Toby Raeburn

Associate Professor Toby Raeburn is an author, researcher and educator currently working with the Australian Catholic University in Sydney. After studying theology and church history early in his career, Toby spent two decades working in mental healthcare, with a focus on assisting people to overcome homelessness and other social challenges. He has a growing portfolio of published works, including more than sixty journal articles and book chapters related to mental healthcare and history. He is particularly interested in how people’s life narratives and sense of identity relate to mental health and well-being. Toby believes that increasing historical awareness has the potential to improve our ability to cope with the present and may also be used to develop a vision for the future. Picking up on such themes, his first book, The Remarkable Mr and Mrs Johnson was released by Australian Scholarly Publishing in 2023. The book explores the fascinating lives of colonial NSW’s first chaplains, Richard and Mary Johnson, who were the founders of modern Australia’s first Church, schools and charity and friends of Aboriginal people in the early colony from 1788-1800.