Helen Proudfoot (nee Baker) was a town planner and historian and long-time contributor to the fields of history, heritage and garden history in NSW with a particular love of landscapes and gardens. She did much early research and writing for the various named versions of the NSW Department of Planning, co-authoring studies which were then published, such as: - Historic Buildings – Windsor & Richmond (as Helen Baker for the State Planning Authority of NSW, 1967; republished (as Helen Proudfoot) by Kangaroo Press, 1987); - Old Government House: the building and its landscape (1971); - Campbelltown, Camden, Appin: Survey and Report on historic buildings and sites (1973); - Historic Buildings & Sites Parramatta - City Centre Study’ (with Mark Horn, 1975), - Colonial Buildings Macarthur Growth Centre – Campbelltown, Camden, Appin (with Alec Goodsell, Llewella Davies & Max Dupain, 1977); - A Guide to Historic Sydney (with Werner Bartel, 1980); - Historical and Prehistorical Study of NSW’s Rainforests (with Peter Prineas & Denis Byrne, 1984); - Exploring Sydney’s West (1987); - The Historic Buildings of Windsor and Richmond (1987); - Municipality of Ku-Ring-Gai Heritage Study (with Robert Moore, Penelope Pike, Lester Tropman & Associates, 1987); Cadman’s Cottage: Sydney Cove’s Oldest Building (1988); - Sydney Harbour: Paradise of Waters (1988); - Victoria Park, Chippendale- a history and conservation plan (1990); - Australia’s First Government House (1990-91); - Miss Traill’s House (1991); - Gardens in Bloom: Jocelyn Brown and her Sydney Gardens of the ‘30s and ‘40s (1989); - The Australian metropolis: a planning history (with Stephen Hamnett and Robert Freestone, c2000); - the ‘Jocelyn & Alfred Brown’, ‘Coolibah’ and ‘Greenwood’ entries in ‘The Oxford Companion to Australian Gardens’ (2002); & Interwar gardens: a guide to the history, conservation and management of gardens of 1915-1940 (with The National Trust of Australia (NSW) Parks and Gardens Conservation Committee, c2003). Helen contributed to the society’s journal articles on Jocelyn Brown’s Sydney gardens (1(3)1-2); Hyde Park, Sydney (2(2)7); butterflies & hobs of flowers (7(3)9-10); 1950s gardens (8(2)18-19). She contributed articles to a number of other Australian journals, such as the Royal Australian Historical Society Journal (1979); Heritage (Australian Heritage Society) (1987), The Australian Planner (1991). This is quite a record of achievement and she will be sorely missed. Stuart Read Chair, Sydney & Northern NSW Branch, Australian Garden History Society; NSW elected representative member, National Management Committee, " ".