Number 20, 1992 the Historical Society of South Australia
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JOURNAL of the HISTORICAL SOCIETY of SOUTH AUSTRALIA o NUMBER 20, 1992 THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA Founded 1974 Objects: JOURNAL (a)to arouse interest in and to promote the study and discussion of South Australian and Australian history. (b)to promote the collection, preservation and classification of source material of all kinds relating to South Australian and of the Australian history. (c)to publish historical records and articles. (d)to promote the interchange of information among members of the Society by lectures, readings, discussions and exhibitions. HISTORICAL SOCIETY (e)to co- operate with similar Societies throughout Australia. (f)to do all such things as arë conducive or incidental to the attainment of the above objects or any of them. of COUNCIL 1991 SOUTH AUSTRALIA PATRON: Sir Walter Crocker, K.B.E PRESIDENT: Dr R.P.J. Nicol VICE PRESIDENT: Mr B.J. Samuels SECRETARY: Ms M. Dunshore TREASURER: Mrs A. Huckel MEMBERSHIP SECRETARY: Mrs E. Ulbrich JOURNAL EDITOR: Dr J.D. Playford, O.A.M. MEMBERS: Mr H. Angas Mr D. Cornish Mr R.M. Gibbs, A.M. NUMBER 20, 1992 Mr M. Keain Mr J. Loudon Dr P. Payne Ms P. Sumerling Editor: John Playford NEWSLETTER EDITOR: Dr I.A. Harmstorf AUDITOR: Mr K. Banfield All enquiries about membership of the Society or purchase of the Journal should be directed to the Secretary, The Historical Society of South Australia, Institute Building, 122 Kintore Avenue, Adelaide, SA 5000. Correspondence with the Editor of the Journal should be directed to the same address. Contents Articles The Adelaide College of Music and its Founder P.A. Howell 5 South Australian Wine and the London Market 1858 -1876 George Bell 38 Florence Nightingale and the Australian Aborigines Keith Seaman 90 Looking Back with a Light Heart Stewart Cockburn 97 Three South Australian Librarians: Some Personal Recollections Colin Badger 105 Sowing New Seed: A Question of Propriety Patricia Sumerling 125 Why was Fort Glanville Built? Michael Lucke 136 Darnley Naylor and the League of Nations V.A. Edgeloe 147 Nominated and Selected Government- Assisted Immigration from the United Kingdom to Australia, 1848 -1900 Ralph Shlomowitz 151 Reviews Playford: Benevolent Despot. Stewart Cockbum (A.W. Martin) 156 Flinders University: The First 25 Years 1966 -1991. David Hilliard (PA. Lockwood) 159 R Hugh Cairns: First Nuffield Professor of Surgery, University of Oxford. G.J. Fraenkel (Walter Crocker) 161 Le Messuriers of Port Adelaide: Five Generations of Enterprise in The Adelaide College of Music Transport and Timber. John Tregenza (Eric Richards) 163 and its Founder The Torrens Park Estate: A Social and Architectural History. Ken Preiss and Pamela Obom (Howard Zelling) 165 P.A. Howell * Cradle of Adversity. Rob Linn (Geoff Manning) 168 Rudall: The Four Rudalls I Knew. Peter B. Wells (John Playford). .. 169 The Adelaide College of Music, which wouldmore accurately have been called `the Adelaide College of Popular Music', Report was a remarkable institution which in the early 1960s had an enrolment of almost 10,000 pupils, either inthe city or The Society's Activities, 1991 171 at various branches and sub - branches in suburban and country districts.It was even more remarkable in that it was founded and long conducted bya person who had had no musical training: Jack Ellerton Becker. Corrections 170 That was not the only unusual thing about Becker. He becamea millionaire in the 1950s, when a million pounds was stillan awe - inspiring sum, and in 1961 -2 he was made a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Scienceand given a knighthood, in recognition of his commitment to give £100,000 (increasedto £200,000 in November 1961) to that Academyover a period of ten years. Let me say at once that I think it an excellent practice to reward with honours those who voluntarily give large amounts of theirown time or money to good causes, because it undoubtedly encourages others to do likewise.Moreover, such honours are far better justified than were the knighthoods which usedto be conferred as a matter of course on senior civilservants and all the captains of industry and commerce, for in those cases peoplewere simply being honoured for performing duties for which they had beenvery well indeed, in some casesextremely well paid. In this instance, however,some leading academi- cians appear to have experienced funny internal feelingsthat it would be embarrassing if the public concluded thatsomeone had been able to purchase admission to their ranks, and so they represented that Beckermerited distinction on the basis of his efforts as a man of science. Accordingly, the certificate of candidature for his fellowship stated that he had 'pioneered theinvestigation which led to the discovery of trace- element deficiencies inthe Ninety-mile Desert of South Australia'.' That is arrantnonsense, as will be explained later. But the fantasy did not end there. In an obituary published in Editorial Committee: the Academy's R.M. Gibbs, R.P.J. Nicol, J.D. Playford, W.S. Stacy The Historical Society of South Australia gratefully acknowledges the support I W.P. Rogers, `Jack Ellerton Becker 1904 - 1979', Historical Records of AustralianScience, Vol. 5, No. 3 of the History Trust of South Australia in the production of this Journal. (1982), p. 103. ISSN 0312 -9640 * Associate Professor Peter Howell is Reader in Historyat the Flinders University of South Australia P.A. Howell 7 6 The Adelaide College of Music and its Founder Historical Records of Australian Science, it was suggested that Becker had been became an accountant. In the last decades of his working life, Percy Becker was educated at Unley High School and at the University ofAdelaide.' Diligent employed, mainly in clerical work, by H. Graves & Co., the carriers, of Currie searches have discovered no trace of his attending either of those institutions, Street.' Because Becker junior wore his heart so plainly on his sleeve, in although Unley High's records show that the younger of his sisters, Dorothy expressing his loyalty to the British Empire during Hitler's War, some people have suspected that he was of German descent. Indeed, the political activities Mabel Becker, was a pupil at that school 2 in South Australia of one German migrant, Dr Johannes Heinrich Becker, were It would seem that some members of the Academy's Council were a little too ready to accept the image of himself that Becker strove to cultivate. They were winning notoriety at the same time that our Becker became a celebrity. But while German ancestry seems highly likely, J.E. Becker's family had been in South not the only ones to be taken in. Relentless in his quest for status aswell as wealth, by the 1950s Becker was not content to boast that he was a pastoral Australia for several generations. His father had been born on 22 August 1878 company proprietor. Besides posing as a personwho had had five years of at Palmerston in the Northern Territory, the son of Frederick Emmanuel Becker, tertiary education in science, he claimed to be of solid bourgeois parentage,and police trooper of Yam Creek, and his wife, Helena Evelina, nee Bryan.2 conned a surprising number of people into believing that his father had been'a Frederick ultimately became a prison superintendent. At least two other Beckers leading city accountant' 3 He liked people to think that his family's affluence had been prison officers in colonial South Australia and, as Emeritus Professor Rogers has suggested, it is probable that J.E. Becker's great- grandfather was had been such as to enable him to spend a year travelling and studying inthe one of these.3 Jack Becker was apprenticed at an early age to the jewellery United Statesbefore returning to become, at the age of 22, 'musical instrument manufacturing firm, S. Schlank & Co. Ltd, which also employed the young manager' at the Adelaide showrooms of Allans Ltd, which was still in the process Marcus (afterwards Sir Mark) Oliphant at that time. Michael Schlank (himself of expanding to become a nation -wide firm selling musical instruments and of German descent) was the Beckers' next -door neighbour in North Unley and sheet - music.` He even led some pressmen to believe that all his grandparents had been English or Scottish,5 and one journalist helped to disseminate the a close friend of Percy Becker.4 In 1921, Schlanks sent young Becker to attend notion that Becker's wife's family were members of the Tasmanianlanded Chemistry I lectures at the School of Mines not at the University of Adelaide. He did not attend any practical classes, nor did he sit for the exams. He was gentry.6 re- enrolled for the same subject in 1922, but once again shunned the laboratories What was the background of the Adelaide College of Music's founder?He and the examination rooms.' was born on 4 October 1904 at his parents'home in North Unley, South From his youth, Becker's acquaintances were struck by his unusual capacity Australia, the second child and only son of Percy Harold Becker, a clerk,and for charming people and inspiring confidence. They also noticed that he was his wife Mabel Martha, nee Gully. That modest house, incidentally, wasnamed obsessed with money making schemes .6 At an age when many of his contem- 'Ellerton' ,7 which is not without interest when it is realised that our subject poraries were still at school, he decided to capitalise on the craze for popular fifteen called himself 'Jack Becker' until the mid- 1920s, then 'J.E. Becker' for music. He taught himself to play the banjo, having equipped himself with one years, 'J. Ellerton Becker' in the 1940s and 1950s,and chose the style, 'Sir of those handbooks styled 'self- tutors', and proceeded to learn other band Ellerton Becker' when he gained his knighthood in 1962.