April 2024) was an Australian academic and historian. She held positions in Australian studies and women's studies at Griffith University and Flinders University and was the foundation professor of Australian studies and head of the School of Humanities at the University of Newcastle from 1998 to 2005. She was later a conjoint professor in the Centre for the History of Violence at the University of Newcastle.

Early life Ryan was born on 14 April 1943 at the Royal Hospital for Women in Sydney. She was one of three children born to Edna Minna Ryan and John Francis Edwin Michael Ryan. Ryan's parents were left-wing activists who were former members of the Communist Party of Australia; her father was a butcher by profession.

Ryan was raised in the Sydney suburbs of Woollahra and Canley Heights. She attended Woollahra Public School and Canley Vale Public School before completing her secondary education at Fairfield Girls' High School. After her father's death in 1958 she lived alone with her mother for several years, her older siblings having left home. Ryan contested Windschuttle's claims in an essay entitled 'Who is the fabricator?' in Robert Manne's Whitewash: On Keith Windschuttle Fabrication of Aboriginal History published in 2003 and further addressed them in her book, Tasmanian Aborigines: A History Since 1803, published in 2012.

Colonial frontier massacres project

In 2017, Ryan and her team at the University of Newcastle released an on-line map showing more than 150 massacre sites in Eastern Australia. Within 6 months, the site was accessed more than sixty thousand times and has received coverage in Australia and also internationally. The on-line tool provides approximate locations, dates and other details of claimed massacres and provides corroborating sources. , the project claimed at least 270 frontier massacres had occurred over a period of 140 years starting in 1794. Ryan has suggested the map is an important step in acknowledging the extensive violence used against indigenous people in Australia's history.

Recognition Ryan was awarded the 2018 Annual History Citation by the History Council of NSW for "her research and teaching in women's and Indigenous history, and her service to the profession in contributing to the development of Australian Studies and Women's Studies". She was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities in November 2018, appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in the 2019 Australia Day Honours in recognition of her "significant service to higher education, particularly to Indigenous history and women's studies", and posthumously advanced to Officer of the Order of Australia in the 2025 Australia Day Honours.

Death Ryan died in Newcastle of cancer on 30 April 2024, at the age of 81.