A brief history of the Society of Editors (Victoria)

The Society of Editors (Victoria) Inc. was founded in October 1970 when a group of editors gathered together at Ruth Dixon's home. The inaugural members included Ruth Dixon, Hedley Finger, Di Goodall, Jan Llewellyn, Janet Mackenzie, Bob Sessions, Wendy Sutherland, among others. The first annual general meeting was held in June 1971 and the Society was incorporated in 1991.

When the Society was formed, publishers were beginning to withdraw from in-house training from editors and over the years the Society has been active in attempting to at least partially fill this gap. It has organised hundreds of courses and workshops on a wide range of topics, from the basics of editing to copyright law and ergonomics, and worked closely with RMIT to establish the Graduate Diploma in Editing and Publishing, which began in 1988.

The Society has itself acted as publisher, issuing not only its regular Newsletter, but also significant books, such as One of the First and One of the Finest (a biography of Beatrice Davis) in 1991, At the Typeface in 2005, and Editors in Conversation 1 and 2 in 2007 and 2009 respectively..

The Society has also provided strong support for freelance editors, producing the Freelance Register since the late 1970s, initially twice yearly and more recently annually.

Finally, the Society was active in the establishment in 1998 of the Council of Australian Societies of Editors (CASE), which was the first national body to represent editors. CASE was succeeded in 2008 by the Institute of Professional Editors Limited (IPEd), which is establishing a national accreditation scheme and runs national editing conferences every two years. In 2005, the Society of Editors (Victoria) hosted Editing in Context, the 2nd national editors conference in Melbourne.

In 2010, the Society celebrated its 40th birthday at the Wheeler Centre in Melbourne. For photos from the night, go to the Society's Picasa page. Download the 40th Anniversary Commemorative Booklet (pdf 289Kb).

Thanks to Janet Mackenzie for much of the information contained in this very brief history. For more information and an excellent selection of items from the Society's Newsletters over the years, see At the Typeface, available for purchase from the Society.