The Victorian Community History Awards are held annually to recognise the contributions made by Victorians in the preservation of the State's history, and to recognise excellence in historical research. The effect of the VCHA over the period from 1998 to the present has been the stimulation of community history, the lifting of standards and the fostering of diversity and originality. History The Victorian Community History Awards were established and sponsored in 1997 by Information Victoria. The judges have always been appointed by the Royal Historical Society of Victoria, and among the first were Professor Weston Bate, Professor A. G. L. Shaw, and senior journalist at The Age, John Lahey. Funding was suspended in 2006 to provide additional funds for the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne. After 2010 Information Victoria Bookshop withdrew support for the program, but after a vigorous campaign by the RHSV for the continuance of the Awards, the Baillieu government accepted a submission from the Public Record Office Victoria (PROV) to continue the program for a further four-year period. From 2011 the Awards were administered by the RHSV in partnership with PROV. In 2012, following consultation between the Public Record Office Victoria and the Royal Historical Society of Victoria, award categories were slightly altered and renamed, as below: Victorian Community History Awards, from 2012 Victorian Premier's History Award 2021: Alec Morgan, Tiriki Onus and Tom Zubrycki for Ablaze – A Feature Documentary 2020: Amanda Scardamaglia for Printed on Stone: The lithographs of Charles Troedel 2019: Phil Roberts for Avenue of Memories 2018: Jill Giese for The Maddest Place on Earth 2017: John Burch for Returning the Kulkyne 2016: Pam Baragwanath and Ken James for These Walls Speak Volumes. A History of Mechanics' Institutes in Victoria 2015: Meredith Fletcher for Jean Galbraith: writer in a valley 2014: Anne Vale for Exceptional Australian Garden Makers 2013: Robin A Vowels for Victoria’s Iron Lacework The Founders, Part A 2012: Maree Coote for The Art of being Melbourne History Publication Award 2021: Michael McCarthy for In the Shadow of the Prom 2020: Brian Rhule for Maldon: A New History 1853-1928 2019: Carolyn Rasmussen for The Blackburns: Private lives, public ambition 2018: Gregory C. Eccleston for Granville Stapylton: Australia Felix 1836, Second in Command to Major Mitchell 2017: John Barnes for La Trobe. Traveller, Writer, Governor 2016: Rozzi Bazzani for Hector: the story of Hector Crawford and Crawford Productions 2015: Lucy Sussex for Blockbuster!