Daniel James Mahony (1878-1944), scientist, was born on 25 March 1878 in East Melbourne.

On 14 April 1931 Mahony became director of the National Museum of Victoria following the retirement of J. A. Kershaw.

In 1937 Mahony was one of the founders of the Art Galleries and Museums Association of Australia and New Zealand and was elected first president. A member of the Royal Society of Victoria from 1901, he was president in 1939-40. In addition to his geological interests on which he contributed several scientific papers and reports, Mahony was keenly interested in Australian ethnology, particularly the question of the antiquity of man in Australia on which he published major papers.

Alfred Stephen Kenyon (1867-1943), engineer, ethnologist and historian, was born on 7 December 1867 at Homebush, Victoria.

In 1896 Kenyon was elected as a member of the Australasian Institute of Mining Engineers (later, of Mining and Metallurgy) and at once became assistant honorary secretary. He delivered his first paper to the Field Naturalists' Club of Victoria in 1906 and joined the Royal Society of Victoria, of which he was for a time librarian. In 1911 he was elected to the council of the recently formed Historical Society of Victoria. In his first paper in August he urged legislative action to preserve Aboriginal relics. His own collection of stone implements, which he had begun in 1898 and which by 1907 numbered over one thousand objects, had been purchased by the National Museum; he had set about building another, while continuing to help the museum with acquisitions and advice.

From 1931 to 1935 he was president of the (Royal) Historical Society of Victoria, and thereafter edited its journal. He collaborated with Charles Barrett in writing two books dealing with Aboriginals, published in 1932 and 1934, and he was closely concerned with the historical aspects of the 1934 celebration of Victoria's centenary.