Researcher Profile

Professor Nell Musgrove

Discipline Deputy Head of School, History & Archaeology
National School of Arts and Humanities

Areas of expertise: history of child welfare & social welfare; australian social history; history of childhood; gender & family history; histories of crime; colonial archival history; digital history

Phone: 03 9953 3208

Email: nell.musgrove@acu.edu.au

Location: ACU Melbourne Campus

HDR Supervisor accreditation status: HDR Supervisor (Full)

ORCID ID: 0000-0002-5070-8766

ORCID link: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5070-8766

Professor Nell Musgrove is an Australian historian with a particular interest in the field of child welfare history and carceral institutions. Her research is concerned with the human experiences of people whose lives have been shaped by their interactions with welfare systems, and with methodological questions about how historians can hear voices from the past, especially those whose perspectives are often obscured in the historical record. Her two major monographs - The Slow Evolution of Foster Care in Australia (2018) and The Scars Remain (2013) - examine child welfare policy and practice over the course of more than a century to highlight the ways in which successive generations have been harmed by systems which claimed to protect them, and the extent to which historical failures have been recognised and addressed.

Select publications

Authored Books

1. Musgrove, Nell, and Deidre Michell. The Slow Evolution of Foster Care in Australia—Just Like a Family? London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018 (xv & 314 pp.).

2. Musgrove, Nell.The Scars Remain: A Long History of Forgotten Australians and Children’s Institutions, North Melbourne: Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2013 (ix & 199 pp.).

Edited Books

3. Moruzi, Kristine, Nell Musgrove and Carla Pascoe Leahy (eds.) Children's Voices from the Past: New Historical and Interdisciplinary Perspectives, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019 (xix & 342 pp.).

4. Davis, Fiona, Nell Musgrove and Judith Smart (eds.) Founders, Firsts and Feminists: Women Leaders in Twentieth-Century Australia, Melbourne: University of Melbourne ePress, 2011 (337 pp.).

Recent Journal Articles

5. Musgrove, Nell. “Narrative and Counter-narrative: Reinscribing Carceral Welfare Histories at the Old Melbourne Gaol. Incarceration, 6, 2025 (published online). https://doi.org/10.1177/26326663251383650

6. Musgrove, Nell. “Nurses, Foster Mothers, Businesswomen, and Baby-Farmers: Market-Based Infant Care in Pre-WWI Australia.” Social Inclusion 13, 2025 (published online). https://doi.org/10.17645/si.10730

7. Wilson, Jacqueline Z, Nell Musgrove, and David McGinniss. “Care-Leaver Activism and Criminogenic Welfare: An Australian Case Study.” Journal of Criminology 58, no. 2 (2024): 225-240. https://doi.org/10.1177/26338076241286577

8. Musgrove, Nell and Laura Saxton. “Closing the Cell Door: Where are the Histories of Care-leavers at the Old Melbourne Gaol?” International Journal of Heritage Studies 30, no. 11 (2024): 1324–1335. https://doi.org/10.1080/13527258.2024.2378421

9. Musgrove, Nell. “Emotion as a Tool for Humanising Histories of the Marginalised: A Case Study of Industrial Schools in Colonial Victoria.” Social History 49, no. 1 (2024): 53-77. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/03071022.2024.2281150.

10. Musgrove, Nell. “Settler colonial expansion and the institutionalisation of children in Victoria, Australia.” Settler Colonial Studies 13, no. 4 (2023): 539-554. DOI: 10.1080/2201473X.2023.2265096.

11. Musgrove, Nell, and Naomi Wolfe. “Aboriginal Knowledge, the History Classroom and the Australian University.” History of Education Review51, no. 2 (2022): 123-136. DOI: 10.1108/HER-04-2021-0010.

12. Swain, Shurlee, Nell Musgrove, Cate O’Neill & Constance Thurley-Hart. “Trove and the History of Childhood—Combining Microhistory and Big Data.” History Australia18, no. 4 (2021): 840–845. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14490854.2021.1993742

Projects

Funded Projects

• 2021-2025 - Australian Research Council Discovery Project, Care Leaver Activism and Advocacy: From Deficit Models to Survivor Narratives, Chief Investigators Associate Professor Nell Musgrove and Dr Deidre Michell, $345,083.
• 2013-2016 - Australian Research Council Discovery Project, A Long History of Foster Care in Australia, Chief Investigators Dr Nell Musgrove and Dr Deidre Michell, $221,400.

Appointments

• Society for the History of Children and Youth (SHCY), Executive Committee member (elected 2023)

• SHCY Asia-Australasia Regional Network Co-Convenor (2022-present)

• Public Records Advisory Council member, appointed by the Victorian Minister for Government Services (fixed term 2025-2027)

• History Council Victoria, invited ACU representative (fixed term 2023-2026)

Member

• Australian Historical Association;

• Society for the History of Children and Youth;

• Australian Women’s History Network