Bernard Whimpress


Dr Bernard Whimpress is an Australian historian, most active in the area of sports history. A former sports magazine journalist and photographer, he has written, co-written and edited 39 books, mainly on cricket.
From 1998 to 2010 he published and edited a journal of Australian cricket history, Baggy Green.
He works as a freelance writer, historical consultant and editor.

Career

;Journalism/History
Historical articles and journalism on sporting subjects have appeared in numerous, magazines and journals in Australia and overseas, including Wisden Cricketer's Almanack Australia, Wisden Cricket Monthly, Cricketer, Cricket Lore, Australian Cricket, Inside Edge, Journal of the Cricket Society, Cricket Society New Bulletin, Cricket Statistician, Sports Historian, Sport in Society, Sporting Traditions, Australian Society for Sports History Bulletin, the Bulletin of Sports and Culture, The Yorker, Pavilion, Footy Almanac, Between Wickets, the International Journal of the History of Sports and The Long Game. He previously edited Football Times, the South Australian Football Budget, Long Boundary, published and edited Baggy Green, and was reviews editor of Sporting Traditions. He is the founding editor of ASSH Proceedings.
Wider writing and reviews have also appeared in a range of magazines, journals and newspapers such as Aboriginal History, The Australian, The New Federalist, Journal of Australian Studies, JAS Review of Books, API Review of Books, Community History, Locality, Overland, Arena, Sydney Morning Herald, The Advertiser, History Australia, History SA, Inside History, Flinders Journal of History and Politics, Oral History of Australian Journal, Journal of the Historical Society of South Australia, Professional Historians Association Newsletter, Bibliofile, Library Liaison, Australian Book Review, The Newtown Review of Books and The Mozzie. He previously edited Review, The Snail and Beacon, the newsletters of the Department of Labour and National Service, the Corporation of the City of Adelaide and the South Australian Maritime Museum. He is the current editor of Bibliofile, the journal of the Friends of the State Library of South Australia.
;Work with sporting organisations
Whimpress has held major positions with key sporting organisations.
As Publications Manager of the South Australian National Football League from 1979 to 1984 he edited the league's weekly magazine, the South Australian Football Budget, annual reports and newsletters; wrote the history of the league, The South Australian Football Story; and arranged themed historic displays throughout the members dining rooms and bars in both the members area and outer ground of Football Park.
As Curator of the Adelaide Oval Museum and Historian for the South Australian Cricket Association from 1994 to 2009 he was responsible for historical displays, maintaining historical records of the Oval and expanding heritage consciousness of the ground. In addition he edited several of the association's annual reports and was the founding editor of the newsletter, Long Boundary. In 2008, he conceived the design and wrote the text for the reinterpretation of the Bradman Collection Museum on its transfer from the State Library to Adelaide Oval and provided further reinterpretation of the same collection in the new southern stand at the Oval in 2013.
Since 2010 he has acted as a historical consultant to the SACA and Adelaide Oval Stadium Management Authority working in conjunction with design firm MartinsIntegrated in developing displays in the western and southern grandstands. Major displays include those on the History of Adelaide Oval Test Cricket Level 2 of the Western Stands, the History of South Australian Cricket in the Sheffield Room on the ground floor of the same stand, Football History on Level 3 of the Riverbank Stand, and the Bodyline Bar on Level 2 of the Western Stands.
In 2013, he became a member of a national Australian Football League History Sub-committee and the Adelaide Oval History Committee. In 2016-17 he served on a Sports SA committee overseeing the establishment of a South Australian Sports Museum.
;Other historical work
Whimpress holds a doctorate in history from Flinders University and an associate diploma in photography from the South Australian College of Arts and Education. He has taught courses in sports, American and world history at Flinders University; and Aboriginal history and sports journalism at the University of South Australia. He has both supervised and examined theses at doctoral level.
He was Oral Historian for the Adelaide City Council between 1990 and 1993.

Societies

Whimpress is a founder member of the Australian Society for Sports History, convened the biennial ASSH conference in Adelaide in 2001, was vice-president of that body from 2003 to 2007, and has convened meetings of the local chapter since 1996. He is a current member of the Professional Historians Association, the Historical Society of South Australia, the Cricket Society, the Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians, Cricket Lovers, the Art Deco and Modernism Society, Football Almanac and the Friends of the State Library of South Australia.
He is a past member of the Australian Journalists Association, the Australian Historians Association, the Australian Society of Authors, the Oral History Association, Museums Australia, the Institute of Photographers, the South Australian Writers Centre and Friendly Street Poets.

Awards

Winner of the History Council of South Australia Life-Long History Achievement Award 2017.

Books

Test Eleven was widely praised in the English press and cricket magazines and Wisden Cricketers' Almanack. Passport to Nowhere was short-listed for the Jack Pollard Trophy in 2000.
As editor/publisher of other authors:
He was an associate editor and contributor to The Wakefield Companion to South Australian History and has several entries in various volumes of the Australian Dictionary of Biography.
Excerpts from Whimpress's work are included in The Oxford Book of Australian Sporting Anecdotes, Gideon Haigh's Cricket Anecdotes, The Best Ever Australian Sports Writing: A 200 Year Collection and The Best Australian Sports Writing 2004.

Book reviews