Biography

June 24, 2021

From The Education of Young Donald (1967)

Journalist and social critic Donald Horne writes about his father going into Callan Park Mental Hospital in 1937, when Horne was sixteen:

Douglas Grant, nurses and ex-servicemen around the World War I war memorial in the shape of the Harbour Bridge at Callan Park c1931 (Sam Hood, State Library of New South Wales)

For several days after he was “certified” we were not allowed to see him. I tried to imagine him in the Reception House, but I could not. Then we took the tram out to Callan Park, known to schoolboys as Sydney’s most famous “looney bin”, and we sat in a cold stone room with bars on its windows as if we were paying a social call on a man who was not interested in us. He was anxious that we should meet a fellow patient, whom he described as his “new friend”, and after some discussion the other patient was brought in, dressed in his street clothes like Dad. Dad and his new friend talked to each other while we sat on our hard wooden chairs and watched them.

On the morning of my last day at Parramatta High I said good-bye to our house at Westmead before I went to school. The removalists were already beginning to stack away our furniture. I avoided good-byes at school, and when lessons were over I made the long journey to Denbigh [Horne’s grandparents’ home in Kogarah] where we were going to live until we knew what was to happen to us…The next morning I woke up early, looking at the shapes of our stacked-up furniture as they defined themselves against the dawn, and then went, with indifference, to my new school, Canterbury High…   

Wall of Callan Park Hospital (History Council of New South Wales)

By now Dad had been moved into one of the Repatriation wards, each of them a separate building, at the end of the grounds of Callan Park. To reach these we would walk through the rest of the hospital, past buildings with barred windows, and past a big stone enclosure, like an animal pit at the zoo, where insane women in blue hospital uniforms were crowded, ignoring each other as they talked to themselves or stared out into nothing. Whenever we walked past them I looked at them sideways, ashamed of my curiosity at their misfortune, but unable not to examine it. Although I knew I was in a madhouse, and although I was afraid of everyone I saw, nevertheless when anyone spoke to me I was always startled to recognize that this person was insane. The grass was trimmed, the paths were freshly swept, there were flowers in the garden beds; if one looked away from the barred windows and the women’s stone pit it all seemed as normal as a public park. A well-dressed woman came up to me. She was carrying a copy of the Saturday Evening Post. She began to talk in an apparently normal way, in an educated voice. She was telling me about a conspiracy against her, a conspiracy mounted by words that were not even words, and she was drawing a diagram on the magazine to prove it, sketching it out quickly and methodically. I kept on listening to her, afraid of her, but politely making conversation about her diagram. Even when Dad came out of the ward with Mum she would not go away. Yet she looked as if she was dressed for a quiet day’s shopping in town. On these journeys to Callan Park I chilled my emotions, trying to notice nothing, and noticing things nevertheless.

Donald Horne, Australian, 1921-2005

September 3, 2020

From Singo (2002)

US-born former TV journalist and news producer Gerald Stone in his biography of Sydney advertising man John Singleton describes Singleton’s seemingly unlikely friendship with the Reverend Bill Crews:

Reverend Bill Crews and John Singleton at Loaves and Fishes Restaurant in Ashfield. (Brett Costello, News Corp)

‘John hates to admit it but in a funny way, he is quite religious,’ Crews smiles. ‘He reminds me a lot of King David. We’re told David was a real bastard, you know, but God loved him.’

At Crews’ mention of King David, I think to myself what an excellent choice. If Singleton could be compared to any character in history, that’s the one. David was, of course, the little boy who was brave and resourceful enough to kill Goliath; but he was also much more than that. He was the absolute larrikin of the Old Testament, filled with mischief. When his future father-in-law, King Saul, ordered him to bring back the foreskins of 100 Philistines as the price for marrying his daughter – a mind-boggling task by any measure – David somehow manages to come back with 200! He was a notorious womaniser who grabbed the beautiful but married Bathsheba for his own by ordering her warrior husband to certain death in battle. With a few drinks in him, he was also known to whip off his clothes and dance naked in front of a throng of admiring maidens. He tempted the wrath of God constantly with such misbehaviour, but always found a way to win back Divine favour with an audacious deed or, better yet, a few well-chosen words. David, like John Singleton, was a brilliant copywriter. His psalms were the jingles of his day, proclaiming the greatness of the Lord.

Crews acknowledges that some of his clerical colleagues in the Uniting Church and any number of his parishioners have been scandalised by his friendship with that ‘dreadful’ Singleton. Like Ted Noffs before him, he refuses to pass judgement when he knows how little can separate the best from the worst in a man.

‘I think it’s all part of being such a passionate person,’ Crews suggests. ‘People of that nature aren’t quite sure where they fit in because their negative passions are as strong as their positive – both come from the same source. So it can be very difficult for them. A section of the community sees John as capable of behaving badly and he probably has convinced himself he is too. But the fact is he has this intensely religious streak. Sometimes I’m sure he does things just to prove to himself he’s not a goody-goody!’

Singleton, to this day, occasionally drops by the Loaves and Fishes just to show support by his presence and chat with the patrons. At lunch hour the rows of tables are filled with those on hard times: the unemployed, the homeless, the elderly or disabled, battered old winos and pale-faced young drug addicts, or people who are just plain lonely and desperate for company.

Crews especially remembers one day when Singleton told a group of men: ‘Well, guys, today I’m up so I can help you. Tomorrow I might be down and I might need help from you.’ Which, as the minister points out, was not as far-fetched as it might seem. A lot of the people he dealt with had the rebellious spirit of Singo – a compulsion to push their limits and test their luck. It was really a very thin line dividing the high and mighty from the down and outs.

‘If they’re up, they’ve succeeded; if they’re down, they didn’t. There’s really not all that much difference either way.’ So says a man who has witnessed human nature from every angle.

Crews and Singleton organised a breakfast program for children in Redfern’s Aboriginal community:

Portrait of two men on Eveleigh Street Redfern, 2003 (Patricia Baillie, City of Sydney Archives)

 …‘the Block’, as it was known, had developed into something akin to a war zone. Expecting a hostile reception, at least to begin with, they wisely decided to swap Singleton’s Bentley for a ute when they visited the embattled area to begin negotiations with local community leaders. As they wandered around, their worst fears seemed about to come true. A hostile looking drunk staggered up to Singleton.

‘You’re John Singleton?’

‘Yeah, mate’

‘Your horse didn’t do too well on Saturday?’

From then on, Crews remembers, it was much like the Loaves and the Fishes, where the millionaire businessman showed a stunning ability to communicate on any level. ‘The next minute, honestly, there are half a dozen Aborigines with the arses out of their jeans, and they’re all of them sitting in the dirt with Singleton talking about horses. It was just amazing.’

They got their breakfast project off to a promising start, using a caravan painted in the red and green colours of the South Sydney football club to make it more acceptable to the Redfern kids. Eventually the program was handed over to a local church group.

  -Gerald Stone, American-Australian, 1933-2020

August 20, 2020

From Keating (2015) – 2

In his 2015 interviews with Kerry O’Brien, former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating describes being approached by Canadian newspaperman Conrad Black, who told him in 1992 that Kerry Packer had acquired 23.5 per cent of the Fairfax Media organisation, owners of the Sydney Morning Herald, despite being restricted by media ownership rules to 14.9 per cent:

PJK: When I checked, Black was correct. Packer’s organisation had taken advice from some barrister specialising in media law who found what they thought was a loophole. From memory, Packer was in Argentina playing polo, so I spoke to one of his representatives and said ‘Conrad Black’s been to see me and I understand Consolidated Press has 23.5 per cent of Fairfax.’

The answer came back immediately. ‘That’s right.’

I said, ‘You understand what the law says? The prescribed limit is 14.9.’

He said, ‘Everything we are doing is legal.’

I said, ‘You may think so but I made the law so I have a particular interest in its maintenance, which means your interest in Fairfax must return to 14.9 per cent.’

He replied, ‘Well, as long as you understand that will mean war, I’ll relay the message.’

…I said, ‘Well, conflict is what I do.’

KOB: This was actually reported at the time in the Sydney Morning Herald. ‘I told Packer yesterday I was in the conflict business. I don’t take the troubles. I give them to people like that.’

PJK: Yes, I said ‘conflict is what I do.’ I then asked Michael Lee, who had become Communications Minister, to get an amendment together and I saw Cheryl Kernot and the Democrats and pushed it very quickly through both Houses, which meant the loophole Packer was using was shut off.

I came to understand that Kerry wanted to control Fairfax to get square with the journalists he believed had gone after him maliciously over the references to him in the National Times under a code name in the Costigan Royal Commission. I understood his anger but we had a media diversity policy that he was not entitled to break…

Paul Keating and Kerry Packer (AAP/Reuters)

 

I’m the only person in public life who ever took Packer on. Ever. This was a person who wielded great influence over a succession of governments, and not one single individual in the polity ever crossed swords with him. I not only crossed swords with him, I gave him a number of beltings. I wanted to make it clear to Packer, you may think we are a bunch of toadies there to do your bidding, but not me.

But Packer came after me after I’d left politics. If you read Niki Savva’s account in her book of how Paul Lyneham volunteered to do Packer’s bidding on the piggery claims against me, aided and abetted by the former Liberal Party President Tony Staley, you’ll see this was all payback for stopping his attempts to control Fairfax…I then lobbied Brian Harradine and a number of other senators to stop the cross-media rule change in the Senate.

A journalist said to me at the time, ‘Mr Keating, are you going to take a defamation action against Channel Nine and Mr Packer?’

I said, ‘No, I have much more expensive remedies in mind for him.’

The remedy I had in mind was to beat the cross-rule amendments in the Senate, which I succeeded in doing…

All those Sydney Morning Herald journalists who went on and on about my delinquency as far as the Herald’s interests were concerned forget the fact that I stopped two major proprietors getting hold of Fairfax. One was Rupert Murdoch, who sought my support in 1995 to take control of the Sydney Morning Herald, the Age and the Financial Review, and the second was Packer’s creeping ownership with a view to controlling the whole organisation, at which point I have no doubt he would have wrought vengeance on some of those same journalists.

KOB: When you knocked Murdoch back, how did he react?

PJK:…I said, ‘Rupert, the thing is, you own the current stable of newspapers. No one else is going to buy them from you, and while ever you own them, whether they’re in trust or not, we can never think of you owning any of the other mastheads.’

KOB: Did he accept that with equanimity?

PJK:  He didn’t remonstrate about it at the time but I think Ken Cowley [head of his Australian operation] had conditioned him that that was the answer he would likely get.

KOB: Was there a difference between Murdoch and Packer in that regard, as personalities? There was always that bullying side to Packer that he was notorious for. He could be charming one minute and verbally ripping your head off the next.

PJK: Rupert was always polite and, in the main, charming, even when you said no. You may pay a price later, but he was always polite.

-Paul Keating, Australian, 1944-

-Kerry O’Brien, Australian, 1945-

August 13, 2020

From Keating (2015) – 1

In a series of 2015 television interviews, veteran ABC journalist Kerry O’Brien probed former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating – who had always insisted he would never write an autobiography – on what made him and how he governed. Born in Darlinghurst in 1944 and growing up in Bankstown, he left school at 14 and joined the Australian Labor Party as soon as he was eligible. Here he recalls one of his earliest mentors, the tempestuous Jack Lang, who had been Premier of New South Wales before his 1932 dismissal by Governor Sir Phillip Game, and was later expelled from the mainstream Labor Party:

PJK: I used to see him twice a week for about seven years. Strangely he used to call me Mr Keating and I was only eighteen in those days. He was very formal. I used to address him as Mr Lang. Among other things, I asked him whether I should go and do a university degree, and he thought for a while before saying, ‘Mr Keating, you have too much to learn for a university degree, about the getting of power and the using of it. There are no courses in this’…

Paul Keating sponsors Jack Lang’s readmission into the Australian Labor Party, July 1971

He and I disagreed on a lot of policy fronts like protection and tariffs, and I’d say on much of the world debate I would probably have been on the other side to him. I didn’t want that from him. I wanted the dynamics, and how the game was played.

What I particularly picked up from Lang was his use of language, the force of his language. He had hugely long arms, as if they were concertinaed. They’d come out at you as he talked. He had the celluloid collar and the gold chain, and that big jaw, and he’d say, ‘Mr Keating, I’m telling you this’, and he’d lean across the table with a look that would bore a hole in you. He was then 87 or 88. There was no one like him then.

He used to say to me, ‘Always put your money on self-interest, son. He’s the best horse in the race; always a trier.’

KOB: I did an interview with you in 1986 where you described how you learned from Lang to be hard in your judgements. What did you mean by that?

PJK: Lang once said to me, ‘One of your problems, Mr Keating, is you take people at their word. This is a business where duplicity is the order of the day. Look for the best in people by all means, but keep a sceptical eye peeled for what they are saying to you and what they really mean. What you should look for is the support of the earnest people. There will be a lot whose support you will never have. But you will never be anyone until you have a reasonable stock of enemies.’ It’s the issues that sort people out. It’s just so true, because having enemies worries some people. For me, it’s a badge of honour. It’s never worried me that a group of people would not have a bar of me. And that’s the way Lang conducted his life.

Even so, I never really took that kind of almost morbid cynicism on board as an operating principle. I always found better in people in public life, and if you go through a caucus like I did for nearly 30 years, you’ve got to build coalitions and friendships with people. So there are people you trust. I never subscribed to the solitary school, that you’re on your own and only on your own, but I did subscribe to the fact that you’ve got to look at what is said to you and look behind it. You have to end up being a good judge of character and a good judge of what is really being said to you, as well as a good listener.

People may be members of a political party, but they get to Parliament in their own right. It’s like a team with a captain but the members of a team earn their place independently, so to stitch together majorities in Parliament continually, you’ve got to look at people to see what their interests are, what things they have in common, what natural point of agreement you have with them, or points of disagreement.

  -Paul Keating, Australian, 1944-

-Kerry O’Brien, Australian, 1945-

October 19, 2018

From The Mirror of the Sea (1906)

Born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski in a Polish-speaking part of the Russian Empire, Joseph Conrad went to sea in 1874, and drew on his experiences as a merchant seaman for his fiction. In his memoir The Mirror of the Sea, he looks back on the Sydney of the 1870s:

Watermen and their boats at Circular Quay, c.1890. (City of Sydney Archives)

These towns of the Antipodes, not so great then as they are now, took an interest in the shipping, the running links with “home,” whose numbers confirmed the sense of their growing importance.  They made it part and parcel of their daily interests.  This was especially the case in Sydney, where, from the heart of the fair city, down the vista of important streets, could be seen the wool-clippers lying at the Circular Quay—no walled prison-house of a dock that, but the integral part of one of the finest, most beautiful, vast, and safe bays the sun ever shone upon.  Now great steam-liners lie at these berths, always reserved for the sea aristocracy—grand and imposing enough ships, but here to-day and gone next week; whereas the general cargo, emigrant, and passenger clippers of my time, rigged with heavy spars, and built on fine lines, used to remain for months together waiting for their load of wool.  Their names attained the dignity of household words.  On Sundays and holidays the citizens trooped down, on visiting bent, and the lonely officer on duty solaced himself by playing the cicerone—especially to the citizenesses with engaging manners and a well-developed sense of the fun that may be got out of the inspection of a ship’s cabins and state-rooms.  The tinkle of more or less untuned cottage pianos floated out of open stern-ports till the gas-lamps began to twinkle in the streets, and the ship’s night-watchman, coming sleepily on duty after his unsatisfactory day slumbers, hauled down the flags and fastened a lighted lantern at the break of the gangway…

Circular Quay, c. 1888. View from the water looking south to Mort Co. (Woolbrokers) with banners “Many Happy Returns of the Day” (possibly on the occasion of the Centenary in January) and showing people gathered on the quay and a number of launches or ferries and tall ships. (Photo by Henry King 1880-1890, City of Sydney Archives)

A stupid job, and fit only for an old man, my comrades used to tell me, to be the night-watchman of a captive (though honoured) ship.  And generally the oldest of the able seamen in a ship’s crew does get it.  But sometimes neither the oldest nor any other fairly steady seaman is forthcoming.  Ships’ crews had the trick of melting away swiftly in those days.  So, probably on account of my youth, innocence, and pensive habits (which made me sometimes dilatory in my work about the rigging), I was suddenly nominated, in our chief mate Mr. B—’s most sardonic tones, to that enviable situation.  I do not regret the experience.  The night humours of the town descended from the street to the waterside in the still watches of the night: larrikins rushing down in bands to settle some quarrel by a stand-up fight, away from the police, in an indistinct ring half hidden by piles of cargo, with the sounds of blows, a groan now and then, the stamping of feet, and the cry of “Time!” rising suddenly above the sinister and excited murmurs; night-prowlers, pursued or pursuing, with a stifled shriek followed by a profound silence, or slinking stealthily alongside like ghosts, and addressing me from the quay below in mysterious tones with incomprehensible propositions. The cabmen, too, who twice a week, on the night when the A.S.N. Company’s passenger-boat was due to arrive, used to range a battalion of blazing lamps opposite the ship, were very amusing in their way.  They got down from their perches and told each other impolite stories in racy language, every word of which reached me distinctly over the bulwarks as I sat smoking on the main-hatch.  On one occasion I had an hour or so of a most intellectual conversation with a person whom I could not see distinctly, a gentleman from England, he said, with a cultivated voice, I on deck and he on the quay sitting on the case of a piano (landed out of our hold that very afternoon), and smoking a cigar which smelt very good.  We touched, in our discourse, upon science, politics, natural history, and operatic singers.  Then, after remarking abruptly, “You seem to be rather intelligent, my man,” he informed me pointedly that his name was Mr. Senior, and walked off—to his hotel, I suppose.  Shadows!  Shadows!  I think I saw a white whisker as he turned under the lamp-post.  It is a shock to think that in the natural course of nature he must be dead by now.  There was nothing to object to in his intelligence but a little dogmatism maybe.  And his name was Senior!  Mr. Senior!

Circular Quay , with ruins of Dawes Battery in the foreground with a small steamer berthed in (now) Campbells Cove. The spire and lookout of the AUSN building is at far right. Campbell’s bond stores below the AUSN tower. (City of Sydney Archives)

The position had its drawbacks, however. One wintry, blustering, dark night in July, as I stood sleepily out of the rain under the break of the poop something resembling an ostrich dashed up the gangway. I say ostrich because the creature, though it ran on two legs, appeared to help its progress by working a pair of short wings; it was a man, however, only his coat, ripped up the back and flapping in two halves above his shoulders, gave him that weird and fowl-like appearance. At least, I suppose it was his coat, for it was impossible to make him out distinctly. How he managed to come so straight upon me, at speed and without a stumble over a strange deck, I cannot imagine. He must have been able to see in the dark better than any cat. He overwhelmed me with panting entreaties to let him take shelter till morning in our forecastle. Following my strict orders, I refused his request, mildly at first, in a sterner tone as he insisted with growing impudence.

Circular Quay, c. 1890. (City of Sydney Archives)

“For God’s sake let me, matey!  Some of ’em are after me—and I’ve got hold of a ticker here.”

“You clear out of this!” I said.

“Don’t be hard on a chap, old man!” he whined pitifully.

“Now then, get ashore at once.  Do you hear?”

Silence.  He appeared to cringe, mute, as if words had failed him through grief; then—bang! came a concussion and a great flash of light in which he vanished, leaving me prone on my back with the most abominable black eye that anybody ever got in the faithful discharge of duty.  Shadows!  Shadows!  I hope he escaped the enemies he was fleeing from to live and flourish to this day.  But his fist was uncommonly hard and his aim miraculously true in the dark.

 -Joseph Conrad, Polish-British, 1857-1924

March 16, 2017

From The Evidence to the Bigge Reports – The Written Evidence (1971)

Surgeon William Redfern went further in a letter to Commissoner John Thomas Bigge after their unhappy interview:

5 February 1821

At length, Sir, when you had examined all the underlings of the Hospital, & acquired the information you deemed necessary from sources whose purity & respectability I shall shortly delineate, without once intimating either to Mr. Wentworth or Myself the course of procedure you had adopted, I was by your desire introduced at 9 O’Clock at night – on the 26th June – the depth of winter – into your presence.

The appearance of the Room, – the Piles of Books, the dress of yourself & Secretary, the gravity of your countenance, the awful Solemnity with which you made your opening speech – the threatenings you denounced, the dreadful charges you had to exhibit against me, not forgetting the stale trick in imitation of Banquo’s Ghost, forcibly impressed on my mind the introduction of some unhappy victim, Clothed
in his Santo Venito, with his own picture pourtrayed [sic] thereon, surrounded with the figures of flames & Devils, to the inquisitorial Hall at Madrid, preparatory to the Auto Da Fe.

That memorable speech, conversation, & questions, so artfully calculated to wound & insult my feelings, have made too deep an impression on My Mind ever to be forgotten. The quiver of your lip, the curl of your nose, the expression of your eye – in short, your tout-ensemble, revealed to me your very thoughts & intentions, as a Mirror exhibits the person of him who stands before it. I clearly perceived your intention was to alarm and intimidate and in the event of a failure in that object, to irritate me to a breach of good manners. How far you succeeded in either the one or the other, I must leave you, Sir, to Judge. On calmly considering, at this distant period, the scene, the language you made use of, the manner in which you uttered it, I feel amazed that I could have remained one moment in your house, or that I could ever have been induced again to enter it. Nothing, Sir, but the high respect I entertain for His Majesty’s Commission, which you have the honor of holding, could possibly have induced me to listen for a Moment to such insulting language.

You were aware, Sir, that I had expressed my opinion on the arrest of Govr. Bligh in strong terms of reprobation & condemnation of that measure. You questioned me on it, by way of conversation; Nor did your sarcastic sneer on that occasion escape my observation…

We conversed, & you questioned me, on My appointment – My Commission – my remission of Sentence – by whom granted – whether it had passed the Great Seal – the Hospital, the Contract – the Specification – its mode of finishing – My Medical education. But how you noted down my remarks on these subjects, I shall have an opportunity of noticing in the emendation of My evidence in examination before
you – and which you caused to be transmitted to me on the 3d instant.

At length, Sir, when you went so far as to tell me that I had appropriated large quantities of Medicines Tin ware, & Spices to my own use & emolument; that I had written an insulting letter to your very redoubtable & Manly Protegé, Mr. Bowman, expressing My Sentiments of his ungentlemanlike conduct in visiting the Hospital whilst in my charge, unattended by Mr. Wentworth or Myself; and in questioning My Apprentice relative to the treatment of My Patients; and desiring him not to repeat his intrusion. Writing this letter was heresy & treason not to be forgiven. When you went so far Sir, as to question me respecting my chastising my apprentice & one of my servants; and when you told me that if there were an Attorney General in the Colony, you would proceed against me in a different way; It became high time to resist – and I then determined no longer to submit to such a course of proceeding.

The only regret I now feel on the subject, a regret I shall feel to the last Moment of my existence, is, that, when you, Sir, in my estimation, descended from the dignity becoming His Majesty’s Commissioner of Enquiry, to a mode of examination by Menaces of heavy charges to be preferred against me, in order to confuse, perplex, & intimidate me, in a Manner More becoming a Spanish Inquisitor, I did submit to it for a Single Moment; – that I did not make you a low bow, and instantly retire from your presence.

-William Redfern, English, 1774-1833

February 17, 2017

From The Evidence to the Bigge Reports – The Oral Evidence (1971)

Royal Commissioner John Thomas Bigge arrived in Australia in 1819, sent by Secretary of State for the Colonies Lord Bathurst to investigate ‘all the laws regulations and usages of the settlements.’ Surgeon William Redfern had been a surgeon’s mate on HMS Standard  when he was sentenced to death for his role in the 1797 Nore mutiny, commuted to transportation. Bigge’s interview with Redfern on the state of hospitals and health in the infant colony did not go well, according to Redfern’s notes on the minutes of his evidence:

26 June 1820

  1. When & by whom were you appointed assist. Surgeon?
    I was appointed by Lt. Col. Foveaux in May 1802, to fill the situation of surgeon at Norfolk Island.
  1. How long did you remain there?
    Until September 1804. I was then relieved by Mr. Wentworth at Norfolk Island & I continued to assist him & Mr. Conellan until 17 May 1808. I then came to this place in the Month of June of that year through the persuasion of Col. Foveaux & Mr. Wentworth I accepted of the situation of assist. Surgeon of this place where I have remained ever since I received a local commission from Lt. Govr. Foveaux dated “1st Augt. 1808”.
  1. You were I believe recommended by Col Foveaux to His Majesty’s Government; & received a commission from His Royal Highness the P. Regent? 
    I did, & my recommendation from Col Foveaux was supported by Govr. Macquarie.
    I now produce Col. Foveaux recommendation in the hand writing of his Secretary Mr. Finncane (No. 3) Certificate of qualification (No. 2), Notification of Confirmation (No. 4) & Commission (No. 5).
  1. Are you a member of any Medical Society in England Scotland or Ireland?
    I passed an examination in London before the examiners of the Company of Surgeons but I am not a member of any Medical Society.

I must beg leave here to remind you Sir; of the great astonishment which you affected at my having said I had passed the usual examination before the Court of Examiners of the Company of Surgeons in London, observing “Mr. Redfern you must mistake, I think they are called “The Royal College of Surgeons”. I then explained that “at the time I had undergone examination (Jany. 1797) the[y] were then the Company of Surgeons”.

…Now, Sir, with regard to my not belonging to any Medical Society in England, Scotland or Ireland, I beg leave to say that it can make nothing against me. Few, very Few Medical Men in those days entered into the Navy other than I did – that is without Diplomas from any Medical or Surgical Society, as you are pleased to denominate them. And indeed if the[y] had had those Diplomas, which rarely happened they were still obliged to undergo the same examination before the “Court of Examiners of the Surgeons Company”. In those days it was not quite so fashionable to be dubbed an M.D. from St. Andrew, where I might for the customary fee have procured one for My Horse; nor to throw away the fees for a Surgeons Diploma, when certain length of Service in the Army or Navy entitled them to all or nearly all the priviledges external to the College or Company. How Many Medical Men are there in the Colony who have any other claims than to “Chalk & Grinding” – and some of them not even that – merely the Fee for St. Andrews Degree of M.D.

  1. Where did you perform your Medical Studies?
    In London.

John Thomas Bigge, n.d. (State Library of Queensland)

John Thomas Bigge, n.d. (State Library of Queensland)

  1. You were Assist. Surgeon in the Navy?
    I was surgeon’s first Mate of His Majesty’s Ship Standard.

…When in my reply to your question “You were Assistant Surgeon in the Navy” I answered I was Surgeons Mate of His Majesty’s Ship Standard, the smile of exultation gleamed on your countenance in a manner which, tho I cannot describe, I shall never forget – I perceived at the moment, that you mentally said, “better & better”.

  1. How long did you remain in that situation?
    I served for a few Months.
  1. Was your sentence that of Transportation for Life?
    I suppose it was, for it was never communicated to me, I was sentenced to Death, but was strongly recommended on account of my youth. I was then about nineteen years of age.
  1. From whom did you receive your remission of sentence & when, was it absolute or conditional?
    I recd. an absolute Pardon from Govr. King. By the hand of Col. Foveaux. It bears date 4th June 1802.

I do further contend, Sir, that your questions but more particularly your conversation, connected with the Queries 7, 8 & 9, on the subject of the Secretaryship to the Mutineers & to Parker; on My Sentence & Pardon, whether it had passed the Great Seal, was most artfully & cruelly calculated to harrow up, wound & insult my feelings & that the question you put, but did not note down “Whether My Pardon had passed the Great Seal”, was asked in a manner to convey this impression “Take Care, Sir, Mind what you are about, otherwise I shall [take] such steps as shall prevent its ever passing it.” You will please to recollect this was about the time the question of the validity & effect of the Governor’s pardons was agitated & called into Public notice by the Judges.

William Redfern (State Library pf NSW)

William Redfern (State Library of NSW)

I beg leave to add, Sir, that in consequence of not seeing these examinations till Monday the fifth instant; of being up Country on the 3rd & 4th, & occupied in writing by letter under date the 5 inst when I returned, and attending to other pursuits, I have had no opportunity of correcting & animadverting upon more than the 9th Query, and that I beg you clearly understand that I do not sign these examinations as corrected any further than the 9 query, but that  I shall now send these examinations to you on this express condition, that I shall consider Myself at full liberty to correct, explain and animadvert on such parts of it as I may think proper. And I do further say that there are numerous & important omissions of My explanations given on examination, the insertion of which I consider essential to my reputation & character in a moral & professional point of view, & that those corrections I shall feel it My duty to send you ere Your departure if you happen to remain long enough, otherwise to deliver them to you in London on my arrival there…

-William Redfern, English, 1774-1833

-John Thomas Bigge, English, 1780-1843

 

March 13, 2016

From Backyard of Mars: Memoirs of the “Reffo” Period in Australia (1980)

The Hungarian journalist Emery Barcs arrived in Australia in August 1939, escaping the climate of rising fascism in his homeland. He would later be briefly interned as an ‘enemy alien’, but things began promisingly:

It was still pitch dark on Friday, August 25, the fourth morning of our arrival, when I stood in front of the newsagent’s opposite the Coogee tram terminus, impatiently waiting for the shop to open. Bundles of newspapers tied with string lay on the ground: among them the Daily Telegraph with, I hoped, my first article written for an Australian publication. I decided to kill time by walking along the promenade.

Stepping out fast to beat the pre-dawn cold, I thought of my meeting with C.S. McNulty, editor of the Daily Telegraph on Wednesday afternoon. At that time there was no sign of Mac’s later corpulence: he was a slim man of slightly less than medium height with a rather conventional face, but with exceptionally alert eyes behind a pair of thick spectacles. His movements were fast, as if he were always in a hurry. He quizzed me about the situation in Europe and agreed that if rumors about an understanding between Hitler and Stalin were true, war would be inevitable. He thought that a Nazi-Soviet agreement was improbable because the two political systems were so profoundly opposed.

I reminded him of the co-operation between Nazis and Communists in Germany to bring about the fall of the democratic Weimar Republic, then I told him that years before, Potemkin, at the time Soviet Ambassador to Rome, had remarked to me in an unguarded moment that ‘Stalin never leaves an insult unavenged.’ Wasn’t the action of the Anglo-French in ignoring Stalin at the time of the Munich conference an insult?

As we were talking, a smallish man with a big mop of curly dark hair bushy eyebrows and flashing eyes rushed into the room. Without even looking at me he said in an unusually clear, rather high-pitched voice:

‘Germany and Russia have just announced an agreement on a non-aggression pact.’

‘Blimey!’ ejaculated McNulty, ‘We were just talking about this.’

The small man looked at me questioningly and McNulty introduced us: ‘Brian Penton, our news editor,’ he said, then explained who I was. The name meant nothing to me, but I felt sure that I had seen that superbly intelligent, reckless, sensuous and more Mediterranean than Anglo-Saxon face somewhere. Then it came to me: a Greek satyr, of course.

Brian Penton Esq. by Sir William Dobell, 1943 (Packer Collection)

Brian Penton Esq. by Sir William Dobell, 1943 (Packer Collection)

‘Why not write an article for us?’ said Penton, after McNulty had told him what I had just said about Stalin’s revengeful nature. ‘Bring it in early in the afternoon for Friday’s paper.’

This meant putting ‘Operation Martha’ into motion immediately and not the following week when I had planned to write my first article for the Argus. When I delivered it to Brian Penton he told me to see the Features Editor, Mr Pearl.

‘The eminent Dr Barcs, I presume,’ said Cyril Pearl, I thought with a whiff of sarcasm as he greeted me with a warm smile. He looked about my age. He was slim, wore thick spectacles, a green shirt with a yellow tie and a suit that seemed to have been thrown on with a pitchfork. With his sensitive, intellectual face and his clothes he could have melted smoothly into any of my old haunts on the Paris Left Bank. He was extremely courteous, even friendly, but everything he said contained a touch of disconcerting irony; I wondered whether this was a sign of self-defence or aggression. After glancing through my article he asked me to write another for the following Monday’s paper.

Cyril Pearl, by William Pidgeon, c.1945. (National Library of Australia)

Cyril Pearl, by William Pidgeon, c.1945. (National Library of Australia)

Walking back to the Coogee terminal in the grey dawn I decided that my second piece for the Telegraph (which I also intended to send to Mr Knox) should be about the dangers of the Soviet-German pact to the small nations of Eastern Europe.

The newsagent was just cutting open the bundles of newspapers when I entered his shop. I bought a Telegraph. On page eight I found my article with a flattering by-line. To see my name in print was nothing new to me, yet this was different, and I walked back to the boarding house with the heady feeling of an athlete who has won a race which seemed so impossibly difficult at the start. Even before I reached the door doubts began to assail me. Had I diagnosed the situation correctly? After all, the world was still at peace. Hitler was still only rattling his military hardware and shouting himself hoarse about the ‘just claims’ of the Third Reich. Stalin’s propaganda hailed the Ribbentrop-Molotov agreement as a vital contribution to the preservation of peace. The two dictators were now friends, even if only for the sake of convenience. Yet my article suggested that war was inevitable and that within hours the Nazis would attack Poland. ‘Stalin,’ I wrote, ‘Must know that if Germany defeats Poland he ought to fight against the Germans who yearn for the corn factories of the Ukraine.’

Later that afternoon we went to Repin’s Pitt Street café which the Hungarians had chosen as their meeting place because they served two cups of coffee and a biscuit for sixpence, and because one could sit there in off-peak hours and talk as long as one liked. The Szalays were there, and George told us with mock resentment that Martha had driven him out at six in the morning to buy a Telegraph. She was elated that only very minor changes had been made in her translation.

Yushnij, the illustrious compere of Blue Bird, the excellent White-Russian vaudeville group which toured the globe between the two World Wars, used to refer to certain people as ‘world famous in their own families’. When many of my fellow Hungarians came to our table to congratulate me on the article, I too had the feeling of this sort of glory. ‘At least,’ said George, ‘Your example shows that not all Australian doors remain closed when you knock on them.’

-Emery Barcs, Hungarian-Australian, 1905-1990

February 15, 2016

From The Diaries of Beatrice Webb (1898) – 2

The Webbs go on to observe the political leaders of NSW, who would both become Prime Ministers of Australia:

October 9

Thursday: We had Archibald, Editor of the Bulletin, to lunch; Sidney lectured to a select audience on Municipal Government in England: an excellent lecture which though not touching on the municipal affairs of Sydney was felt every word of it to be apposite. Pompous old Sir George Dibbs was there and as I rose in response to the Chairman’s request for a few words, he whispered loudly, “No socialism, no radicalism please.” So I gave them chaff: much to the delight of the more advanced portion of the audience. Then we adjourned to the House just in time to hear the last paragraphs of Barton’s speech and the whole of Reid’s reply on the vote of censure – neither the one nor the other was impressive. Saturday we spent the whole day with Ashton and Reid, cruising about the waters of the National Park pretending to fish. Reid was in his holiday humour: that is to say he was always dropping off to sleep, in between telling and chuckling over some little details of his parliamentary manipulation. He has no intellectual interest in political questions: no desire to lead the country in one direction or another; but if you accept this absence of intellectual or moral distinction, he is good company with his humour, shrewdness and kind-heartedness. Moreover, one cannot fail to respect his financial integrity and rough and ready desire for efficient government.

 

George Reid, c. 1905 (National Library of Australia)

George Reid, c. 1905 (National Library of Australia)

To-day we have had Barton, the leader of the Opposition, to lunch. He has the face of an actor or preacher, he is a cultured man and appreciates an intellectual point. Perhaps he is more anxious than Reid to make things go in the direction he believes to be right. He hardly looks capable of a hard day’s work, certainly not of years of persistent labour. And outside Federation he seems to have few political ideas: he has neither Reid’s shrewd knowledge of human nature nor his unselfconsciousness, nor his persistency, nor his skill as a professional politician. Barton strikes us as an amateur uncertain of the worth-whileness of his hobby; he is perpetually asking himself whether he wishes to remain in politics. He likens Reid in only one respect: he looks as if he chronically over-ate himself; but even here Reid has the advantage in being jovial over it instead of dyspeptic. When Reid is replete he nods off to sleep; when Barton has eaten more than he can digest I am convinced that he is irritable.

–Beatrice Webb, English, 1858-1943

Edmund Barton, 1903 (National Library of Australia)

Edmund Barton, 1903 (National Library of Australia)

February 11, 2016

From The Diaries of Beatrice Webb (1898) – 1

Fabian Society members Sidney and Beatrice Webb visited Australia in 1898. By and large, they were not impressed:

October 5

A long conversation with the intelligent principal shopman in the largest bookstore in Sydney (the proprietor, by the way, a man of 35 or so, was standing at the door at 5 p.m. considerably “in liquor”). The shopman was a refined and rather depressed man of literary tastes. He said there was no sale for anything but cheap novels, supplied from England in Colonial editions at from sixpence to half a crown. The rich people bought little or nothing else, and many purchased nothing more literary than the weekly editions of the newspapers (the Australasian and the Sydney Mail chiefly). A newly enriched man had lately given them an order for £100 of books, all light literature, principally cheap novels. There had been something of a boom in cheap sociology eight years ago, but that had quite died out. But the young Australian writers – Lawson, Paterson, Daley – were now selling well and he still sold about a thousand copies a year of Gordon’s poems, which were known to every bushman. He attributed this popularity to Gordon’s reputation as the best and most fearless rider ever known in Australia, and to his poems dealing with horseracing. There had been a little set of bookbuyers in Melbourne, but this had died out. Australia had one great and wealthy collector – Mr Mitchell of Sydney – who collected every scrap relating to Australia – old newspapers, pamphlets etc. He complained that English newspapers or publishers would not accept Australian MSS – his wife wrote, and he had tried to place both her and others’ MSS in England in vain. The Australian public would not buy Australian productions until these had the English approval; Rolf Boldrewood himself could not sell his works until Bentley had brought out Robbery Under Arms.

The Bulletin, he said, had really been “made” by a dissolute but very clever Frenchman named Argles, who wrote the dramatic criticism, and originated the present characteristic style of the whole paper. But Argles worked through Archibald the principal editor, on whom he had a great influence until his (Argles) death from consumption. Now Archibald had gathered round him a brilliant staff of young Bohemians.

Beatrice Webb, c.1875 (London School of Economics)

Beatrice Webb, c.1875 (London School of Economics)

October 7

Dined at the Women’s College. A refined and intelligent Scotch woman (a graduate of London University) Miss Macdonell [sic] is the Principal, and has gathered from all parts of New South Wales and Queensland, 14 students. Like the rest of the University the Women’s College is depressed; is, in fact, struggling into life in spite of the steady indifference, if not hostility, of Australian Society. “Let the women keep to the kitchen” said a wealthy man who was asked for a subscription; and he fairly represented Australian opinion. And yet the cooking is so bad! As far as one can make out, the Australian girls spend their time in making their own clothes, except when they are wearing them in the company of young men. The clothes are fresh and flashy: powder and paint ruin complexions and the women age rapidly. The women of Australia are not her finest product.

–Beatrice Webb, English, 1858-1943