A Clamour of Voices: Negotiations of Power and Purpose in Australian Spoken-Word Radio from 1924 to 1942

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A Clamour of Voices: negotiations of power and purpose in Australian spoken-word radio from 1924 to 1942

JENNIFER MARY BOWEN

ORCID ID: 0000-0001-7595-9978

Submitted in total fulfilment of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy December 2018

School of Historical and Philosophical Studies University of Melbourne

Abstract

Radio broadcasting began in Australia as a commercial enterprise in the aftermath of World War I, with musicians and artistes offering audiences entertainment after the grief and divisiveness of the war years. However, the microphone also attracted a range of individuals and institutions who quickly saw an opportunity to speak: they wanted their voices to be heard in public and through their insistence, radio became such a place.

This thesis views the history of early radio in Australia through the prism of its spoken-word output to argue that broadcasting was shaped not just by commercial interests and governmental bodies but also by the engagement of a diverse set of people concerned to communicate their ideas with fellow citizens. Previous studies have looked separately at the use of early radio by politicians, philosophers and feminists; the argument of this thesis is that radio was a shared space of mutual encounter for many interest groups. Their level of purpose and access to power varied, with consequences for their efficacy as broadcasters; their active involvement with radio, as a site of negotiation, exposed tensions around authority, control, and modes of representation in public life.

The argument is developed by examining the shifting relationships between government regulators, broadcasting stations, those who sought to speak on air, and those who might listen. The dual system of public and commercial broadcasting that evolved in Australia gave rise to a porous boundary between the insiders and outsiders who influenced its development. The thesis examines the role of government alongside a series of case studies characterised by profession, ideology, gender and race. Programme content and form will be analysed as they were the means of realising broadcasters’ intentions; radio’s place within a larger media landscape is examined to take account of overseas rebroadcasting and the domestic press, particularly the latter’s part in the construction of listener subjectivity. While the primary focus is on broadcasters, the positioning and response of listeners will be discussed. This study draws on an extensive archive of primary source material, while also engaging with scholarly discussions of radio as a public sphere.

This thesis shows how early spoken-word radio in Australia energised many individuals and groups: it gave rise to fresh consideration of civic engagement in a democracy and the role of government in developing this. In addition, the issue of broadcasting itself became a matter of public debate. The urge to be heard in public persists to the present: contemporary movements engaging with media can look to the initial campaigns around radio as an originary moment whose strategies and objectives, successes and failures are illuminating today. 2

DECLARATION PAGE

This is to certify that:

(i) the thesis comprises only my original work towards the PhD

(ii) due acknowledgement has been made in the text to all other materials used; and

(iii) the thesis is fewer that 100,000 words in length, exclusive of tables, maps, bibliographies and appendices. 3

Acknowledgements

I am delighted to acknowledge the many people who have assisted me in writing this thesis.

My supervisors, Professors Joy Damousi and David Goodman, have offered continuous support and encouragement; they showed boundless enthusiasm for my project and nudged me to consider new directions. I am enormously grateful for the way they helped make this project so fulfilling.

It is a pleasure to acknowledge Catherine Hall and Samia Khatun who taught an inspiring elective course, ‘Race, Gender, Empire’, at the University of Melbourne in 2015, and Robert Hassan of the School of Culture and Communications whose post-graduate seminar I attended.

I have benefited from presenting ideas at conferences in Australia and Europe; these trips were assisted by the University of Melbourne Faculty of Arts and the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies. I am most appreciative of their help.

I am indebted to many archivists and librarians without whom I could not have undertaken the research required for this thesis; their support and interest in the project was always encouraging. I became familiar with the resources at the National Archives of Australia in Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra, the State Libraries of Victoria and NSW, and the National Library of Australia: special thanks to archivist Edmund Rutlidge at the National Archives in Chester Hill. I was well looked after during visits to the Archives of the Universities of Melbourne and Sydney and am particularly grateful to the archivists at the Universities of Adelaide and Western Australia who searched for relevant material to send to me. I also thank John Spence and Guy Tranter from the ABC Sound Archives and Document Archives in Sydney for their generous assistance. I spent productive time at the libraries of the Australian War Memorial and AIATSIS in Canberra, as well as a short visit to the BBC Written Archives Centre in the UK, where I was ably attended by Louise North. Siobhan Dee at the National Film and Sound Archives in Melbourne has been extremely helpful. I extend great thanks to the librarians at the Baillieu library at the University of Melbourne for their warmth and assistance.

Thanking fellow students is a great pleasure – their passion for their own research and the whole project of history created an excellent environment for research. Particular thanks to Henry Reese, Shan Windscript, Jimmy Yan, Susan Reidy, Melissa Afentoulis and Phoebe Kelloway for their camaraderie and sharing of ideas. Thanks also to Kylie Andrews and Walter Struve for conversations on shared topics of interest. I had the good fortune in 2018 to meet Peter Woods and Jenny Betteridge, grandchildren of ABC Chairman William Cleary, and I am grateful to Cecilie Bearup for permission to access the papers of her father, Thomas Bearup.

I would also like to thank Sharon Davidson, Damien Prentice, Michelle Rayner, Judith Klepner, Julius Roe, Marion Crooke and members of the Preston Symphony Orchestra for their unflagging interest in the minutest details of my research. And I cannot say enough to thank my family – Andrew, Sam, Lucy, Vera, Leo and Ernest – for their love and more. Finally, I want to acknowledge my sister whose time, energy and patience were utterly limitless and give the last word to Anne Bowen.

Abbreviations

AAAS Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science AAL Aborigines Advancement League (Victoria) AASW Australian Association of Scientific Workers ABC Australian Broadcasting Commission AIF Australian Imperial Force ALP Australian Labor Party ANU Australian National University ANZAAS Australian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science ANZAC Australian and New Zealand Army Corps APA Aborigines’ Progressive Association (NSW) AWA Amalgamated Wireless (Australasia) Ltd. AWNL Australian Women’s National League BBC British Broadcasting Corporation BBC WAC BBC Written Archives Centre BMA British Medical Association CPA Communist Party of Australia CSIR Council for Scientific and Industrial Research CWA Country Women’s Association DOI Department of Information FDR Franklin Delano Roosevelt IBU International Broadcasting Union LNU League of Nations Union NAA National Archives of Australia NLA National Library of Australia PM Prime Minister [Australia] PMG Postmaster General RSSILA Returned Soldiers and Sailors Imperial League of Australia (later RSL) SLNSW State Library of New South Wales SLV State Library of Victoria UAP United Australia Party UAW United Associations of Women UWA University of Western Australia WCTU Women’s Christian Temperance Union WEA Workers’ Educational Association 6

Contents

Abstract 1

Declaration 2

Acknowledgements 3

Abbreviations 5

Introduction 9

Radio’s component parts 10 Spoken-word broadcasting: a brief genealogy 14 Radio history in Australia 17 Radio history outside Australia 22 Methodology 24 Chapter outline 28

Chapter One The Politics of Radio Talk 31

Wireless regulations in Australia: Early opportunities 33 Broadcasting commences 37 Politicians’ use of radio in the 1920s 40 Political ‘B’ stations 42 Regulatory reappraisal: Royal Commission into Wireless 1927 45 Political airtime in the 1930s: politicians and political organisations 46 Political commentaries 51 Broadcast censorship in the company of books 55 Opposition to censorship 58 Broadcasting in the cause of peace 60 Should the air be free? 63 Joint Parliamentary Committee into Broadcasting 1941–42 65 Conclusion 67

Chapter Two Science talks: scientists in the public sphere 69

University Years 72 Public perceptions of science in Australia 76 Professor Thomas Laby, advocate for science broadcasting 78 1932–38: radio talks, science and ‘gatekeepers’ 80 Science in the news 85 Australian Association of Scientific Workers 89 AASW Press service 91 Scientists’ problems with radio 94 Radio’s problems with scientists 96 Conclusion 100

Chapter Three Tune in with Britain: the imperial frequency of early radio 102

Radio: the limitless world of the ether 105 AWA’s Voice of Australia 107 BBC broadcasts to Australia: experimental start 108 Tuning to the BBC Empire Service 110 BBC royal broadcasts: standing for the king 113 ‘Fireside chats’ 117 Anniversary broadcasts, the British Empire and the Australian press 119 Empire Day’s global broadcasting 122 Anzac Day broadcasts 124 Conclusion 126

Chapter Four Women’s voices: sounding out citizenship 128

Women’s sessions: Dorothy Jordan, pioneer 131 Listener participation 134 Gwen Varley & women’s radio sports clubs 137 ABC women’s sessions in the 1930s 139 Women’s radio talks 141 Subjects and scheduling 144 Women’s commentary in print: Australian Women’s Weekly: Linda Littlejohn 146 Listener In: Georgia Rivers 149 Listener In: L’Oreille 151 Women’s organisations and radio 154 Women and broadcasting policy 156 Conclusion 159

Chapter Five Who’s Singing, Whose Song? Aborigines and radio 161

Settler representations of Aborigines 163 Broadcasting corroborees: ‘weird chants on air’ 165 Technology: bridge and division 168 The voice of experts 170 Olive Pink on 2KY 174 Aborigines at the microphone 176 Pearl Gibbs on air 180 Writing out Indigenous speakers 182 Harold Blair, from Amateur Hour to Guest of Honour 185 Conclusion 188

Chapter Six Listeners Bite Back: radio listening groups 190

Preparing the ground 193 Discussion groups in Australia 194 Early ABC interest in listening groups 196 Teething Troubles 199 ‘Let’s discuss it’ 201 Group participation 203 Broadcasting discussions 206 ABC wartime cuts 208 Post war reconstruction to the rescue 209 After the War, then what 213 Department of Post-war Reconstruction 215 Government involvement with the ABC 218 Nation’s Forum of the Air 219 A bounce for listening groups 222 Slow death and final flowering 224 Conclusion 226

CONCLUSION 228

BIBLIOGRAPHY 234

Introduction

Thursday 13 June 1935 I had to leave about 8.30 to give my first broadcast. I had prepared 500 words more than I had been told and it was a good job for I needed just what I had to cover the quarter of an hour … It was an interesting experience. I was not nervous, but I think it is quite possible that I spoke rather fast. However I am sure to hear opinions for many friends were listening. Raymond Priestley, Diary of a vice chancellor1

Of all programmes, Talks were the most likely to cause trouble to ABC administrators. Ken Inglis, This is the ABC 2

Radio talks were part of Australian broadcasting from its beginning. Over the interwar period the new phenomenon of wireless enabled the voices of thousands of men and women to be heard across the country, giving rise to new questions about the presentation of ideas and communication with others.3 When the University of Melbourne’s Raymond Priestley reflected on his debut at the microphone in 1935, his preoccupation was with the way he spoke and the response of listeners, to the point of omitting any mention of his subject matter (revealed in newspaper listings as ‘Ramblings in the Antarctic’, based on his pre-war expeditions with Shackleton and Scott).4 By contrast, the remark above by the official historian of the Australian Broadcasting Commission, Ken Inglis, refers directly to the content of radio talks and the response that followed not from listeners, but from the government. As well as disseminating

1 Raymond Priestley, edited by Ronald Ridley, The Diary of a vice chancellor: University of Melbourne 1935–1938, Carlton South, Melbourne University Press, 2002, 68. 2 K. S. Inglis, assisted by Jan Brazier, This is the ABC: the Australian Broadcasting Commission, 1932-1983, Melbourne, Melbourne University Press, 1983, 30. 3 The 1942 ABC Annual Report lists 6433 talks and 1541 different speakers for the 12 months to 30 June 1942, ABC Annual Report, 1942, 11. The 1936 Annual Report notes 5,000 hours of ‘general talks’ in the preceding year from the ABC’s 12 stations, in addition to news commentaries and ‘descriptions’, ABC Annual Report, 1936, 10. 4 Maitland Daily Mercury (NSW), 13 June 1935, 4, ‘Broadcasting’. 10 ideas across a distance, radio gave rise to a complex web of relationships between listeners, speakers, radio stations and governments. Power was central to this, alongside issues of authority, access, identity and representation that contributed to the contours of the emerging broadcast landscape, a topography not pre-determined by technology but shaped by its participants.

Previous histories of Australian radio have examined its institutional structures and specific areas of programming but have stopped short of a thorough analysis of its spoken-word output. Talks, discussions, interviews and commentaries were a vital part of radio between the wars, raising questions about who spoke and why they did so. Unlike artistes and musicians who populated radio airwaves, talks were often given by non-professional speakers for little remuneration in Australia’s ‘make-do’ early broadcasting environment. While spoken-word radio contributed to the democratisation of knowledge in interwar Australia, its significance for the practice of democracy requires looking not just at those who spoke, but also at how they were heard. The argument of this thesis is that spoken-word broadcasting made a substantial contribution to the public sphere in Australia: it provided a space in which diverse interests engaged actively with listeners, while also extending to a new public interest in communication itself.

The aim of this introduction is to identify several of the themes that run through this thesis and outline the conceptual framework that informs it. Earlier scholarship will be surveyed in conjunction with the methodology by which evidence from a range of archival sources has been collected and assessed. The chapter outline will indicate how the overall argument is developed by considering a series of shifting relationships between government, broadcasters, speakers and listeners. The thesis will examine the different roles taken by government, as well as the interactions of four key groups whose interest in broadcasting was an expression variously of profession, ideology, gender and race; while these are selective, as well as overlapping examples, they also serve as models in considering how radio was utilised from different positions of power and opportunity.

Radio’s component parts

Radio broadcasting is shaped by the intersection of several elements that include culture, technology, labour and industry. Aitor Anduaga has proposed viewing these constituents as strands woven together like a rope; it is a useful metaphor as it foregrounds their persistent 11 interconnectivity, alongside their individual passage of continuity and change.5 Governments in most parts of the world dominated broadcasting at its inception by taking early control of communication by wireless telegraphy; subsequent legislation and regulation favoured different interests in an increasingly contentious media geography. Many historians have argued that cultural factors have been strongest in radio’s overall development. British cultural historian Raymond Williams has emphasised that ‘communications systems have always to be seen as social institutions’.6 American radio scholar Michele Hilmes has asked rhetorically ‘what if the history of broadcasting lies not in a succession of technological developments but in a series of small crises of cultural control?’7 In his transnational study of media law, Monroe E. Price links technology with the state and national identity to argue that ‘changes in communications technology both enhance and destroy the power of the state to have an impact upon concepts of national identity’.8 These claims underpin this thesis, which explores the negotiations that followed the beginnings of broadcasting and the consequences of the contested nature of such encounters.

Radio has been cited as a marker of modernity in interwar Australia, signalling, along with cinema and radio, a time of ‘growth and renewal’ after the grim toll of World War I.9 The conscription referenda in the latter years of the war had been divisive and acrimonious; relief at the cessation of hostilities was tempered by grief at its human cost and sober reflection on the enormous national debt that participation had incurred.10 Radio was initially represented as a vehicle for entertainment; government support was linked to confidence that it could keep farmers on the land while national prosperity was restored.11 Australia’s large size and dispersed population minimised the prospect of ‘radio chaos’ in the manner of north America, where interference between early radio stations was frequent. Conversely, it was the failure of private enterprise to provide a service in other than the biggest cities that led to the development of Australia’s ‘hybrid’ broadcasting system in which part of its commercial sector

5 Aitor Anduaga, Wireless and Empire: Geopolitics, Radio Industry and Ionosphere in the British Empire, 1918-1939, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2009, xix. 6 Raymond Williams, ‘Communication Technologies and Social Institutions’, in Contact: Human Communication and its History, ed by R Williams, London, Thames and Hudson, 1981, 226. 7 Michele Hilmes, Radio Voices: American broadcasting, 1922-1952, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 1997, xiii. 8 Monroe E. Price, Television, The Public Sphere and National Identity, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1995, 43. 9 Bridget Griffen-Foley, ‘Modernity, Intimacy and Early Australian Commercial Radio’ in Talking and Listening in the Age of Modernity : essays on the history of sound, Canberra, ANU E Press, 2007,edited by Joy Damousi and Desley Deacon, 123; Mick Counihan, ’The Formation of a Broadcasting Audience: Australian Radio in the Twenties’, Meanjin, Vol. 41, No. 2, June 1982, 201; Stuart Macintyre, A Concise History of Australia, Melbourne, Cambridge University Press, 3rd edition, 2009, 172. 10 Macintyre (2009), op. cit., 170. 11 Ian Mackay, Broadcasting in Australia, Carlton, Melbourne University Press, 1957, 38. 12 was refashioned as a national public broadcaster.12 During the years this took to develop, Australians became avid radio listeners: the number of licences more than doubled in the early years of the Depression, while telephone subscriptions and car registrations declined.13 Daytime reception was often poor in rural areas, but evening brought interstate and overseas short-wave transmissions within reach of urban and country listeners.14

Broadcasting became part of the cultural furniture of the mind while the radio receiver became a material object in the living room. Radio rendered the boundaries between private and public space increasingly porous; the seeming erosion of social and physical barriers enabled a measure of participation in activities previously accessible only to those able to attend public events in person.15 Political parties were quick to explore the potential of radio as a campaign tool, establishing the medium as a space in which conflicting views and positions jostled for the attention of listeners.16 At the same time, as this thesis will show, radio was eagerly seized upon by a diversity of other organisations, including women’s associations, educators, trades unions, sports enthusiasts and cultural bodies. During the first decade of radio broadcasting in Australia, many stations offered airtime to community groups; later, spots on commercial radio could be purchased by organisations for their own purposes. It was under these circumstances that the Communist Party of Australia was able to conduct regular broadcasts before and after World War 2, as was the pro-fascist Publicist magazine in the 1930s.17 This study will encompass Australia’s commercial radio stations as well as the public broadcaster, the ABC: while talks were more numerous on the ABC, spoken-word output on commercial radio was significant for the variety of individuals who contributed to it and for the opportunity it provided for the development of programmes and audiences.

12 Bridget Griffen-Foley, Changing Stations: the Story of Australian Commercial Radio, Sydney, University of New South Wales Press, 2009; Macintyre (2009), op. cit., 172. 13 Inglis, op. cit., 16; licences increased from 312,192 in 1930, to 721, 852 in 1935, see Ross Curnow, ‘The History of the Development of Wireless Telegraphy and Broadcasting in Australia to 1942 with especial reference to the Australian Broadcasting Commission– A Political and Administrative Study’, MA thesis, University of Sydney, 1961, Appendix C, 442. 14 Advertisements for receivers from the early 1930s boast interstate and shortwave reception. 15 Kate Lacey, ‘Towards a Periodisation of Listening: Radio and Modern Life’ in International Journal of Cultural Studies, Vol. 3 (2), 2000, 284. 16 Bridget Griffen-Foley, ‘The ‘Fireside Chat’ on Australian Radio’ in Bridget Griffen-Foley and Sean Scalmer, editors, Public opinion, campaign politics & media audiences: new Australian perspectives, Carlton, Vic. Melbourne University Publishing, 2017, 142–173. 17 Helen Macallan and John Potts, Communism on the air, Broadway, New South Wales Institute of Technology, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, 1982. For William Miles’ support of P.R. Stephensen’s broadcasts, see Chris Cunneen ‘Miles, William John (1871–1942)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/miles-william-john-7576/text13225, published first in hardcopy 1986, accessed online 16 May 2016. 13

Audience understanding of radio was not solely the result of hearing its transmissions. Australia had a dynamic media ecology in which newspapers could be cast as midwives to radio, as well as its competitors: the press prepared readers for the new medium, reported every stage of its development and contributed to normative ideas of listener subjectivity. For most of the 1930s, newspapers, with their large circulations, were the most important form of advertising media; the press maintained extensive, if selective, coverage of radio programmes and listeners’ responses.18 The efficacy of broadcasting came to be deliberated in newsprint by a vocal public, commenting on sport on Saturdays, advertisements on Sundays and crooners at any time.19 Newspapers reported on the personal lives of announcers as well as the issues to which broadcasting could give rise. Censorship by government of radio speakers attracted growing opposition over the 1930s: when cuts were demanded of a radio script on the very subject of freedom of speech by Judge Alfred Foster in 1938, his talk was described as ‘emasculated’, a choice of words that reveals the link between public life and interwar notions of masculinity as well as the significance that radio had attained in parading them.20

The public attitudes to radio that appeared in the press were liable to editorial selection; but many women and men took the opportunity, as individuals and on behalf of organisations, to present their views when the Australian government convened public inquiries into broadcasting in 1927 and 1941. For some, broadcasting became a platform for challenging public opinion and articulating new notions of citizenship; for others, it offered a means of consolidating traditional notions of national identity. Spoken-word broadcasting was a means by which calls were made for equal pay for women and the promotion of Australia’s links to the British Empire. As public debate about broadcasting grows in the digital culture of the twenty- first century, this is a timely moment to assess the full impact and operation of spoken-word programmes on Australian radio in its first decades.

18 William McNair, Radio Advertising in Australia, Sydney, Angus & Robertson, 1937, 78; Vincent Fairfax, an owner of the Sydney Morning Herald, asserted in 1935 that radio had not caused a decline in the circulation of his Sydney papers, Denis Cryle, ‘The Press and Public Service Broadcasting: Neville Petersen’s News not Views and the Case for Australian Exceptionalism’, Media International Australia, No. 151, May 2014, 59. 19 Johnson (1981), op. cit., 175. 20 For government censorship of radio, see William MacMahon Ball, Press, Radio and World Affairs: Australia's Outlook Melbourne, Melbourne University Press, 1938; regarding radio voices, see Joy Damousi, Colonial Voices: A Cultural History of English in Australia 1840–1940, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2010, 239–262. For the ban on Judge Foster’s talk, see Dubbo Liberal and Macquarie Advocate, 7 May 1938, 1, ‘Trouble brewing over Censor of Broadcast’. 14

Spoken-word broadcasting: a brief genealogy

Early spoken-word output was a mix of commerce and conviction, professional promotion and personal enthusiasm: the New Zealand Tourist Board launched its first series of talks on Sydney station 2FC in 1925, while 2BL broadcast a regular model aeroplane session, presented by ‘Wings’, for most of the 1930s.21 While music dominated the airwaves, spoken-word programmes were among the opening transmissions of many Australian radio stations in the 1920s. Speeches at public occasions, from election campaigns to the opening of Parliament House, as well as descriptions of commemorative events and radio debates were also available to listeners. ‘Talks’ or ‘lecturettes’ were broadcast on most radio stations across Australia two or three times a day in the 1920s. Core subjects were hobbies such as gardening, photography or motoring, ‘women’s interests’, and health care, while psychology, science and travel often figured in evening transmissions. Book and film reviews, talks relating to sport, particularly golf, and new dance styles, were popular.22

Over the course of the 1930s, spoken-word programming became a point of difference between commercial radio and the ABC: commercial radio was increasingly identified with entertainment and the ABC with education, so that fewer talks were broadcast on commercial radio on a narrower range of subjects. By the mid 1930s, ABC stations broadcast at least four or five talks daily: typically, child welfare in the morning, a midday news commentary, an afternoon travel talk, and evening talks covering, for example, bridge and poultry-raising as well as history, philosophy and world affairs. Until World War 2, ‘news’ on commercial and ABC stations consisted of reading extracts from newspapers or cables under strict conditions that specified the number of words and the time of day at which they could be broadcast.23 This

21 Mr W.F. Blow, New Zealand government representative in Australia, Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners’ Advocate (NSW), 2 May 1925, 6, ‘Rotorua’; model aeroplane session, Wireless Weekly, 2BL listing, 6pm, 16 July 1937, 48, see also World’s News (Sydney), 1 April 1931, 19, ‘Through the Microphone’, for a report of the award of a Cup by the Australian Broadcasting Company in connection with the Wireless Model Aeroplane Club. Radio 2UE opened its own Model Aeroplane Club in the same year, Newcastle Sun (NSW), 14 October 1931, 2, ‘Listen-In’. 22 Instructive talks on the ABC included language lessons in French, Japanese, German and Italian in the second half of the 1930s, broadcast between 6 and 7pm. 23 Commercial stations owned by newspapers had more leeway with their news broadcasts. Although the ABC appointed a journalist in 1934, his duty was to rewrite newspaper copy for radio use, Inglis, op. cit., 34; a fully independent radio newsgathering operation commenced in 1947. 15 contrasted with radio talks which were ‘by’ the speaker in every sense – that is, not simply their voice, but also their ideas, knowledge or experience.24

Conventions for the presentation of talks favoured careful preparation. University of Melbourne economist Dr Gordon Wood was ahead of his time when he called in 1934 for radio talks to be ‘colloquial and unscripted narratives’.25 While broadcast talks between the wars were usually delivered live, speakers read from prepared scripts.26 The BBC’s first Director of Talks, Hilda Matheson, is credited with introducing a hybrid form of text that contained ‘performance’ notes akin to a musical score.27 Matheson, who had been recruited to the BBC by its Director General John Reith in 1926, took seriously the perspective of the radio listener and advocated a ‘conversational’ mode of address:

She insisted that scripts had to be written so that they could be listened to easily by people in the intimacy of their own homes. [This involved] scrupulous preparation, e.g. gluing pages to cardboard to avoid rustle, marking with instructions to sigh, cough etc, and rehearsal.28

There is some indication that Matheson’s precepts were in circulation in Australia in the late 1920s, with one newspaper advising speakers ‘to remember that you are not speaking at a mass meeting, the note of intimacy is the note to adopt’.29 A manual on public speaking published in Melbourne in 1931 included ‘Hints on Broadcasting’; while it did not propose the inclusion in the script of ‘all the hurryings, delayings and nervous hesitations of natural speech’ that Matheson urged be written into it, it recommended ‘animation and vivacity’ in the voice.30 The ‘radio voice’ was discussed in the press: male voices were consistently admired for their low pitch, effectively reducing women’s prospects as broadcasters, and ability at the microphone

24 For a considered reflection on the distinction between information and a personal account, see Walter Benjamin, ‘The Storyteller’, Illuminations, edited with an introduction by Hannah Arendt, translated by Harry Zohn, London, Fontana, 1973, 83–109. 25 G. L. Wood, National Library of Australia (NLA), Bearup Papers, MS 7290, Box 9, Folder 52, 12. 26 Recording became available in the later 1930s; as editing was difficult, speakers were encouraged to rehearse. The National Film and Sound Archives has a recording of the 1936 Farrer oration and several talks by H.G. Wells were recorded during his visit to Australia in 1939. 27 The hybrid nature of Matheson’s radio talks is discussed in the introduction to The BBC Talks of E. M. Forster, 1929–1960, edited by Mary Lago, Linda K. Hughes and Elizabeth MacLeod Walls, Columbia, University of Missouri Press, 2008, 3. 28 Michael Carney, Stoker: the life of Hilda Matheson OBE, 1888-1940, Llangynog, Michael Carney, 1999, 32 29 Register News-Pictorial (Adelaide, SA), 13 November 1930, 7, ‘Ideal Broadcaster – Hints from England for Radio Speakers’. 30 Lago, op. cit., 3; William Bottomley, How to Become an Effective Public Speaker, Melbourne, Robertson and Mullens, 1931, 53–55. 16 became a factor in political life.31 The performative quality of speech underscored the significance of the listener’s response in determining the success of a broadcast.

The nomenclature for radio programmes was not entirely fixed during the interwar years. A term frequently used is ‘session’, which could apply to a single broadcast item such as a talk, as well as a composite broadcast such as ‘women’s session’, which consisted of music and one or more talks or interviews (a session could also be a concert programme of several musical items).32 Composite sessions were presented by hosts or announcers, while single talks were given by speakers.33 In the interwar years, ‘production’ as a programme category referred to radio drama. The ABC employed ‘talks officers’ from the early 1930s with duties that included booking speakers and checking scripts: there was increasing discussion within the ABC from the mid-thirties about the need to rehearse speakers and to time talks suggesting that these were not standard practices.34 Much spoken-word broadcasting was undertaken by freelance or casual speakers engaged for a single talk or series of talks. Fees, when they were paid, varied: University of Melbourne academics were offered 2 guineas per talk in 1924, while the writer H.G. Wells was booked by the ABC in 1939 for a series of five talks for £220.35 Radio air-time could also be purchased or gifted. Both men and women presented talks, albeit not on an equal basis. As this thesis will reveal, radio talks were given by a diverse range of people whose only feature in common was that they had something to say. Editorial control, however, was another matter: at the ABC, this was often concentrated in the hands of educators who made up its various advisory committees, while on commercial radio the selection of speakers was often connected to the interests of proprietors. The role of broadcast ‘gatekeepers’ has been a focus of this research.

This thesis is concerned with the impact of spoken-word radio on the public sphere between the wars; it will consider the response of listeners, although its major focus is on broadcasting by a

31 Daily Mercury (Mackay, Queensland), 2 February 1931, 2, ‘Wireless Politics and the Critical Audience’ for criticism of Scullin; praise for P.M. Menzies, Daily Telegraph (Sydney), 25 December 1939, 2, ‘Menzies Could Hold Radio Announcer’s Job’; Damousi (2010), op. cit., 257. 32 The term ‘programme’ was used from the early 1930s; over the 1930s, schedules became more standardised, see Johnson, op. cit., 107. 33 Professor Dakin, who broadcast Science in the News, stated he was not an announcer when asked to participate as such in a publicity spread in 1938. But the fact he was asked suggests the fluidity with which the term was used, Wireless Weekly, 9 September 1938, 19. 34 Charles Baeyertz, previously editor of Triad magazine, was hired as a voice coach by the ABC in the late 1930s, see Joanna Woods, Facing the Music: Charles Baeyertz and the Triad, Otago University Press, Dunedin 2008; in the early 1940s, printed guidelines were sent to new speakers with advice on scripting and delivery, e.g., NAA: MT395/1, 117, Radio talk script Lorraine Russell- How to get a job (1), 27 June 1941. 35 NAA: SP1558/2, 624, Wells was invited to Australia for the ANZAAS conference in January 1939. 17 range of speakers and the discussion that this gave rise to. While all broadcasting is political, it has not been possible to consider all talks, speakers or subjects during this time. On-air readings of books and short stories were the responsibility of the ABC Talks department until after World War 2 but are not within the scope of this project; as these broadcasts often engaged with social and political themes, a detailed study of their material is overdue. Spoken- word programmes in the categories of children’s programmes, schools’ broadcasts, religion, rural affairs, hobbies and the arts have also been excluded from this study, as has sports commentary. All these areas warrant further investigation; it is likely that ideas about programme-making circulated across all these categories with individual broadcasters often moving between programme areas.36 This study is primarily concerned with the years from the beginning of radio broadcasting in Australia in the 1920s until the Australian Broadcasting Act of 1942. The 1942 legislation was the first to apply to both the commercial sector and the ABC; it came at a time of rapid change in audience research, commercial networking, and recording technology that influenced subsequent broadcasting practices. However, the year 1942 is not a strict cut-off: as each chapter of this thesis is focused on a different set of audience and broadcaster interests, attention will continue post-war when the context warrants it. In this thesis, ‘Talks’ refers to the ABC Talks Department, and ‘talks’ to broadcasts.

Radio history in Australia

The writing of radio history in Australia has taken different forms: institutional chronicles, thematic monographs, single-issue articles and chapters within broader analyses, catalogues, and memoirs, whose various approaches range from critical theory to celebration.37 Lesley Johnson’s study of the interwar years of Australian radio has been one of the most widely cited since its publication in 1988.38 Johnson considers Australian broadcasting across both commercial and public sectors; an earlier history by Ian Mackay, also frequently cited, adopts a similar approach but their investigations proceed very differently.39 Johnson’s focus is the relationship between radio and listeners; she declares at the outset that her intention is to

36 Lesley Johnson has suggested that early broadcasts for children were among the most innovative, Lesley Johnson (1988), The Unseen Voice: a cultural study of early Australian radio, London, Routledge, 1988, 23. 37 For example of celebrations, see Ida Coffey (‘Penelope’, 3UZ Melbourne), Look up and laugh: 13 years at the mike, Melbourne, National Press, 1946; Jacqueline Kent, Out of the Bakelite Box: the heyday of Australian radio, Sydney, Angus & Robertson, 1983; R. R. Walker, Dial 1179: the 3KZ Story, South Yarra, Currey O'Neil, 1984; Rob Johnson, The Golden Age of the Argonauts, Sydney, Hodder Headline, 1997; Gareth McCray, Reflections of 2KY : 75 years of broadcasting, Sydney, 2KY, 2000. 38 Johnson, op. cit. 39 Ian Mackay, Broadcasting in Australia, Melbourne, Melbourne University Press, 1957. 18 argue that in the course of the interwar years, radio in Australia ‘became a domestic companion’.40 ‘Became’ is a key word in this context, as radio could, Johnson insists, have developed very differently: by ‘domestic’, she means not just that radio was listened to in the home, but that it promoted the private over the public, individual pleasure in private space over public or collective activity.41

Johnson argues that the commercial sector of early Australian radio commodified the audience, with the public broadcaster seeking its cultural improvement or ‘uplift’; she contrasts this outcome with Bertolt Brecht’s call that radio be developed as progressive two-way communication, rather than a mode of one-way distribution, a transformation that would require not simply changing broadcast content but creating a new relationship between broadcaster and listener.42 This position informs Johnson’s subsequent account of the development of radio in Australia, in that she gives particular attention to the form of the medium. She discusses the intimate use of voice, the characterisation of radio as exciting and the creation of routines arising from programme schedules; she gives specific attention to the gendered nature of radio, whereby male voices were heard more than women’s and daytime programming constructed the woman listener. Throughout her study, Johnson asserts that a ‘passive listening attitude’ was required of the public, a characterisation expressed earlier by Australian radio historian Mick Counihan and repeated later by John Potts.43

Johnson’s insight into the limitations of reducing the broadcast ‘text’ to its literal content, say, a script, was hugely important for radio analysis in Australia but the generalisations in her study are problematic. Raymond Williams acknowledged that communication technologies have ‘social complications’ – that teaching the poor to read the Bible enables them to read the radical press.44 The cultural theorists Brecht and Walter Benjamin experimented actively with ways of using radio for more progressive ends – the recent translation of Benjamin’s extensive radio work shows that the formats he devised for active listening were similar to those developed

40 Johnson, op. cit., 1. 41 Johnson, op. cit., 205. 42 Bertolt Brecht, ‘Radio as a means of communication: A Talk on the function of Radio’, in Screen, Volume 20, Issue 3–4, 1 December 1979, 25. 43 Johnson, op. cit., 7, 79, 129, 132, 152, 180; Counihan (1982), op. cit., 206; John Potts, Radio in Australia, Kensington, University of NSW Press, 1989, 14. Johnson does not claim that listening itself is passive, an attitude held in the past and dismissed by John Durham Peters as ‘one of the worst ideas ever to infest cultural criticism’, cited by Kate Lacey, Listening publics: the politics and experience of listening in the media age, Cambridge, Polity, 2013, 3. 44 Williams, op. cit., 230. 19 elsewhere.45 Johnson’s account gives little recognition to those individuals within interwar Australian radio institutions who wrestled with its potential for more democratic listener engagement, nor does it interrogate those outside broadcasting who sought to use the medium to challenge social conventions; several of these will be discussed in later chapters of this thesis. The representation of radio tout court as urging a passive attitude from listeners is contradicted by considerable empirical evidence; it is also an obstacle to understanding the different modes of response to which radio gave rise, from acts of imagination to form politicised communities within the audience to correspondence by listeners. While Johnson does acknowledge that listeners could on occasions resist the passivity proposed for them, such instances of resistance are noted in her book as exceptions on the margins rather than reasons to reconsider the approach.46 Her study illuminates many of the pressures that affected the development of commercial and public broadcasting in Australia, but omits the considerable debate to which this development gave rise and the fact that opposition could be well organised. This thesis will argue that while radio was used to consolidate existing social and economic structures, it also emerged as a highly contested space, particularly when examined in terms of spoken-word broadcasting.

Johnson’s study explicitly recognised the political implications of a system of broadcasting and the centrality of power within any analysis of it. Both these points are implicit in Mackay’s otherwise very different account of broadcasting in Australia. Mackay wrote a positive account of Australian radio, concluding that it functioned ‘democratically in harmony with the Australian way of life.’47 He argued that the stability of the system was linked to minimum government interference, endorsing the philosophy of the market that competition between radio stations would ensure listeners receive a good service. Mackay divided programme responsibility between public and commercial sectors, casting the former as a medium for the discussion of public affairs and the latter for entertainment; he insisted on the importance of retaining this split, saying that if broadcasters fail to ‘discharge their respective responsibilities the whole system could be endangered, and the government would have to leave the sidelines and enter the fray. Neither party desires this’.48 Arguably Mackay’s regard for self-regulation was influenced by his employment at the time by the commercial Macquarie broadcasting network and his book was as much statement about a preferred future than about the perceived

45 Jaeho Kang, Walter Benjamin and the Media: the spectre of modernity, Cambridge, Polity, 2014, 65–99; Walter Benjamin, Radio Benjamin, edited by Lecia Rosenthal, London, Verso, 2014. 46 Johnson, op. cit., 123, 198. 47 Mackay, op. cit., 14. 48 Mackay, op. cit., 13. 20 past of Australian radio.49 While the difference between Johnson’s and Mackay’s studies highlights the breadth of approaches taken in the writing of radio history, it underscores radio’s relation to government as a persistent theme.

Two later histories which look separately at the public and commercial sectors have become standard reference texts regarding the development of Australian radio.50 Ken Inglis and Bridget Griffen-Foley cover policy, programmes, and key players in the ABC and commercial radio respectively. The strength of each panoramic view is their scope, albeit at the cost of specific detail within a broader historical context. Inglis positions himself as a listener to ABC radio, as well as its historian, and through an extensive sojourn in its archives, takes readers behind the scenes to savour internal disputes and often rocky relations with government.51 He adopts a chronological approach to cover the ABC as a whole, so that spoken-word programmes are interspersed with choirs, cricket and Kindergarten on the Air; he notes briefly many exceptional, as well as typical, examples of talks programmes making it clear that women were not entirely excluded and that contentious subjects might be considered, if not acted on, all of which serves to identify areas for further investigation.52 In an assessment of 1950s Australia, Inglis wrote ‘how liberally the ABC had enlarged the arena of public discussion since the late 1930s’, a remark which constitutes a summons for a more systematic account of the various spaces and practices to which it refers.53

Bridget Griffen-Foley organises her study of commercial radio into two sections, separating regulation from programme subject areas such as religion, sport and news, over a time frame extending from the early 1920s to 2008. Regarding the early years, she notes that ‘commercial radio provided an outlet for various experts and organisations’ and many speakers are named; this shows that spoken-word output was a significant part of interwar commercial radio across a range of subjects, including political commentary.54 However, the scope of the study allows little investigation of the content or development of talks, the terms on which speakers were engaged and their objectives in broadcasting. Griffen-Foley acknowledges that there are limits to the detail of her study and, like Inglis’, her book serves to flag some of the areas calling for

49 The book was published the year after the commencement of television, a time of renewed focus on the regulation surrounding broadcasting; this arguably was a factor in its conclusion that Australia had the best of all possible broadcasting systems with no need for further regulation. 50 Inglis, op. cit.; Griffen-Foley (2009), op. cit. 51 John Tebbutt observes that Inglis identifies himself as a listener/viewer of the ABC, see John Tebbutt, ‘The ABC of Transnational Radio’ in Southern Review, Vol. 39, No. 3, 2007, 5. 52 Inglis, op. cit., 31. 53 Inglis, op. cit., 173. 54 Griffen-Foley, op. cit., 158. 21 further investigation. In addition, neither Inglis nor Griffen-Foley makes fully clear how radio was a cultural force in Australia between the wars: for Inglis, this is largely reducible to the content and style of broadcast output; Griffen-Foley delves deeper, particularly with her discussion of audience participation, which will be developed further here.

While previous book-length scholarship has predominantly analysed one or other of commercial or public broadcasting in Australia, a drawback of separate treatments is that it lessens the opportunity to explore the inter-relationship between the ABC and the commercial broadcasters.55 This relationship was close as many speakers appeared on both sectors, ideas about programmes and staff moved between them and the frequency of press reports about ‘dial twisters’ suggests that many listeners tuned to a range of outlets; in addition, the character of each sector came to be represented as complementary to the other. For all these reasons, this thesis has chosen to cover both commercial and public broadcasting.

The understanding of Australian radio in the interwar period has been assisted by a succession of academic articles and the inclusion of broadcasting as a theme in broader historical studies: several scholars have examined the role of radio in political contexts; the understanding of women in relation to broadcasting has been effectively rewritten in recent years; in her 2011 PhD thesis, Margaret Van Heekeren argued for analysing radio, as well as print journalism, as central to a philosophy of public communication developed by a group of influential thinkers she identifies as the ‘Australian Idealists’.56 Stuart Macintyre has examined in detail the dual role of radio in post-war reconstruction as a platform for publicity and as a device for facilitating community discussion; in her history of speaking in Australia, Joy Damousi discussed radio’s part in the cultural significance of the voice.57 There has been a shift in biographies: in the past, Don Watson had little to say about Brian Fitzgerald’s extensive radio work, Walter Murdoch’s acclaimed broadcasts were overshadowed by his print journalism, and even the autobiography of broadcaster Professor ‘Jerry’ Portus was sparing in its reference to radio. However, recent biographical studies are taking seriously the broadcasting activity of their subject: zoologist William Dakin’s broadcasting popularity has received attention, while Ai

55 The ABC has been the exclusive subject of books by Alan Thomas, Neville Petersen, Frank Dixon, and Clement Semmler; more recent books, articles and theses dealing with specific individuals or forms of broadcast have tended to consider both sectors. 56 Margaret Van Heekeren ‘The Dissemination of New Idealist Thought in Australian Print and radio media from 1885 to 1945’, PhD, Department of Modern History, Politics and international relations, Macquarie University, 2011. 57 Stuart Macintyre, Australia’s boldest experiment: war and reconstruction in the 1940s, Sydney, NewSouth Publishing, 2015; Damousi, op. cit. 22

Kobayashi’s monograph of academic William MacMahon Ball situates his extensive broadcasting activity within his public life.58 All of this reinforces that it is an appropriate moment to undertake a more thorough engagement with this form of public communication in Australia.

Radio history outside Australia

The publication of radio history overseas has grown apace in the last twenty years, covering specific themes from Arthurian legends to architecture as well as a plethora of national broadcasting systems.59 Many of these texts have influenced the historiography of this thesis and will be introduced at appropriate junctures throughout, while a number of key works will be referred to here. Mary Vipond has argued for the necessary inclusion of the beginnings of radio as these establish the foundations of later understanding of its operation; Anne MacLennan and Peter Hoar have stressed the role of the press in the cultural understanding of radio in Canada and New Zealand respectively: both of these approaches have been adopted in this thesis given the part the press played in spreading the idea of radio in Australia over a decade before it could be heard.60 Michele Hilmes and Jason Loviglio have applied Benedict Anderson’s conception of the imagined community to show how radio played a part in the development of twentieth-century American national identity; this will be developed in relation to broadcasting in Australia, specifically as regards empire-related programming. Hilmes’ work on women and broadcasting, together with that of Kate Lacey, has underpinned the discussion undertaken here of radio as a gendered place of contestation as well as conformity.61

58 Ai Koyabashi, W. Macmahon Ball: Politics for the People, North Melbourne, Australian Scholarly, 2013; Ann Elias, ‘The ocean in our blood: William Dakin’s modern story for ABC radio’, Journal of Australian Studies, 37:4, 2013, 425–437. 59 Roger Simpson, Radio Camelot: Arthurian legends on the BBC, 1922-2005, Woodbridge, D. S. Brewer, 2008; Shundana Yusaf, Broadcasting Buildings: Architecture on the Wireless, 1927–1945 MIT, 2014; Peter Hoar, The world's din: listening to records, radio and films in New Zealand, 1880–1940, Dunedin, New Zealand, Otago University Press, 2018; Len Kuffert, Canada before television : radio, taste, and the struggle for cultural democracy, Montréal, McGill-Queen's University Press, 2016; Edwin Jurriëns, From Monologue to Dialogue: Radio and Reform in Indonesia, Leiden, KITLV Press, 2009; Joy Elizabeth Hayes, Radio Nation: Communication, Popular Culture, and Nationalism in Mexico, 1920–1950, Tucson, University of Arizona Press, 2000. 60 Anne F. MacLennan, ‘Reading Radio: The intersection between radio and newspaper for the Canadian radio listener in the 1930s’, in Matt Mollgaard, editor, Radio and Society: New thinking for an old media, Newcastle on Tyne, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2012, 16–29; Hoar, op. cit., 89–103. 61 Mary Vipond, Listening in: the first decade of Canadian broadcasting, 1922–1932, Montreal, McGill- Queen's University Press, 1992; Susan Squiers, editor, Communities of the Air: radio century, radio culture Durham, Duke University Press, 2003, 6; Kate Lacey Feminine Frequencies: gender, German radio, and the public sphere, 1923–1945, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996, 11. 23

Christine Ehrick offers salutary advice in noting the singularity of different radio systems, cautioning that ‘the story is different everywhere’.62 The hybrid public/commercial system of broadcasting in Australia is unusual, though not unique: however, developments in radio in other parts of the world were widely circulated, assisted by the increased mobility of people and ideas after World War 1. National radio histories of Britain, America and Canada are particularly useful in relation to Australian radio history for determining the origins of many ideas that were adopted locally, if sometimes transposed in the process; it is also important to consider instances where ideas from elsewhere were not taken up.63 Particularly useful are a number of recent studies that have used a transnational frame through which to view the development of radio. Simon Potter’s history of the BBC Empire Service documents much of the background by which British originated material was rebroadcast in Australia and the objectives it was intended to meet.64 David Goodman has analysed the growth of radio listening groups across the Pacific and Atlantic: Australia’s distinctive listening group scheme can be understood more fully by considering the cluster of ideas relating to radio as an instrument for democracy with which broadcasters globally were familiar between the wars.65

Unpicking intention from outcomes is particularly exacting in the context of radio. In his history of U.S. radio in the 1930s, Goodman examined a mode of ‘public interest’ broadcasting which was adopted by American commercial stations in order to pre-empt any move at further government regulation.66 This illuminates the significance of pragmatism in the development of radio; both commercial and public broadcasters in Australia were liable to pursue strategies for their longer-term survival in the face of short-term conflicts of interest. The need to weigh evidence with particular care is highlighted by British radio historian David Hendy who has conjectured that radio is a domain in which official policy may not be a reliable indicator of everyday practice, given the opportunity for broadcasting staff to follow an individual course.67 Hendy argues for more attention in media history to the part played by mid-level programme

62 Ehrick, op. cit., 4. 63 For an excellent discussion on national attitudes across the Atlantic and their repercussion on broadcasting, see Michele Hilmes, Network nations: a transnational history of British and American broadcasting, New York, Routledge, 2011. 64 Simon Potter, Broadcasting Empire: the BBC and the British world, 1922–1970, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2012. 65 David Goodman, ‘A Transnational History of Radio Listening Groups I: The United Kingdom and the United States’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 2016, Vol. 36, No. 3, 436–465; and ‘A Transnational History of Radio Listening Groups II: Canada, Australia and the World’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 2016, Vol. 36, No. 4, 627–648. 66 David Goodman, Radio's civic ambition: American broadcasting and democracy in the 1930s, New York, Oxford University Press, 2011. 67 David Hendy, ‘Biography and the Emotions as a Missing ‘Narrative’, in Media History: A Case study of Lance Sieveking and the early BBC’, in Media History, Vol. 18, No.s 3–4, 2012, 361–378. 24 makers, urging that attention be paid to the motivations and background of these men and women.68 In relation to women’s broadcasting in Britain, Kate Murphy has revealed the initiatives women were able to make at the BBC because they attracted less scrutiny; similarly, radio stations and broadcasters in Australia could at times enjoy considerable autonomy.69

Methodology

To write the history of broadcasting is in a sense to write the history of everything else. Asa Briggs, official historian of the BBC 70

As a cultural history, this thesis has employed diverse approaches to cover politics, culture, communication, science and social structures; specific approaches will be identified within each chapter. Document analysis plays a major part. Many records relating to radio between the wars have not survived and it must be acknowledged at the outset that some voices can be heard only faintly. Key primary sources include scripts of talks, transcripts of interviews and discussions, government inquiries, internal documents from broadcasting organisations as well as the papers of individuals and organisations. Institutional archives include responses from listeners as well as deliberations about policy which are valuable in determining expectations – and reservations – regarding radio. The project draws extensively on publications from the interwar period, such as newspapers, magazines and books, albeit with some caution: many radio publications were owned by large newspaper groups who were themselves involved financially with commercial radio. These cannot be regarded as impartial commentators and their omissions need to be noted as well as contents interrogated.71 There are a small number of archived oral history interviews and recordings of programmes that will also be drawn on. Material has been accessed from the National Archives of Australia, the archives of the Universities of Melbourne, Sydney, Western Australia and Adelaide, the BBC Written Archives Centre, the National Library of Australia, the state libraries of NSW and Victoria, and the libraries of the Australian War Memorial and the Australian Institute for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies.

68 Hendy, op. cit., 372. 69 Ehrick, op cit., 3; Kate Murphy, ‘From Women’s Hour to Other Women’s Lives: BBC Talks for women and the women who made them 1923–1939, in Women and the Media: feminism and femininity in Britain, 1900 to the present, edited by Maggie Andrews and Sallie McNamara, New York, Routledge, 2014, 74. 70 Stefan Collini, ‘Mainly Fair, Moderate or Good’ in The Guardian, 22 September 2007, www.theguardian.com/books/2007/sep/22/radio.bbc accessed online 14 April 2018. 71 Listener In was established the Herald group, managed by Keith Murdoch, in 1925; Wireless Weekly was acquired by Sir Hugh Denison’s Associated Newspapers in July 1929. Both Denison and Murdoch were members of the Empire Press Union. 25

The assessment of this material in conjunction with relevant secondary literature is guided by a number of key interlinked concepts which are widely used in radio history writing. French philosopher Michel Foucault’s ideas of discourse (or discursive practice) and subjectification are employed to understand how radio shaped, and was shaped by, listeners, broadcasters, commentators and policy makers. Foucault revisited and revised elements of his work throughout his life; ‘subjectification’ can be understood as referring to the process by which the subject constitutes itself in an active way through practices informed by models ‘proposed, suggested [and] imposed upon him [sic] by his culture, his society and his social group’72 The ideas underpinning these models can clash and the task of the historian is to interpret the contestation that ensued; with the advent of radio, as this thesis will show, many subject positions were in flux. Joan Scott has used elements of Foucault’s thinking to argue for the use of gender as an analytic tool in order to expose assumptions about the culturally constructed differences between men and women; gendered analysis has been adopted throughout this study.73 Edward Said drew on Foucault in writing about the western idea of Orientalism; Said’s arguments have informed the attention given in this thesis to race and the racialised elements of interwar broadcasting in Australia.74 Following Foucault’s development of the idea of ‘practice’, Michel de Certeau has examined how access to power can result in different modes of engaging with, and finding meaning in, the world: he distinguished the ‘strategies’ of the powerful from the ‘tactics’ of those with less power.75 This distinction has proven useful in this thesis for recovering the ways in which groups on the political margins were able to make use of radio for tactical acts of resistance.

The other key concept employed throughout this thesis is the public sphere, a concept that has origins in the ideology of ‘separate spheres’, a socially-constructed dichotomy that opposes ‘public’ life outside the home from ‘private’ concerns within domestic space. The idea of separate spheres has underpinned the exclusion of women from public life: several scholars have written of radio’s contribution to maintaining this inequality, as well as pointing more recently to ways in which radio played a part in fracturing the thinking on which it is based.76

72 Michel Foucault, ‘The ethics of the concern for the self as a practice of freedom’ (1984), Ethics, Subjectivity and Truth, Essential Works of Foucault, Vol. 1, ed Paul Rabinow, New York, The New Press, 1997, 291. 73 Joan Scott, ‘Gender: A useful category of historical analysis’ in American Historical Review, Vol. 91, No. 5, 1986, 1053–1075. 74 Edward Said, Orientalism: Western Conceptions of the Orient London, Penguin, 1995, 3. 75 Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1984, xi–xix. 76 Hilmes, op. cit.; Lacey (1996), op. cit.; Ehrick, op. cit. 26

The ‘public sphere’ is also the English translation of the term used by the German thinker Jürgen Habermas to conceptualise the process by which the media contributed to the formation of public opinion at the time democracy emerged in western Europe.77 For Habermas, the eighteenth-century coffee house was a quintessential public sphere: he characterised it as a neutral social space in which affairs of the day could be discussed, critically and rationally, amongst individuals as equals, independently of the state; their views would be reported and read about in the press, so fuelling further discussion.78 Habermas argued that this process was necessary for the operation of representative democracy; he went on to describe how the public sphere was corrupted when newspapers, as well as radio and television later, turned from rational discussion of affairs of the day to trivial sensationalism.79

Habermas’ ideas have given rise to considerable discussion.80 American scholar Nancy Fraser robustly rejected his original characterisation of a public sphere open to all as it excluded many on grounds of gender, as well as education, ethnicity, and religion. Fraser has argued that social inequalities cannot be dismissed as being no account in public debate; she was also critical of Habermas’ failure to provide a mechanism for social and political change as well as privileging rational over other kinds of communication.81 Fraser proposed the concept of the ‘subaltern counter-public’, defined as ‘parallel discursive areas where members of subordinated social groups invent and circulate counterdiscourses, which in turn permit them to formulate oppositional interpretations of their identities, interests and needs.’82 This gives rise to a network of publics that not only create space for the exchange of views, but enable individuals, through such exchange, to perceive themselves as subjects with agency; her schema also recognises that individuals can belong to more than one public.83 This thesis will use Nancy Fraser’s understanding of the public sphere, as it is a useful means of understanding the shifting social tensions in Australia between the wars.

77 Jürgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: an Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society, translated by Thomas Burger with the assistance of Frederick Lawrence. Cambridge, MIT Press, 1989, 33. 78 Habermas, op. cit., 24. 79 Habermas op. cit., 140. 80 Bohman, James and Rehg, William, ‘Jürgen Habermas’, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2017 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/habermas/ accessed online 19 August 2018 81 Nancy Fraser, ‘Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy’, Social Text, No. 25/26, 1990, 56–80 82 Fraser, op. cit., 67. 83 Fraser, op. cit., 70; see also Jane Mansbridge ‘The Long Life of Nancy Fraser’s “Rethinking the Public Sphere”’ in Feminism, Capitalism, and Critique: Essays in Honor of Nancy Fraser, edited by Banu Bargu and Chiara Bottici, Cham, Palgrave Macmillan, 2017, 106. 27

The public sphere has figured in studies of listening, which has itself been part of the recent scholarship around sound. Sound studies developed from the middle of the twentieth century as an interdisciplinary field attracting literary scholars, historians, philosophers and media analysts.84 Jonathan Sterne has argued that listening is not purely physiologically determined nor historically neutral but liable to cultural interpretation.85 Central to spoken-word broadcasting was the human voice, unseen and unique, offering its listeners a familiarity unlike encounters with the written word. Joy Damousi has historicised the Australian voice in the years leading up to World War 2 to show how it communicated meaning additional to its literal content in relation to class, education, respectability and moral worth.86 Radio sound poses a challenge to historians as it can leave few traces: even available recordings can be misleading as modern ears cannot access the experience of early listening. Furthermore, listening itself is an individual experience. In his history of listening in New Zealand, Peter Hoar has stressed that ‘uniform sounds may not be heard in a uniform way’; he cites Susan Douglas in casting the radio listener as ‘producer, director, designer and stage manager of the imagined spectacles and situation that radio sounds produce’.87

The suggestion that listening is a purely individual matter might appear to sit uncomfortably with an analysis of spoken-word broadcasting that seeks to explore its significance for the public. Radio is accessible to a mass audience, but there is an unavoidable ambivalence in the listening experience to which it gives rise: the supposed universality of a broadcast can also trigger listening against the grain. The public/private nature of listening is explored by Kate Lacey in her 2013 book, Listening Publics: she argues that listening be understood as bridging ‘both the realm of sensory, embodied experience and the political realm of deliberation’.88 The interplay of the private and public nature of listening that is explored in her book underpins much of this thesis: it will show how interwar radio in Australia could politicise its listeners by enabling identification with particular publics and subject positions; it will also analyse programme styles that sought to depoliticise relations of power. The ways in which listeners engaged with radio pre-occupied many broadcasters across the globe in the 1930s; this thesis will discuss how such deliberation in Australia affected broadcasting locally. The interwar

84 Western philosophy’s interest in sound is evident in the writings of Aristotle, De Anima; twentieth century thinkers who have written on the voice include Mladen Dolar, Arianna Caverero and Nick Couldry. 85 Jonathan Sterne, The Audible Past : cultural origins of sound reproduction, Durham, Duke University Press, 2002. 86 Damousi, op. cit. 87 Hoar, op. cit., 122–3. 88 Lacey (2013), op. cit., 8, 17. 28 period also evinced the desire of listeners to respond to the voices that they heard so that radio gave rise to a suite of secondary activities: broadcasting became a partnership on many levels, affirming intersubjectivity and public life.

Chapter outline

The six chapters of the thesis show how key interest groups shared radio space in Australia between the two world wars. As many themes overlap, they do not receive equal weight in each chapter. The sequence of chapters has been organised such that the first two deal particularly, though not exclusively, with opposition to aspirations to broadcast; the following two deal with making opportunities to do so; and the final two chapters investigate situations where listeners have special prominence.

The first chapter analyses spoken-word radio in terms of the practice and policy developed by political interests. Both politicians and non-government groups were early users of radio. The initial broadcasting regulations gave the Postmaster General the power to restrict any broadcast, allowing the Lyons government to block criticism of its policies in the 1930s. Radio became a specific case within campaigns against censorship. This chapter traces the development of regulations pertaining to radio, in particular noting the public nature of debates about these; it will argue that broadcasting was a catalyst for the emergence of normative expectations about the public’s right to information. Radio did not assume this role automatically: it was a consequence of the many groups and individuals who took to radio to express diverse convictions and opinions, in the process contributing to an auditory public sphere.

Chapter Two shows how government censorship was not the only obstacle to those keen to use radio to establish their place within the public sphere. Many scientists in the interwar period sought recognition as legitimate participants in decisions concerning public policy; they also sought a public better informed on scientific matters. A university zoologist achieved enormous popular success with a series of broadcasts that linked science and society; however, he roused disapproval within the science community while many within the ABC believed that social questions should be addressed by social scientists. This chapter introduces the power of non- government gatekeepers in the broadcasting of spoken-word radio and the way in which the agenda of the public sphere can be limited. The construction of certain ideas as ‘off limits’ to public discussion is also a theme in the next chapter, as it examines radio’s part in establishing as aspect of national identity. 29

Chapter Three shows how spoken-word radio represented Australia’s relation to the British Empire between the wars. The imperial affiliation of listeners was encouraged by a mode of broadcasting that made effective use of sound; rebroadcasts from the BBC Empire Service added a British element to commemorative Anzac Day broadcasts. Empire-themed broadcasts were supported by a sympathetic press and their rhetoric of race reinforced acceptance of the White Australia immigration policy. Interwar radio contributed to the creation of dual identities for listeners as modern imperial subjects and contemporary Australian citizens, while shaping a public sphere in which race and connection to Britain were key criteria.

Chapter Four hears women’s broadcast voices in their diversity as it examines the sustained resistance that women made to traditional representations of gender by radio. It has been argued in the past that radio output for and by women was confined to matters of conventional femininity and the domestic. However, women broadcast in a range of circumstances and reflected on the ways they were represented by radio; their views were articulated in public forums as well as meetings of women’s organisations. Women’s engagement with radio is notable for its accompanying use of print media. In contrast to scientists, women’s high degree of networking enabled women to use radio to form a strong counter-public within the public sphere and challenge the notion of women’s ‘maternal citizenship’.

Chapter Five considers a public who barely register in existing discussions of interwar radio, that is, indigenous Australians. Aborigines were often the subjects of radio talks by white speakers; they also participated in spoken-word broadcasts, often as a consequence of musical performances. Their exclusion from radio history perpetuates their outsider status rather than affirming their agency. This chapter considers the predicament of being spoken about by others, while also looking at the tactical response to radio undertaken by Aborigines; it shows how spoken-word radio was used to disrupt the public sphere and assert the claim of marginalised groups to citizenship.

Citizenship in a democracy is at the heart of Chapter Six as it considers the position of many liberals in the 1930s; their optimism that radio could be a tool for democracy was coupled with awareness of radio’s potential as an instrument for propaganda. The solution was less in what listeners heard, but more in how listening could give rise to the free formation of opinion. Radio was used to promote discussion, between speakers on-air and amongst listeners off-air, as the ABC’s Controller of Talks championed the introduction of a listening group scheme and a live 30 discussion programme. Both of these established radio’s role as an enabler of the civic duties and responsibilities of speaking and listening.

The conclusion of the thesis will draw together issues that recur in different chapters to show how interwar spoken-word radio contributed to the operation of the public sphere in Australia. Radio was a shared space of mutual encounter for individuals and institutions committed to public communication in which speakers and listeners acknowledged each other. The interrelationships between government, radio stations and different networks of interest in the context of broadcasting resulted variously in conflicts and partnerships as programme practices evolved and discourse about radio developed; listeners and commentators also entered the space of broadcasting to articulate their views. A central theme to emerge from this study is the way radio’s ‘unseen voice’ prompted reflection by individuals and groups of their engagement with the public sphere. Throughout this process, about which there was nothing inevitable, radio was established as a place in which to enact public life and broadcasting itself became a subject of public scrutiny.

Chapter One

The Politics of Radio Talk

Broadcasting would be a powerful weapon for propaganda and there must be careful control to ensure that news [is] not coloured with the opinions of those broadcasting it. Frederick Eggleston, Minister of Railways, 19241

In view of the failure of the press to serve the best interests of democratic government, it is all the more necessary and desirable that broadcasting should be used … to permit fair and free expression of all political views, including criticism and comment on current policies and administration. Herbert Burton, 1939 2

Frederick Eggleston and Herbert Burton were Australian liberals of the interwar years, Eggleston a Victorian state politician and Burton an economic historian.3 Their comments across a fifteen-year span are indicative of the interest many had in broadcasting between the wars, particularly as a vehicle for political ideas; their remarks also point to a shift that took place in thinking about government control over broadcasting. Eggleston’s words reflect the caution felt by the Federal government with a new communications technology associated in many people’s minds with the military: Australia’s first casualties in World War I occurred while taking a German wireless station in New Guinea and radio began in a context of ready acceptance for control over the medium.4 By contrast, Burton’s position was shared by many who were opposed to the refusal by Prime Minister Lyons to countenance broadcasts that were critical of government policy: opposition grew into vocal resistance, accompanied by parodies denouncing government secrecy. Given its centrality in the development of broadcasting, the role of government in shaping spoken-word Australian radio between the wars is the appropriate starting point for this thesis.

1 The Argus (Melbourne), 20 May 1924, 15, ‘Influences of Wireless, Need for firm control’. 2 Herbert Burton, ‘The Burlesque of Broadcasting’ in Australian Rhodes Review, 1939, 82. 3 Leonie Foster, High Hopes: the men and motives of the Australian Round Table, Melbourne: Melbourne University Press in association with The Australian Institute of International Affairs, 1986, 66–67. 4 Kalgoorlie Miner (Western Australia), 14 September 1914, 6, ‘Wireless Station Taken, Two Able Seamen Killed’; Ross Curnow. 32

Governments round the world took different parts as radio broadcasting began, but that of regulator applied to all. Every country in which wireless telegraphy developed in the early twentieth century faced the question of how to allocate frequencies to avoid interference among maritime, military and civilian users.5 Recent scholarship has emphasised the importance of those early years for setting the conceptual framework in which broadcasting developed.6 In Australia, the government deferred to commercial interests and while early radio was talked about as a ‘public utility’, this can be seen as related more to a countrywide service like the delivery of mail, than a national cultural purpose.7 However, this policy vacuum was no obstacle to the range of speakers who took to the airwaves alongside singers and recitalists, while at the same time, debate about radio became a matter of public interest. Radio emerged as a powerful mode of communication; if government in the early 1920s had been free to choose its role in relation to broadcasting, by the late 1930s it was under pressure from the public to cast itself differently.

Both Ken Inglis and Bridget Griffen-Foley have documented the political use of radio in Australia in the interwar period, from government interventions to partisan broadcasts on commercial radio; other scholars have discussed the use of radio in electioneering.8 This chapter will build on these analyses, by identifying additional contexts in which radio was used for overtly political purposes; it will also extend earlier studies by locating the opposition to radio censorship within broader campaigns against restricted access to ideas. The involvement of groups and individuals outside radio institutions was a common thread linking these situations; the scale and persistence of public engagement in these issues thrust the freedom to speak and the freedom to listen into the limelight over the course of the 1930s. For the purpose of this analysis, the chapter will discuss the political nature of interwar radio under three broad headings: the public’s introduction to the idea of wireless and the subsequent development of broadcast regulations; political broadcasts across public and commercial radio by politicians,

5 Inglis, op. cit., 7. 6 Mary Vipond, Listening in: the first decade of Canadian broadcasting, 1922-1932, Montreal, Buffalo, McGill-Queen's University Press, 1992; Hugh R. Slotten Radio and Television Regulation: broadcast technology in the United States, 1920–1960, Baltimore, John Hopkins University Press, 2000. 7 Neville Petersen, op. cit., 30. 8 Inglis, op. cit., 31; Bridget Griffen-Foley (2009), 354–376; Murray Goot, ‘Radio Lang’ in Jack Lang, edited by Heather Radi and Peter Spearritt, Neutral Bay, Hale & Iremonger & Labour History, 1977, 119–138; Nick Richardson, ‘The 1931 Australian Federal Election- Radio Makes History’ in the Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, Vol. 30, No. 3, September 2010, 377–389; Ian Ward, ‘The early use of radio for political communication in Australia and Canada: John Henry Austral, Mr Sage and the Man from Mars’ in Australian Journal of Politics and History, Vol. 45, No. 3, 1999, 311–329; Griffen-Foley (2017), op. cit., 142– 173. 33 non-party political speakers and news commentators; radio as a contested space of public encounter arising from the opposition to government censorship in the 1930s.

This chapter will not discuss the campaign for independent radio newsgathering in Australia. Radio news in the interwar period was a minor part of broadcasting, for many years consisting of reading aloud newspaper copy within specified time allowances and at specific times of the day.9 The poor provision of radio news in Australia became a matter of concern in the late 1930s as political tensions rose in Europe and local opposition to the censorship of radio talks gathered momentum.10 The focus of this chapter is on the way radio was shaped by the voices of individuals and organised groups presenting their views, not news; the development of newsgathering post-war did not replace these practices. Nonetheless, the interwar debates over censorship of radio talks raised fundamental questions of freedom of speech, public entitlement to information as the basis of individual opinion forming, and the role of government in enabling this in a democracy. These issues are central to a consideration of radio as an auditory public sphere.

Wireless regulations in Australia: early opportunities

Radio broadcasting’s predecessor, wireless telegraphy, was understood to apply to the communication of ‘private intelligence’, a commodity not to be lightly shared: any interception was taken to be a sign of the technology’s vulnerability.11 The realisation that this shortcoming of wireless communication could in fact constitute a positive benefit, enabling many listeners to hear music or speech from a single source, is variously attributed to Americans David Sarnoff and Lee de Forest during or shortly before World War I.12 As the idea encircled the world at the end of the war, different parties scrambled to secure a seat at its launch. Their understanding of its destination was not necessarily the same. Commercial interests, such as electrical suppliers, radio traders and component manufacturers, shared concerns relating more to equipment than communication, whereas universities expressed an interest in broadcasting for its potential

9 Petersen, op. cit., 51; Griffen-Foley (2009), op. cit., 318–319. 10 During the 1930s, BBC news became available on shortwave and exposed the paucity of Australian news bulletins. 11 Ross Curnow and Ian Bedford, Initiative and Organisation, Melbourne, F.W. Cheshire for the Dept. of Govt. and Public Administration, University of Sydney, 1963, 49–53; ‘What was the Zimmerman telegram?’, BBC History Extra, 6 April 2017, https://www.historyextra.com/period/first-world-war/the- telegram-that-brought-america-into-the-first-world-war/ accessed online 30 September 2018. 12 Louise M. Benjamin, ‘In Search of the Sarnoff ‘Radio Music Box’ Memo’, Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, Vol. 37, Issue 3, Summer 1993, 325–335. 34 educative consequences.13 Radio amateurs, engaged in transmission and reception as a hobby, were often less interested in the possibility of mass communication while military and maritime interests had still other priorities. These were not watertight compartments, as many World War I wireless operators went on to become radio traders or to join the societies for amateurs where they might mingle with university scientists. Each of these groups can be found in successive iterations of radio’s beginnings round the world, generating and reinforcing a common interest globally in the development of radio broadcasting in other countries.14

Many scholars have argued that radio should be understood primarily as ‘an ensemble of social relations’ rather than a technology.15 The conquest of distance was a matter of keen interest to settler Australians from the beginnings of the colonial period.16 After the successive introduction of cable, telegraphy, and the telephone, there was widespread press coverage of demonstrations of wireless telegraphy by Professor William Bragg at the University of Adelaide in 1897.17 Yet while wireless was associated with science and national security, it had already been publicised as within the range of amateur enthusiasts. In Ross Curnow’s estimation, the first wave of Australian radio hams before the war commanded considerable respect and their achievements were widely reported.18

One amateur was particularly prominent in Australia. George Taylor has received less attention than many other key figures in histories of Australian broadcasting, but he played a crucial role in the early dissemination of ideas about radio and influenced policy development until his sudden death in 1928. Taylor was an inveterate publicist who at one time edited six specialist magazines representing his interests in construction, architecture, planning and the military.19

13 University of Adelaide Archives, 1923; University of Melbourne (UOM) Council Minutes, 1924. 14 Australian press coverage of radio was most often of developments in America and Britain, less frequently outside Europe or North America, although there were occasional reports from Japan, China and Sumatra. 15 Susan Squiers, Communities of the Air, Durham, Duke University Press, 2003, 7. 16 Graeme Davison notes the pre-eminence of the idea of distance as conquered in John Hirst’s early reading of Geoffrey Blainey’s book The tyranny of distance: how distance shaped Australia's history in an essay published on the 50th anniversary of Blainey’s widely read book, Geoffrey Blainey, The tyranny of distance: how distance shaped Australia's history, Melbourne, Sun Books, 1966, see Graeme Davison, ‘Distance and Destiny’, Inside Story, 28 July 2016, https://insidestory.org.au/distance-and-destiny/ accessed online 20 November 2018. 17 Ann Moyal, Clear across Australia: a history of telecommunications, Melbourne, Nelson, 1984; Mercury, 15 August 1876, 3, ‘Electrical telegraphy without wires’. 18 Curnow (1963), op. cit., 67. Curnow distinguishes pre-war from post-war amateurs. 19 For a discussion of George Taylor, see Michael Roe, Nine Australian Progressives: vitalism in bourgeois social thought, 1890-1960 St. Lucia, Qld, University of Queensland Press, 1984; Taylor was editor of Construction, The Local Government Journal, Building Magazine, The Australasian Engineer, The Soldier and The Property Owner, NAA: MP341/1, 1924/2536 ‘Papers Dealing with Wireless Regulations 1923’. 35

In 1910 and 1911, his experiments transmitting wireless messages on moving trains in Victoria and Queensland attracted national attention:

Mr Taylor transmitted messages through eight locked railway carriages of the Victorian express during a run of 55 miles an hour!20

Scientist and showman, he set up the NSW Institute of Wireless Telegraphy for amateur experimenters in 1910. The following year, he called on the government to improve existing regulations, in order to ‘give Australia [the] best opportunity for developing wireless.’21 Taylor’s contribution to the development of wireless in Australia was to fuel the public imagination; he presented the technology as attainable, associating it with modernity and national achievement. In this endeavour, though, he was speaking a different language from that of the Commonwealth government.

The Australian government had been wary of wireless communication from the start; in 1905 it quickly copied its former colonial power, Great Britain, with blanket legislation placing all wireless activity under the authority of the Postmaster General.22 Amateurs such as Taylor could obtain licences to experiment with wireless transmission and reception until the outbreak of World War I, when Australia, along with many other countries, clamped down on civilian wireless development. Post-war, the ranks of amateurs were swelled by men who had obtained skills in wireless operation during the war.23 In addition to reporting these, the Australian press showed enormous interest in developments in broadcasting overseas. Peter Hoar has shown how the press in New Zealand enabled the general public to become familiar with the idea of radio before hearing it.24 Australia had one of the highest newspaper readerships in the world and newspapers across the country assiduously reported the growing application and popularity of wireless overseas, from Marconi’s broadcast of singer Nellie Melba to the wildfire spread of radio stations in the United States.25 Australian coverage of broadcasting in the early 1920s often looked to America with the 1922 Workers Educational Association (WEA) conference in Melbourne discussing the use of radio in education in America, while Table Talk

20 North Western Advocate and Emu Bay Times (Devonport, Tasmania), 18 February 1911, 2, ‘Wonders of Wireless’; The Age (Melbourne), 15 November 1911, 7; Singleton Argus, 9 February 1911, 4. 21 The Queenslander (Brisbane) 4 February 1911, 16 ‘Wireless in Australia’. 22 Curnow, op. cit., 53; (Cth) Wireless Act 1905. 23 Curnow, op. cit., 66, 4. 24 Peter Hoar, ‘Morse, Magic and Modernity: Receiving Radio in New Zealand’ in Radio and Society edited by Matt Mollgard, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2012, 7. 25 The Mercury (Hobart), 29 July 1922, 7, ‘Wireless Wonders’; for details of newspaper readership in Australia, see McNair, Radio Advertising in Australia, Sydney, Angus & Robertson, 1937, 79. 36 magazine reported the first-hand observations of the Victorian Chief Inspector of Schools, M.V. Hansen, of American university broadcasts.26

Radio was a subject of growing public interest: Taylor’s pre-war passion for wireless was bolstered by a celebrated demonstration in 1920 by Ernest Fisk, the energetic managing director of Amalgamated Wireless (Australasia) Ltd (AWA), in which music was broadcast across Melbourne. The choice of music on this occasion pre-figured the place of imperial thinking in the development of radio in Australia. Fisk’s demonstration included a recording of ‘Rule Britannia’ and a live rendition by the winner of the Melba scholarship of ‘Advance Australia Fair’; one account of the transmission noted that ‘even the noise of the needle on the record could be heard’.27 Fisk advocated radio broadcasting as an entertainment but could not proceed without ministerial approval: the 1905 Commonwealth legislation, which applied to the basic delivery mechanism, effectively tied the hands of any ambitious entrepreneur. However, as Mick Counihan has pointed out, this avoided the need for Parliamentary debate.28 By the end of 1922, the Federal government had still to decide how to proceed and their dilatory action was one factor contributing to the major role the press and public took in debate about broadcasting.29

The Postmaster General (PMG), William Gibson, called prospective radio dealers, radio amateurs and the emerging broadcast companies to a conference in Sydney in May 1923. His opening words betrayed the government’s diffidence:

I feel sure that wireless broadcasting will be a very fine thing for the people of this country who regard such a service as a necessity. I am not, however, so sanguine in regard to the question of broadcasting for pleasure purposes.30

The regulations adopted in 1923 became the foundation for Australian broadcasting, taking elements from both the British and American systems: listeners were required to pay a licence fee, which was the case in Britain but not in America; and in common with America, the system

26 The Age (Melbourne), 4 December 1922, 8, ‘News of the Day’; The Age, 12 September 1922, 10, ‘Wonders of Wireless- Broadcasting scheme in preparation’; Table Talk (Melbourne), 7 December 1922, 24, ‘Educational Co-operation’. 27 Western Mail (Perth), 21 October 1920, 22, ‘Wireless Telephony- Striking Demonstrations’. 28 Counihan, op. cit., 125, (Cth) Wireless Telegraphy Act, 18 October 1905. 29 The Argus, 28 November 1922, 6, ‘Wireless Concerts: Broadcasting Situation Obscure’; Counihan, op. cit., 3, 34. 30 Wireless Weekly (Sydney), Vol. 2, No. 23, 8 June 1923, 2. 37 allowed for commercial competition amongst many radio stations instead of the broadcasting monopoly in Britain. Under the 1923 regulations, a listener licence enabled reception only to a single station; the ‘sealed-set’ system, as it became known, was almost immediately opposed. The revenue collected from the licence was divided between radio stations, AWA (royalties for their patents) and the Post Office (for administrative costs), leaving a percentage as government revenue. While broadcasting regulation was conducted as a federal responsibility, in practice Australian broadcasting began as a state or even city-based enterprise. Local affiliations were to contribute to the continuing debates over the system to be adopted in Australia and to its character once established.

Despite Gibson’s insistence that the matter be left to specialists, the regulations issued in July 1923 gave the PMG considerable authority.31 When the Victorian Vocalists’ Society wrote to Prime Minister Bruce in September 1923 expressing apprehension that Australian artistes would be disadvantaged by wireless, PMG Gibson advised Bruce that ‘the government will not take part in the business of broadcasting’.32 But the regulations included the stipulation that ‘all matter broadcasted shall be subject to such censorship as the Minister determines’.33 The situation was little different from 1905 when, in Ross Curnow’s assessment, neither the desirability of, nor the necessity for, Government control over wireless was questioned.34 This makes the change in thinking over the interwar decades during which broadcasting became established all the more significant.

Wireless regulations in Australia: broadcasting commences

The first official Australian radio station to commence regular broadcasts was 2SB (quickly renamed 2BL) in Sydney on 23rd November 1923; Radio 2FC conducted its initial test broadcast a fortnight later and stations in Melbourne and Perth opened in the first half of 1924.35 The naming of radio stations followed the convention of London’s 2LO with a numerical prefix designating each state in Australia, instituted for radio hams pre-war; the two letters of each station name were sometimes connected to the licensee, the location of the station or

31 Counihan, op. cit., 53; NAA: A458, A224/1. 32 NAA: A458, A224/1. 33 Cth Regulations 1923, Paragraph 37, (3). 34 The Argus (Melbourne), 20 May 1924, 15, ‘Influences of wireless, need for firm control’; Curnow, op. cit., 53. 35 2BL was run by a consortium of business interests, including the newspaper Smith’s Weekly; 2FC, run by department store Farmers & Co Ltd, started regular transmissions on 9 January 1924. 38 simply chosen because they appealed.36 Progress in building audiences was slow, with the number of ‘sealed set’ licences taken out by listeners in the first year of broadcasting pitifully small.37 George Taylor led a campaign for a further conference, with letters and telegrams threatening electoral consequences if nothing was done.38 PMG Gibson grudgingly convened a meeting in April 1924; it included Harry Brown, later Sir Harry Brown, a British civil servant seconded to the Australian Post Office in 1923.39 Brown was made permanent head of the department within a year; he consistently urged a national broadcasting system for Australia and was influential in its development.40

The outcome of the 1924 deliberations was the creation of two classes of radio station, known for some time as ‘A’ and ‘B’. One or two ‘A’ stations would be licensed in each state, largely financed by a proportion of their state’s licence fee revenue; ‘B’ stations would not receive any part of the licence fee; both ‘A’ and ‘B’ stations were entitled to take sponsorship or advertising. Ann Moyal attributes the idea of a dual system to Brown although it can be noted that the scheme was outlined in letters from two wireless amateurs earlier published in magazines.41 The new regulations were far more comprehensive than those of 1923: the relaying of programmes was allowed and there were differences in the permitted power of transmitters, with the consequence that ‘B’ stations were obliged to operate with lesser strength and smaller geographical range. While applicants for broadcasting stations were required to give ‘particulars of average programmes’, there was no indication of how this would affect the granting of a licence. There was no explicit prohibition against, or requirement for, any particular sort of programme, nor any obligation to serve any specified audience. In these respects, the regulations applied equally to ‘A’ and ‘B’ stations; the power of the PMG to censor the content of broadcasts was unchanged from 1923.42

36 Sydney’s 2FC was licenced to Farmer Bros. department store, Perth’s 6WF to Westralian Farmers, and Melbourne’s 3AR to Associated Radio; the remainder are ‘4’ for Queensland, ‘5’ for South Australia and ‘7’ for Tasmania. 37 Griffen-Foley (2009), op.cit., 7. 38 NAA: A458, A224/1. 39 M.J. Howard, ‘Brown, Sir Harry Percy (1878–1967)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/brown-sir-harry-percy- 5384/text9113, published first in hardcopy 1979, accessed online 16 May 2016. 40 Ann Moyal, ‘Pooh Bah’ Brown: a human whirlwind at the PMG, a study in organisational style’, in Australian Journal of Communication, Vol. 24 (3), 1997, 41–51; Anduaga, op. cit., 148. 41 Moyal (1997), op. cit., 48; NAA: A458, A224/1, p. 122, Donald McDonald, letter to Radio Broadcasting, 19 July 1923; C. Norris, letter to Australasian Electrical Times, July 1923 (n.p.). 42 (Cth) Wireless Telegraphy Regulations, 17 July 1924, Par 59 (c): ‘All matter broadcasted shall be subject to such censorship as the Minister determines’. 39

New charges for the use of newspaper material and music programmes served to favour less expensive spoken-word broadcasts: talks from groups, individuals and institutions peppered radio programme listings, which began to be published in daily newspapers as well as the specialist wireless magazines.43 In 1924, the WA State Botanist discussed ‘Western Australian’s freedom from pests’, the Melbourne Esperanto Club launched monthly broadcasts on 3LO, and 2FC transmitted talks by the Royal Society of NSW.44 The gentle mocking of radio talks in a 1925 newspaper article – ‘it is very educative and intensely interesting to learn after a good dinner, “How to peel and boil potatoes”’ – underscored their place in the public imagination.45 An indication of their popularity was shown in a series of listener plebiscites in Melbourne in 1925 that showed ‘educational talks’ and ‘topical lecturettes’ ranking well as listeners’ choice of programme, polling better than drama, household hints and hobbies.46 The classifications ‘educational talks’ and ‘topical lecturettes’ are not entirely clear and indicate the newness of the vocabulary. One listing sums up part of 2FC’s morning fare as ‘Topical talks’ when a more detailed schedule shows it included health and hygiene; the label ‘education talks’ appears to have applied both to talks for schools and for a general audience.

Many of these talks were given by graduates, whose qualifications were clearly posted, with subjects associated with adult education such as literature and everyday science; also proving popular in the first years of broadcasting were ‘travel talks’ presented by travel journalists and writers.47 Few talks dealt with current affairs: an exception was a series in 1924 called ‘News of the Week’ by Professor Meredith Atkinson, first president of the WEA in Australia, which prompted the Melbourne newspaper The Herald to call for regular talks on topical matters.48 The League of Nations was often the subject of early broadcasts, in talks as well as sermons.49

43 Wireless Weekly was launched by an electrical components business in Sydney in 1923 and appealed initially to wireless amateurs; it was bought by Associated Newspapers in 1929. Listener in, published by the Herald newspaper, began in Melbourne in 1925. Most states saw a succession of wireless magazines, often short-lived, between the early 1920s and mid 1950s. 44 Bruce Rock Post (WA), 18 July 1924, 4, ‘WA’s Freedom from Pests- Lecture Broadcasted’; Examiner (Tas), 26 November 1924, 7 ‘Esperanto and Wireless’; Sydney Morning Herald, 8 May 1924, 12, ‘Broadcasting’; NAA: A458, A224/1. 45 The Australasian (Melbourne), 16 May 1925, 38, ‘Talk on ‘Change’. 46 Anyone could fill in the voting form and it is unclear now representative the tally is of actual listeners; nor is it clear who those listeners were – licensees were a minority of households till the mid 1930s, although it is possible that many listeners were unlicensed; The Argus, 21 May 1925, 9, ‘Wireless Broadcasting: Vote on Programmes’. 47 Geelong Advertiser (Victoria), 24 January 1925, Dr J Leach, D. Sc, ‘Birds of Australia’; Albert Peters of the Caledonian Society, ‘Robert Burns, his life and works’; 20 April 1925, ‘Mr C R Long MA, ‘The Romance of Australian History: Crossing the Blue Mountains and Tracing the Western Rivers”. 48 Herald (Melbourne), 2 April 1925, 8, ‘Brighter Broadcasting’. Atkinson left Australia for London in 1926. 49 Mirror (Perth), 18 July 1925, 6, ‘Broadcast Programmes’; West Australian (Perth), 22 August 1925, 7, ‘Reparation and war debts’; Bunbury Herald (WA), 13 October 1925, ‘The Gold Standard’. 40

However, politics of the day did become part of the output of early radio in the form of broadcasting by politicians.

Politicians’ use of radio in the 1920s

Politicians were associated with radio directly and indirectly from its inception, from their visible presence at the openings of new radio stations, wireless exhibitions and transmitters, to active campaigning.50 Radio figured in the NSW and Federal elections of 1925, setting a precedent for every election thereafter.51 Leader of the NSW Progressive Party, Michael Bruxner, led the way when he was reported for having ‘an eye to the advantage of a state-wide broadcast from [the southern city of] Goulburn rather than giving his policy speech in his electorate in the Northern Tablelands’.52 The Mayor hosting the occasion appealed to the local audience to applaud, in order ‘to show the listeners-in that Goulburn is intelligent’.53 This inaugural broadcast came from the Sydney ‘A’ class station 2FC, but there is evidence that less- official transmissions were also taking place. Progressive party candidate David Drummond organised a speech to be broadcast in Uralla in northern NSW in mid-1925; in the absence of a licenced radio station, this was presumably enabled by a radio amateur.54 The Land, a newspaper for rural interests, endorsed the broadcasting of policy speeches as a means of encouraging both sexes ‘to perform the primary function of their citizenship at the polling booths’, a rare recognition of women’s inclusion in the political process and an indication that radio might herald a new mode of public life.55

While the 1924 regulations did not make specific reference to political broadcasts, press reports in early 1925 make clear that permission had to be obtained from the PMG for broadcasts from campaign events or rallies.56 In October 1925, permission was refused the Labor Premier of Queensland to broadcast a speech at a public meeting called by the Labor Party as part of its campaign for the Federal election scheduled for mid-November. Premier Gillies’ riposte to PM

50 Prime Minister William Hughes was broadcasting before regulations were in place: ‘Hear Mr Hughes’ Daily Mail (Brisbane), 6 October 1922, 6; Register (SA), 27 July 1923, 8, ‘when Mr Hughes addressed the people of Bendigo at few months ago it was arranged that his weighty words be rendered light as a feather and ‘wirelessed’ to Melbourne’. 51 Sunday Times (Sydney), 26 April 1925, 6; Lang’s acceptance was reported in the Evening News, 25 April 1925, 6. 52 The Sun (Sydney), 29 April 1925, 7, ‘Bruxner Opens’. 53 ibid. 54 Uralla Times (NSW), 7 May 1925, 2, ‘Politics Broadcast’. This report suggests the possibility of other political broadcasts aided by amateurs. 55 The Land (Sydney), 1 May 1925, 13, ‘Essence of Politics, Policy Speeches’. 56 Daily Examiner (Grafton, NSW), 28 March 1925, 5, ‘Broadcast of Speeches’. 41

Bruce appeared on newsstands across the state – ‘the Czar has spoken!’57 Comparisons were made with the broadcasting of political speeches in NSW earlier in the year, as well as its growing practice in Britain; when the PMG stated that the policy was to restrict political speeches to the Federal party leader, Gillies condemned the decision as ‘not in the public interest’.58 This episode suggests that the right to broadcast free of government intervention was being perceived as akin to freedom of speech; it also allowed for the denial of the public’s right to listen to be the locus of opposition to government authority.

The following year, Queensland Labor party leaders were refused permission to have their speeches broadcast during the 1926 Commonwealth referendum campaign; they responded by accusing the Federal government of ‘tyrannical acts’.59 The Queensland clashes of 1925 and 1926 were well reported nationwide, publicising the government’s readiness to deny the Opposition the opportunity it had made available for itself. In 1928 the lifting of restrictions on the broadcasting of controversial matters on the BBC was reported in Australia, following which a Western Australian radio commentator, ‘Chris T. L.’, raised the question of political censorship in Australian broadcasting.60 Shortly after, it was apparent that both sides of politics were willing to use their power to block broadcasts counter to their position.

In 1931, the Scullin Labor government denied the broadcast in South Australia of speeches to be given at a meeting of the right-wing Citizens’ League.61 Angry League members dispatched a telegram to the Prime Minister urging permission to broadcast the meeting, which went ahead at Adelaide Town Hall; Scullin’s reply that only the leaders of political parties could have speeches broadcast was read out to cries of ‘shame’.62 Telegrams were dispatched to groups of similar political cast, urging them ‘to defend the right of free speech which concerns every citizen in Australia.’63 The South Australian Labor Premier Lionel Hill spoke out presciently:

57 The Week (Brisbane), 9 October 1925, 19, ‘Political News, Premier Gillies Annoyed’; Daily Standard (Brisbane), 2 October 1925, 1, ‘Bruce’s Fascisti disclose their hands’; Daily Standard (Brisbane), 2 October 1925, 6, ‘Freedom of speech suppressed by Mr Bruce- Complete Wireless Censorship at Last Night’s Great Labor Rally’. 58 Brisbane Courier, 3 October 1925, 9, ‘Speeches Barred’. 59 Daily Mail (Brisbane), 2 September 1926, 14, ‘Parliament protests: Ban on Broadcasting Leaders’ Referenda Speeches’. 60 Daily News WA, 26 March 1928, 7, ‘Controversial Matters: should they be broadcast?’ 61 Chronicle (Adelaide, SA), 23 July 1931, 38, ‘Radio Censorship, Postmaster General Bombshell: Prohibits Citizens’ League Broadcast’; also reported in the West Australian, 23 July 1931, 12, ‘Adelaide Protest’. A broadcast from outside the radio station studios required additional post office lines to be connected to the transmitter; unless a radio station was broadcasting from the transmitter, its signal could be easily disrupted. 62 ibid. 63 Chronicle (Adelaide, SA), 30 July 1931, 45, ‘Fight against Broadcast Ban’. 42

Whether we agree with the views expressed, or not, has no relation to the position. Care should be taken by the authorities to avoid establishing a wrong precedent.64

Hill also noted that the radio station in question was a ‘B’ class station; this was significant as several broadcasting licences had already been awarded to licensees whose professed intention was to promote political propaganda.

Political ‘B’ stations

Under the 1924 regulations, there was nothing to prevent political organisations applying for and receiving licences to broadcast so long as they made a case for broadcasting to the general public.65 For a government concerned to maintain control over broadcast material, this appears an extraordinary oversight as it opened the door to political proselytising over the air; it did make sense, however, given the expectation that ‘B’ stations would not survive.66 ‘A’ class stations in each state received a proportion of the listener licence fees, whereas ‘B’ class stations were liable to the same copyright and running costs without the receipt of any licence fee monies.67 Radio advertising was not an established practice in Australia in the 1920s and a few of the early ‘B’ class stations did fail.68 Others survived, thrived and are still broadcasting profitably today, including a number that owe their beginnings to the labour movement.

The involvement of organised Labor in Australian broadcasting was due in large part to Emil Voigt, an individual cast in a similar modern mould to that of George Taylor. Voigt was born in England in 1883: an Olympic athlete and vegetarian, he trained as a mechanic and was briefly in Australia before World War I. He returned to Sydney in 1921, where he became active in NSW left-wing politics until his departure for Britain in 1936.69 Like Taylor, he was fascinated by wireless; during a visit to America from July 1923 to February 1925, he observed closely the

64 Advertiser (Adelaide, SA), 23 July 1931, 10, ‘Constitutional Club’s Protest’. 65 2KY’s licence was delayed when they proposed to use broadcasting to call Trades Hall members to meetings. 66 Counihan (1983), 177. 67 The initial plan was for two ‘A’ class stations in Victoria and NSW, one in the other states. ‘B’ stations might generate indirect income through encouraging the sale of receivers, helpful when a radio dealer ran the station. 68 Griffen-Foley (2009), op. cit., 8 – 9. 69 Chris Cunneen ‘Voigt, Emil Robert (1883–1973)’ Australian Dictionary of Biography National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/voigt-emil-robert- 8930/text15689, published first in hardcopy 1990, accessed online 27 May 2016; After leaving Australia in 1936, Voigt later settled in New Zealand where he died in 1973. 43 way radio was used by US politicians.70 On his return to Australia, he convinced the Sydney labour movement that radio could provide a counter to the conservative bias of much of the press.71 The NSW Trades Hall Council set up a wireless committee and in 1925 applied successfully for a ‘B’ class broadcast licence. 2KY opened on 31 October 1925 and has been associated with the Labor Party for three generations.72

2KY was the first of several ‘B’ class radio stations that were not set up purely as commercial enterprises. Lesley Johnson, in one of the first studies of 2KY, has suggested that Voigt was imbued with the spirit of Brecht in seeking to use radio for progressive purposes by effecting two-way communication with listeners, rather than one-way transmission.73 However Voigt’s use of radio was similar in form to that of other political speakers seeking to influence the thinking of their audience. While Voigt made a case for the ALP to have a policy on broadcasting, he did not articulate a specific theory of listening: his position was that hearing Labor ideas would be as effective as reading the Labor press.74 During the interwar years when radio news consisted of reading aloud from a newspaper, it was the Labor Daily that was brought to the 2KY microphone.75 Lesley Johnson noted 2KY’s fare of quiz shows, wrestling commentary and serials to conclude that ‘by the 1930s [2KY] was a popular entertainer, not a means of partisan education’.76 However, evidence suggests that it sustained elements of both.

Emil Voigt was a tireless publicist who travelled the eastern states contributing to an emerging discussion of the government’s control over political broadcasts on ‘A’ class stations; his speeches were often cited in the press as he pointed out ‘the unseen hand’ of conservative bias in other radio stations.77 In 1931, Emil Voigt objected to the scheduling of news talks on Sydney

70 South Coast Times and Wollongong Argus (Wollongong, NSW), 4 December 1925, 20, ‘Labor Broadcasting’. In this article, Voigt is reported for speaking about the way American politicians used radio, probably a reference to Coolidge who famously reached huge audiences with radio addresses. 71 Emil Voigt, ‘Wireless and the Workers: Does Organised Labor realise the urgent necessity for its own Broadcasting stations?’, Australian Worker (Sydney), 18 February 1925, 5. Voigt made an impassioned plea, ‘Glance back down the course of working-class history and you will see clearly that Capitalism always was quick to seize any great invention that rose from the restless sea of Labor activity...To the workers of Australia, history says: No more capitalist camouflage! ERECT YOUR OWN BROADCASTING STATIONS.’ 72 The 2KY commemorative book marking the station’s 75th anniversary opens with a congratulatory preface from Bob Carr, then Labor Premier of NSW, 2KY op. cit. (no page numbers). 73 Johnson, op. cit., 32; Johnson also notes ‘the weakness of Voigt’s analysis’, op. cit., 37. 74 South Coast Times and Wollongong Argus (Wollongong, NSW), 4 December 1925, 20, ‘Labor Broadcasting’; Griffen-Foley op. cit., 357. 75 Labor Daily (Sydney), 29 October 1925, 8, ‘Prepare for Labor’s Broadcasting Station – Hear 2KY Next Monday, All the News and Labor Views’. 76 Johnson, op. cit., 36. 77 Daily Standard (Brisbane), 16 March 1925, 10, ‘Power of publicity: Chance for Labor in Wireless’. 44

‘A’ stations on the grounds that they would ‘open wide the door to the most insidious kind of political propaganda’ and compound the broadcasting of anti-Labor sentiment already present in the newsprint read aloud on air.78 2KY was visibly associated with Labor through its daily listing in newspaper broadcasting columns as ‘Trades Hall’; it also assisted ALP finances during the Depression.79 The station broadcast talks on political matters in the thirties that much of the mainstream press did not cover: it was sued by the Graziers’ Association in 1930 for its support of striking shearers; World Peace magazine lauded 2KY women’s host Isobel Grey as the ‘brave and outspoken defender of the downtrodden’ for her support of women workers.80 2KY provided a model that was followed by the Labor movement elsewhere in Australia and while these stations were likewise limited in their presentation of Labor ideals, they did enable the ALP airtime that otherwise would have required party funds to purchase.81

Within a year of 2KY’s launch, another radio station was established in Sydney with the similar objective of influencing listeners’ thinking. 2GB was licensed by the Sydney Theosophical Society at an initial cost to members of £6,000.82 It is sometimes discussed alongside radio stations later run by churches: 2SM was set up by the Catholic church in December 1931 and two months later, 2CH was launched by the Protestant NSW Council of Churches.83 However Jill Roe has shown that 2GB can also be viewed as a political radio station; it was a platform for the conservative groups ‘Who’s for Australia? League’, launched on 2GB in 1929, and its successor, the ‘All for Australia League’, before the latter was swallowed by the United Australia Party in 1931.84 2GB also paid half the salary of the editor of a newspaper published by the Who’s for Australia? League.85 2GB station manager, A. E. Bennett, the secretary of the Sydney Theosophical Society as well as co-founder of the Who’s for Australia League, trumpeted its output of music, literature and talks as a cultural alternative to other stations, but there is little

78 Sydney Morning Herald, 8 November 1930, 14, ‘Broadcast Comments from ‘A’ class Stations’. 79 While other ‘B’ stations closed or changed hands as the Depression took hold, 2KY ‘s success enabled it to direct funding to the Sydney Trades Hall at a time of reduced income from union contributions: see Reflections of 2KY – 75 Years of Broadcasting, pages not numbered, under heading ‘Politics’, ‘the Council had to rely on some of the profits from 2KY to meet the financial crisis’ 80 Jean Moncur, World Peace, 1 September 1939, 106, ‘Won’t you sit down, Madam?’ Barrier Miner (Broken Hill, NSW), 6 August 1930, 4, ‘Shearing Dispute; Writs by Graziers’ Secretary Claim Damages for Libel 2KY station and “Labor Daily”.’ A more comprehensive investigation of 2KY is overdue. 81 Murray Goot has noted of 2KY, ‘the station was always available, without charge, to state and federal Labor’, Goot op. cit., 134. Other ‘B’ class stations licensed to the Labor movement include 3KZ Melbourne, 6KY in Perth, and 4KY in Brisbane. The United Australia Party in Melbourne was awarded a radio station licence in 1934. 82 Jill Roe, Beyond Belief: Theosophy in Australia, 1879–1939’, Kensington, UNSW Press, 1986, 351 83 2CH was bought by AWA in 1936. 84 Roe, op.cit., 351. 85 Roe, op. cit., 342. 45 evidence that 2GB took up the modernism associated with Theosophy elsewhere.86 In the 1930s, Bennett looked to American radio networks for programme ideas and became an influential figure in Australian commercial radio.87 His connection with the Sydney Theosophical Society was severed after he ‘facilitated’ the takeover of 2GB in 1936 by Denison Estates, run by conservative newspaper magnate Sir Hugh Denison.88 The Theosophical Society scrambled to negotiate free airtime on 2GB as a condition of the sale, gaining four sessions a week for twenty-one years.89 By this means, 2GB played a part in later political broadcasting as the Theosophical Society often gave its allocation to interest groups it supported.90

Regulatory reappraisal: the 1927 Royal Commission into Wireless

Listening to radio in the interwar years required not just payment of the listener licence fee, but also access to an adequate broadcast signal. Voigt joined with George Taylor in 1926 to draw attention to the high price of the licence fee and the poor service for country listeners.91 While metropolitan radio audiences were growing, reception in country areas remained difficult and the Post Office undertook minimal research into radio transmission and reception. In addition, the ‘A’ class stations of the more populated states had far better prospects than those in WA, Queensland and Tasmania of earning sufficient revenue from licence fees to cover their costs and make a profit. In 1926, George Taylor, rather than the government, organised a Commonwealth Radio Conference for dealers and broadcasters; committees were convened on copyright, patent royalties and licence fees as well as ‘radio and public education’. 92 Emil Voigt was active in this committee which called for greater effort to ‘utilise Wireless as an educational aid’ for children and adults.93 The proceedings of the conference were published and made

86 Queanbeyan-Canberra Advocate (Queanbeyan, NSW), 10 June 1926, 1, ‘New Radio Station: High Class Wireless’; Roe, op. cit., 302, 305, 315. 87 Philip Geeves, ‘Bennett, Alfred Edward (1889–1963), Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/bennett-alfred- edward-5207/text8763, published first in hardcopy 1979, accessed online 17 June 2017 88 Roe, op. cit., pp. 371–372. Roe describes this episode as ‘not easy to follow’; it involved many accusations and complex litigation. 89 Roe, op. cit., 373. 90 ibid. 91 Limited reception in country areas was acknowledged with a reduced licence fee, which many nonetheless felt to be excessive. 92 Sydney, 3–5 May 1926; as well as opening and closing with messages of loyalty to the King, a letter of support from the English-speaking Union was read aloud, identifying the common interest of ‘people who speak the same language and have the same ideals.’ This is significant for suggesting Imperial allegiance was being stretched to include the United States, possibly being reshaped to preserve a conception of race within common cultural stock. 93 The Commonwealth Radio Conference, 3–5 May 1926, 33. 46 available to a larger public. The conference was also successful in urging the Government to extend the discussion with a Royal Commission.94

The 1927 Royal Commission on Wireless enabled a far wider debate than the previous conferences on broadcasting: witnesses from across the country included representatives of listeners’ leagues, radio dealers, musicians, scientists, the Navy, radio amateurs and two women. Their testimonies were widely reported, reminding the public of the negotiated nature of wireless broadcasting. There was no legislation proposed after the Commission and consequently no debate in Parliament, but the government accepted its recommendation to nationalise the ‘A’ stations. The ‘B’ stations were almost overlooked, while a further class of station, the ‘C’ class, was proposed for the commercial broadcast of ‘quality programmes by large sponsors’. These stations did not ever come about, although the implication that the existing ‘B’ stations were not up to quality programmes is telling. The Royal Commission’s report also made brief reference to the output of ‘A’ class stations: that announcers’ spoken English must be of a suitable standard, that stations serve ‘every phase of the popular taste’, and that there was an ’invaluable’ role for educational programmes for adults.95 This was the beginning of a definition of a public broadcasting service policy for Australia, characterised as it is by worthy ambition and woolly ambiguity. The fact that most attention was given to the voice of announcers confirms the common understanding of speech at the time as the bearer of class, wealth and education.96 The Royal Commission’s position on ‘B’ stations was simpler, stating it ‘respects their right to make money with little interference’. This was to have particular consequences for radio’s part in the dissemination of political ideas, as radio came to be used by a growing number of ‘political’ speakers, from parliamentary parties, non-party groups and commentators.

Political airtime in the 1930s: politicians & political organisations

It has been shown how federal and state political leaders began the practice of broadcasting on ‘A’ stations for election campaign purposes in 1925; similarly, the early ‘B’ stations became outlets for politicians, who could purchase airtime or be gifted it by a supportive station.97 This

94 A Royal Commission on the Moving Picture Industry took place in 1926–28, inquiring into many social and economic aspects of cinema; the Wireless inquiry pursued a narrower set of issues, predominantly though not exclusively, reception for listeners and costs to broadcasters. 95 Report of the Royal Commission on Wireless (Cth), 5 October 1927, ix, 15. 96 Damousi, op. cit., 11–19, 215–262. 97 Illawarra Mercury (Wollongong, NSW), 1 May 1925, 2, ‘Wireless’; Griffen-Foley (2017), op. cit., 146; Ward, op. cit., 22 quotes Curtin (no date) ‘this expensive form of political communication’; Nick 47 added a new form of performativity to electioneering: the use of radio increased with each poll, despite some listeners hankering after the excitement of hearing a campaign speech as part of a crowd.98 During the NSW state election of 1927, 2KY’s broadcasts for the Labor Party were countered by 2GB’s provision of airtime to the conservative Nationalist Party; in the 1929 federal election campaign, 2UE broadcast speeches by Nationalist leader WM Hughes: a recording of Hughes was dispatched to other states and billed as an invitation for listeners to hear Hughes ‘crack the verbal whip over his political antagonists’, while Scullin, then leader of the Labor opposition, launched his campaign with a radio broadcast. 99 The federal election campaign of 1931 was dubbed a ‘radio election’.100 Radio was further characterised over the 1930s as a place to hear political voices, with international rebroadcasts of Hitler, Ramsay MacDonald, and Roosevelt to Australian listeners.101

Radio broadcasting now became a feature of Australian political life between elections, for delivering for formal addresses to the nation, as well as more intimate talks to the people. In March 1930 with the Depression uppermost in many minds, Prime Minister Scullin spoke through six ‘A’ stations in a broadcast described as the largest to take place in Australia ‘to tell the people of Australia frankly what the economic and financial situation really is’.102 While opposition politicians between elections were obliged to purchase airtime, this was not a problem for Joseph Lyons, ably supported by Keith Murdoch who managed the Herald newspaper as well as several radio stations. In April 1931, Lyons gave a speech in Adelaide that was rebroadcast to radio stations in each state capital; it was previewed in enthusiastic terms by Murdoch’s Herald newspaper and later reported, without any supporting evidence, as having reached a national audience of 750,000.103 Lyons went on to replace Scullin as prime minister in late 1931 and used a combination of press spreads and radio broadcasts during his term in

Richardson summarises the position of Labor’s D.R. Hall in 1935 that ‘the cost of appearing on a B class station would only consolidate cashed-up parties and politicians’, Richardson, op. cit., 386. 98 Border Chronicle (Mt Gambier, SA), 27 September 1929, 3, ‘The Federal Election’. 99 Griffen-Foley (2009), op. cit., 355; Richardson, op. cit., 378–9; Herald (Melbourne), 2 October 1929, 10, ‘Mr Hughes on the Air Tonight’; Advocate (Burnie, Tasmania), 18 September 1929, 5, ‘Speech to be broadcast by wireless’. 100 Nick Richardson, op. cit., p. 377; Griffen-Foley (2017), op. cit., 145. 101 For Hitler, see ABC Annual Report 1933, 10; for Ramsey MacDonald, see ABC Annual Report 1937, 41; for Roosevelt, see Griffen-Foley (2017), ‘op. cit., 151. 102 Herald (Melbourne), 4 March 1930, 1, ‘Appeal for National Lenten Season, Mr Scullin to Speak on Economic Situation’. 103 Herald (Melbourne), 9 April 1931, 1, ‘Thousands Cheer New Leader at Station: Exhibition Booked Out: Speeches to be broadcast in three states’; Sydney Morning Herald, 10 April 1931, 9, ‘‘Mr Lyons: Great Adelaide Welcome … an audience of many thousands’; Barrier Miner (Broken Hill, NSW), 14 April 1931, 4, ‘Mr Lyons in Adelaide: 750,000 People Heard Broadcast of his Speech’. 48 office.104 Bridget Griffen-Foley suggests he might have been inspired by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, whose ‘fireside chats’ were reported in Australia; Lyons’ wife, Enid, made her first national broadcast after the couple visited Roosevelt and his wife, Eleanor, an acclaimed broadcaster.105 The ‘fireside chats’, which will be discussed in more detail later in this thesis, were part of a suite of broadcasting formats used by Roosevelt. In similar ways, political parties in Australia became attuned to different ways of using radio to garner support. This included developing its affective potential, with the NSW Labor Party venturing into radio drama in 1934.106 Others gained from the familiarity that regular broadcasts could bring. In 1930, the Industrial Printing and Publishing Company, operated by the Melbourne Trades Hall, received a licence to broadcast; while 3KZ was run on a day-to-day basis by the commercial Broadcasting Company Ltd, it operated under an arrangement that gave Trades Hall two broadcast spots a week, one of which was used for the Labour Hour.107 Listeners could occasionally hear women speaking on behalf of political parties.108

Other voices, from organisations across the political spectrum and independent of political parties, also used radio between the wars to engage with listeners on social and political issues. Comprehensive evidence is difficult to pin down due to the absence of archives from early commercial stations and many community groups. Newspaper listings printed details of many organisations who were on air, some occasional and others regular broadcasters; internal records also make clear the level of organisation behind some of these appearances. Broadcast speaking was presented as a skill accessible to members of the public. William Bottomley, the Unitarian minister in Melbourne, was a regular lecturer at the Melbourne University Extension board, whose classes on public speaking became a fixture in the thirties; his manual on public speaking published in 1931 included a section on broadcasting (the manual was reprinted for the fifth time in 1944).109 He assured readers ‘there is no special radio voice that is the gift of the

104 Griffen-Foley (2017), op. cit., 147. 105 Griffen-Foley (2017), op. cit., 146–7. 106 McNair, op. cit., 148; McNair says of Labor dramas that they were intended to articulate the emotional appeal of Labor. The writer of these was possibly Lloyd Ross, see Stephen Holt, Veritable Dynamo: Lloyd Ross and Australian labour 1901–1987, University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, 1996, 21. 107 3KZ Minute book; the ‘Labour Hour’ was editorially controlled by the 3KZ station manager. See Records, 1903–2003, Val Morgan Pty Ltd, SLV, YMS MS 13498. 108 Catherine Fisher, ‘Broadcasting the Woman Citizen: Dame Enid Lyons’ Macquarie Network Talks’, Lilith: A Feminist History Journal, No. 23, 2017, 39; Sunshine Advocate, 18 August 1939, 8, ‘Vote Labor, Hear Mrs Nellie Davidson speak on 3KZ’; World Peace reprinted a talk by Dr Suzanne Abramovich given over 2KY under the auspices of the ALP, World Peace, 1 January 1939, 11, ‘Women Under Fascism, Work but No Wages in Nazi Germany’. 109 William Bottomley, ‘Hints on Broadcasting’, How to Become an effective Public Speaker, Robertson and Mullens Ltd, Melbourne 1931, 53–55; the contents of the manual were also broadcast over 3LO. 49 gods’, referred to women and men as equally capable of being good broadcasters, and advised practice so that listeners would have no sense that the speaker was in fact reading aloud.110

Those broadcasting in NSW included many who were given airtime on 2GB by the Theosophical Society: Jill Roe lists among these the free libraries movement, the Kindergarten Union, the Far West Children’s Health Scheme, the RSPCA, the New Economics Society and the Racial Hygiene Centre.111 Groups in different parts of Australia that obtained airtime included the Association for the Protection of Native Races, the Country Women’s Association (CWA), the Australian Women’s National League, the WEA, the Douglas Credit Association, the Australia First Movement, the British Guild of Empire, the Militant Women’s Group and the Communist Party of Australia.112 The Citizens’ League in South Australia, despite having been banned from an outside broadcast in July 1931, were broadcasting weekly talks on Radio 5AD by the end of the year.113 Bridget Griffen-Foley has given the example of Anna White of Mildura as one of a number of voices speaking up for peace on commercial radio, while the broadcast of weekly ‘Militia Sessions’ in Sydney and Melbourne from 1937 normalised the army as part of everyday life.114

The League of Nations’ Union broadcast regular talks for many years during the 1930s, with many given by women; the Union took broadcasting seriously, with its Secretary Raymond Watts displaying considerable imagination in his scripting of personae and dialogue.115 The broadcasting activities of women’s organisations ranged from those by the feminist United

110 Bottomley, op. cit., 53. 111 Roe, op. cit., 373. 112 Griffen-Foley, op. cit., 359; the CWA broadcast a week of speeches on 2FC in 1926, Glen Innes Examiner (NSW), 7 October 1926, 4, ‘C.W. A: Country Women’s Week’; training for AWNL members and wireless slots are detailed in the Couchman papers, SLV, MS Box 23/6 (a-c); for the CPA, see Helen Macallan and John Potts, 1982, op. cit.; see also Bridget Griffen-Foley on Communist talks on 2HR Newcastle during the miners’ strike in Cessnock, September 1938, Griffen-Foley,(2009), op. cit., 364. The Militant Women’s Group broadcast on 2KY during throughout the timber strike in 1929, Workers’ Weekly, 19 April 1929, 1, ‘With the Timber Workers’ Wives’ (thanks to Phoebe Kelloway for this information). 113 Chronicle (Adelaide), 29 October 1931, 22, ‘Radio Broadcasting, this week’s programmes’; Advertiser (Adelaide), 16 February 1932, 11, ‘Citizens’ league broadcast’, also referring to ‘their weekly wireless talk’. 114 Griffen-Foley (2009), op. cit., 361; militia sessions TX on 2BL, 2NR and 3UZ. The Mitchell Library holds scripts of 2BL militia session broadcast talks 1937-3. World Peace magazine reported cases where peace advocates were required to cut scripts if they wished to broadcast, without making fully clear the extent of this broadcasting, World Peace, 1 September 1938, 127; 1 August 1938, 108. 115 For the extensive broadcasting by Raymond Watt, secretary of the NSW League of Nations Union, see Nicholas Brown, ‘Enacting the International: R. G. Watt and the League of Nations Union’, in Transnational Ties: Australian lives in the world, edited by Desley Deacon, Penny Russell and Angela Woollacott, Acton, ANU E Press, 2008, 75–94; for Watts’ scripting, see Brown, op. cit., 57. 50

Associations of Women to the conservative Women’s Guild of Empire.116 When Federal Labor MP Jack Beasley complained in 1936 about the number of anti-ALP commentators on the ABC, he included two women’s groups, the CWA and the Australian National Council of Women.117 Women’s broadcasting is explored later in this thesis; Indigenous concerns about citizenship were heard on radio, using airtime that had been variously purchased or gifted, and these are discussed in a later chapter.

Broadcasting by grassroots groups was frequently undertaken at their initiative and could also have required their funds: press reports show the CWA in country Victoria actively sought access to the airwaves.118 The issue of payment for airtime is not fully clear: the weekly spot on 2SM used by P.R. Stephensen in 1937 was charged at £10 per fifteen minutes and the Women’s Christian Temperance League in Adelaide referred in 1941 to payment for its broadcast slot.119 The Unitarian church in Melbourne maintained a ‘radio fund’ post war to cover the cost of broadcasts on 3UZ and 3HA in western Victoria.120 Peter Sekuless’ biography of Jessie Street refers to the cancellation of a weekly radio programme due to funding difficulties.121 Insofar as many groups might have obtained airtime by gift, the likely exclusion of others less well- connected should be noted. It is notable that speakers supportive of the British Empire could often be heard on 2UE, which from 1934 was owned by Associated Newspapers whose managing director, Sir Hugh Denison, was also president of the Royal Empire Society; however, 2UE also engaged the liberal feminist Linda Littlejohn as a news commentator during the war.122

116 For example, Marilyn Lake chooses to cite three radio broadcasts to illustrate women’s citizenship campaigns between 1936 and 1943, ‘Feminists Creating Citizens’, Creating Australia: Changing Australian History, ed Wayne Hudson and Geoffrey Bolton, St Leonards, Allen & Unwin, 1997, 105, notes 2, 4 and 5; Adela Pankhurst Walsh broadcast for the Women’s Guild of Empire, see Barbara Winter, The Australia First Movement and the Publicist, 1936–1942, Brisbane, Interactive Publications, 2005, 68. 117 The Age, 2 October 1936, 10, ‘Radio Broadcasts - Anti Labour Commentators’. 118 Muswellbrook Chronicle (NSW), 27 March 1931, 5, ‘Country Women’s Association, Meeting of Delegates’; Burra Record (Burra, SA), 26 September 1934, 3, ‘Country Women’s Association’; Gloucester Advocate (NSW), 12 February 1937, 3, ‘Country Women’s Association’. 119 Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) testimony at the 1941 Joint Parliamentary Committee into Broadcasting refers to payment for airtime, Mary Ellen Eaton and Ada Bromham, Minutes of Evidence, Joint Parliamentary Committee on Broadcasting, 558. 120 The Bottomley papers at the State Library of Victoria include the financial records of the Unitarian radio fund to finance broadcasts in Melbourne and Hamilton, SLV Bottomley papers, 1924–1966, MS Box 2164–2174. 121 Peter Sekuless, Jessie Street: a rewarding but unrewarded life, St. Lucia, University of Queensland Press, 1978, 78. 122 Wireless Weekly, 15 April 1938, 31, ‘The Destiny of the British Empire’; in 1947, 2UE broadcast a party to celebrate 12 years broadcasting by A. G. Eastman of the NSW branch of the British-Israel World Federation, The Sun (Sydney), 5 June 1947, 6, ‘Radio Roundup’; Cumberland Argus and Fruitgrowers’ Advocate (Parramatta, NSW), 3 April 1940, 8, ‘2UE Calling’. 51

News commentaries contributed to the understanding of radio as a place to hear political ideas. They also had a significant role as the trigger of a clash between the government’s censorship powers and perceptions of radio as an outlet for freely-expressed opinions. Before discussing the issue of censorship, the operation of commentaries will be examined in the changing broadcast landscape of the 1930s.

Political commentaries on ABC and commercial stations

During the 1930s, many aspects of the system of Australian broadcasting that had emerged only partially earlier were consolidated: a dual system of commercial and publicly funded broadcasters was fully realised with the creation of the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) in 1932, a rapid increase in the number of radio listeners’ licences early in the decade meant that a majority of households had radio by 1935; and the idea that the ABC and commercial stations had different responsibilities was articulated forcefully from the middle of the decade.123 These developments took place over a number of years, during which newspapers debated options and interested parties formed delegations to government.

The Commonwealth government had nationalised the ‘A’ stations in 1929 and put their operation out to tender with a requirement to cultivate a ‘public desire’ for educational items, musical items and ‘generally all items and subjects which tend to elevate the mind’.124 A three- year contract was issued to a commercial consortium that took the name the Australian Broadcasting Company; it decided in 1931 against renewing the arrangement amid growing dissatisfaction in the press and amongst interest groups with its programmes.125 The well- publicised international reputation of the BBC fuelled debate within parliament as to whether Australia should have a similar organisation.126 The Scullin Labor government prepared a bill to establish an Australian public broadcaster, and although Lyons’ United Australia Party won office before parliamentary debate was concluded, the legislation went ahead with few changes. In July 1932, the Australian Broadcasting Commission took over the studios, programmes and

123 For listener licences, see Curnow, op. cit., Appendix 2; for the characterisation of ABC and commercial radio stations as different see AE Bennett interviewed for Australian Women’s Weekly, 24 August 1935, 18, ‘Will Search for Radio talent, 2GB Director Back form America makes a resolution’. 124 Johnson (1988), op.cit., 57. It is notable that this directive was not repeated in the 1932 legislation creating the ABC. 125 Inglis, op. cit., 17. 126 ibid. 52 staff of the twelve ‘A’ stations, charged by the Act to provide and broadcast ‘adequate and comprehensive programmes’.127

In accordance with the Act, the ABC set about establishing orchestras, choruses and other music ensembles. Newsgathering was permitted by the legislation, but the determined opposition of the press limited access to overseas news agencies; in Neville Petersen’s view, ‘the new Commission did not see news as being of a sufficiently high priority to warrant a dispute with the press’.128 Inglis conjectures that this restriction was the impetus for ‘news commentaries’ and as tensions rose in Europe, talks on topical and foreign affairs proliferated on the ABC; Griffen-Foley notes a parallel increase in commentaries on commercial stations.129 University extension boards had already begun to programme topical talks for the Australian Broadcasting Company; in Sydney, this enabled Archibald Charteris, Challis Professor of International Law at the University of Sydney, to present ‘Australia Looks on the World’ in August 1931, a series of weekly talks that continued until April 1932.130 Charteris broadcast topical commentary for much of the 1930s, gaining in some quarters the reputation as ‘far and away the best broadcaster in the country’.131 Sydney University’s Professor Herman Black later reminisced ‘from him one learned to talk to people, not at them.’132 Many academics from the disciplines of law, economics and political science became ABC radio commentators: legal scholar Professor Kenneth Bailey, political scientist William Macmahon Ball and lawyer P.D. Phillips.133

Bridget Griffen-Foley has uncovered a lengthy roll call of news commentators on ‘B’ stations which drew from a wider field than academics.134 Jacqui Murray has cast doubt on the impartiality of speakers but it is not clear that there was an expectation of impartiality – newspapers could take an editorial line and there was no precedent for radio to do otherwise.135 2UW figured prominently with a season of lectures, ‘Australian Affairs’, broadcast on Sunday

127 Alan Thomas (1980), Broadcast and Be Damned Melbourne, Melbourne University Press, 1980, 15; (Cth.) ABC Act 1932. 128 Petersen, op. cit., 51. 129 Inglis, op. cit., 34; Griffen-Foley (2009), op. cit., 325. 130 Annual Report of the University of Sydney Extension Board, 1931–32, 8. 131 Newcastle Sun and Miners’ Advocate (NSW), 12 November 1932, 2, ‘Broadcast Features’; J.G. Starke ‘Charteris, Archibald Hamilton (1874–1940)’ Australian Dictionary of Biography National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/charteris-archibald- hamilton-5564/text9487, published first in hardcopy 1979, accessed online 30 May 2016. 132 H.D. Black, 13 June 1950, Radio Active: the ABC staff journal, 4. 133 The Herald (Melbourne), 24 March 1931, 17, ‘Broadcasts’; Examiner (Launceston), 18 July 1931, 12, ‘Broadcast programmes’; for Ball, see Kobayashi, op. cit., 46–48. 134 Griffen-Foley (2009), op. cit., 323–327, 360–367. 135 Jacqui Murray, Watching the Sun Rise: Australian reporting of Japan, 1931 to the fall of Singapore, Lanham, Lexington Books, 2004, 150. 53 evenings in late 1933, along with regular commentary from its celebrity announcer, Jack Prentice.136 Several speakers were conservative thinkers, such as the politician Richard Casey and Major-General Sir Thomas Blamey, who spoke as ‘the Sentinel’ on Melbourne’s 3UZ. Both Eric Baume, the editor of the Sunday Sun newspaper who broadcast on 2GB, and Dr W.G. Goddard on Brisbane’s 4BC were concerned to encourage independent thinking amongst the audience: Goddard even advocated that listeners discuss his commentaries in their own ‘Round Table Clubs’, pre-empting the listening groups later set up by the ABC.137 Other commentators included Tasmanian headmaster W.W.V. Briggs, British foreign correspondent A. M. Pooley, and journalist Kurt Offenburg.138 Men were dominant amongst these speakers, reflecting the lack of opportunity for women to secure senior appointments in most professions. Women, particularly those who became authorities in specialist areas, had some opportunity to speak on the ABC: Janet Mitchell presented five talks on China in 1933; Constance Duncan and Eleanor Hinder spoke about Asian affairs in 1937 and 1938.139

Professor G.V. ‘Jerry’ Portus was a prolific speaker on political theory and history on both commercial radio and the ABC.140 Portus was committed to public expression through press and radio, believing in its potential to change social thinking. Margaret Van Heekeren places Portus in a group she calls ‘the Australian Idealists’, men who imbibed the philosophy of British thinkers Edward Caird and T.H. Green. 141 The Australian Idealists regarded education of the general public as the way to bring about a better society, with the press and radio the principal instruments for achieving this. Portus was an ordained Anglican who pursued a life in academia as director of tutorial classes at Sydney University before being appointed Professor of History at Adelaide University in 1934. 142 A liberal thinker, he broadcast at least 77 talks on commercial

136 Griffen-Foley (2009), op. cit., 323. 137 For Goddard, Baume and Blamey, see Griffen-Foley (2009), op. cit., 325, 361, 363. Goddard is thought to have studied in the US where he may have become familiar with the University of Chicago Round Table radio discussion programme. For Pooley, see Murray, op. cit., 140. 138 For Casey’s broadcasting on 3GL, see Bridget Griffen-Foley, (2010), ‘Australian Commercial Radio, American Influences – and the BBC’, in Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, Vol. 30, No. 3, September 2010, 348. For Offenburg, see Walter Struve, ‘Dedicated to the Promotion of International Understanding: A Memorial for Kurt Offenburg at the State Library’, La Trobe Journal No. 78, Spring 2006, 56–68. For Briggs, The Examiner, (Launceston), 9 July 1932, 11 ‘Broadcasting’ (over a period of months). 139 For Mitchell, see National Archives of Australia (NAA): SP369/2, Janet Mitchell scripts, 1933; for Hinder, see Maitland Daily Mercury (NSW), 12 March 1938, 11, ‘On the Air’; for Duncan, see Catherine Fisher, ‘World Citizens: Australian women’s internationalist broadcasts, 1930–1939’, in Women’s History Review, August 2018, DOI: 10.1080/09612025.2018.1506554, 7–8 140 Margaret Van Heekeren ‘The dissemination of New Idealist thought in Australian print and radio media from 1885 to 1945’, PhD thesis, Macquarie University, 2011, 58. 141 Van Heekeren, op. cit., 147. 142 W. G. K. Duncan, ‘Portus, Garnet Vere (Jerry) (1883–1954)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/portus- garnet-vere-jerry-8082/text14103, published first in hardcopy 1988, accessed online 17 April 2017 54 and ABC stations between the late 1920s and 1945, his subject matter ranging from ‘the family as the basis for the state’ to the Suez Canal.143 Van Heekeren’s detailed study is among the first to argue persuasively for radio in Australia as a platform for public intellectuals.

The most well-known and most controversial topical radio commentator between the wars, as well as the most written about later, was the speaker known as ‘The Watchman’. Edward Alexander Mann, a former industrial chemist and West Australian Nationalist politician, was already writing a newspaper column under the same name when he began weekly broadcasts on Melbourne’s ‘A’ station 3AR in January 1931; his identity was not a secret, but neither was it widely known until 1938.144 An individual of strong views, he became one of the most popular speakers on the Australian Broadcasting Commission, particularly after his talks were relayed nationally in 1934.145 He was a prolific broadcaster: later in the decade, he presented At Home and Abroad daily and The News behind the News weekly. The issues he took up ranged from public transport to trade policy and freedom of speech; his popularity was such that people would stand outside shops in order to hear him speak.146

Alan Thomas describes Mann’s style as ‘preaching’ and Inglis reports him as appearing bombastic to more sophisticated commentators, yet one of these, University of Melbourne political scientist William Macmahon Ball, was unstinting in his praise for Mann, singling out his ability to engage listeners whether they agreed with him or not – an indication that Ball was more concerned with active listener response than the content of the talks.147 ‘The Watchman’ received a copious amount of mail from his audience, suggesting that news commentators could contribute to the functioning of radio as a public sphere through the practice of listener letter writing.148 However, the attention that the Watchman received from the government has attracted most notice. Mann had no hesitation in criticising the Federal government from whom

143 Van Heekeren, op. cit., 70, 296. 144 Listener In, 8 January 1938, Vol. 14, No. 2, bears on its front cover ‘“Watchman” Mystery Man No More’; see also Alan Thomas, ‘The politicisation of the ABC in the 1930s: A case study of the Watchman’ in Politics, XIII (2), November 1978, 292. The use of broadcast names was widespread between the wars, particularly - but not universally - with women’s programmes, most children’s programmes and specialist speakers such as ‘Domus’ (DIY), ‘Redgum’ and ‘Tecoma’(gardening), ‘Marksman’ (WA National Rifle Association), ‘Scribe’ (book reading) and ‘Wings’ (model aeroplane session). 145 Inglis, op. cit., 34. 146 Alan Thomas (1978), op. cit., 289. 147 Inglis, op. cit., 63; W. Macmahon Ball, forward to E.A. Mann (‘The Watchman’), Arrows in the air: a selection from broadcasts, Melbourne, S. John Bacon, 1944, 6. 148 Thomas (1978), op. cit., 289; Thomas suggests the government’s concern was connected to the size of the mailbag. 55 he attracted a growing number of complaints.149 Government control over broadcasting had been a continuous element of broadcast legislation and regulations from radio’s inception in Australia; in the later 1930s, it exploded nationally into public controversy over government intervention.

Broadcast censorship in the company of books

Censorship had a long tradition in Australia, but in the 1930s the banning of books, films and artworks was so extensive that it led subsequently to the description of Australia at that time as the ‘quarantined culture’.150 Opposition to the restrictions of imported material by the Minister of Customs can be seen as establishing a springboard for resistance to censorship as it was applied to broadcasting. An insight into radio censorship’s status as a contentious issue is revealed in William McNair’s study of radio advertising in 1937.151 In the course of explaining how radio advertising worked, McNair gave an overview of broadcasting in Australia: the fact that he chose to include censorship at all is revealing.152 McNair identified two sorts of censorship, one to counter what he termed ‘offensiveness’ and the other for political purposes; the former he considered to be generally desirable, while the latter he described as ‘apt to cause most public resentment’.153 McNair’s discussion of political interference in broadcasting appealed to practice rather than principle. With some qualification, he justified the censors’ authority with the assessment that ‘it has not been used unduly to restrict legitimate political criticism’; however, going on to discuss newspaper ownership of commercial radio, he cited ‘the abuse of privilege’ when such a radio station ‘tries to force the public to accept the unsound political theories or other fancies of some wealthy magnate’.154 McNair appeared willing to accept some control over political content but was also aware of what he considered inappropriate abuse of ministerial power. The question of what constituted appropriate control of broadcasting emerged several times over the 1930s in increasingly public confrontations, with the principle underlying it becoming more exposed.

149 For detail of the Watchman’s criticism of government, in particular Mann’s attack on Lyons’ support of appeasement after the Munich crisis, see Thomas (1980), op. cit., 86–89. 150 Nicole Moore, The Censor’s Library, St Lucia, University of Queensland Press, 2012, 105. 151 McNair, op. cit., 147–149. 152 Other elements of his study include a discussion of the research into the psychology of radio by American Professors H. Cantril and G. Allport and analysis of the results of his own audience surveys in NSW. 153 McNair, op. cit., 48. 154 McNair op. cit., 148, 152. 56

As shown earlier, the PMG’s power over broadcast output was established with the first broadcasting regulations in 1923. This was reiterated when the ABC was established in 1932:

The Minister may, from time to time, by notice in writing, prohibit the Commission from broadcasting any matter, or matter of any class or character, specified in the notice, or may require the Commission to refrain from broadcasting such matter.155

While many MPs contributed to the parliamentary debate over the Broadcasting Bill, Joan Rydon has described the position of the political parties in relation to the ABC legislation as ‘confused and contradictory’.156 William Gibson, UAP, argued for reducing the power of the PMG to intervene, while Labor MP Jack Beasley was fully supportive of power staying in the hands of the Minister.157 Opposition to this provision of the Bill was also expressed outside parliament when the Citizens’ League in South Australia complained of the proposed ‘excessive powers’ of the PMG.158 As has been shown, neither the Scullin nor Bruce governments had refrained in the past from prohibiting the transmission of views that ran counter to their position. Lyons was Prime Minister when the ABC was established and his term in office was characterised both by the use of radio to promote his government and by interventions to block the broadcast of material that was contrary to government policy.159

Early instances of censorship within the ABC were likely to have taken place behind closed doors: Ken Inglis names Nora Collison as the likely first ABC speaker to have a talk banned, when an address on the League of Nations and Manchuria was refused transmission in 1933.160 For Inglis, the Commission was willing to self-censor in line with government thinking as a consequence of its political make-up: four out of the five initial commissioners had associations with government parties, leading to a ‘clubbish approach’ to ABC business conducive to informal influence.161 This lack of balance on the Commission was condemned in 1936 by Douglas Amos, whose early history of Australian broadcasting attributed government

155 (Cth) Australian Broadcasting Commission Act, 17 May 1932: Par 51 (1); the requirement that any prohibitions be expressed in writing may not have been strictly adhered to, with the full extent of such interference still unclear. 156 Joan Rydon, ‘The Australian Broadcasting Commission, 1932–42’ in Public Administration, March 1952, 12. 157 Inglis op.cit., 19; Joan Rydon, op. cit., 12–2. 158 West Coast Sentinel (Streaky Bay, SA), 29 April 1932, 1, ‘The Broadcasting Bill Does Not Suit Citizens’ League.’ 159 Alan Thomas (1980), op. cit., 83; Thomas estimates that between January 1935 and August 1936, there were 75 ministerial broadcasts compared with 6 by opposition members, Thomas (1980), op. cit., 78. 160 Inglis, op.cit., 31. 161 ibid. 57 sympathies to all the first commissioners; he saw this as contributing to subsequent censorship of speakers.162

The opportunity for the public to become aware of the ABC’s internal censoring operations grew over the decade, beginning with press reports in 1934 of a circular sent to all ABC stations from the General Manager:

Major Conder explained that many economic questions were so closely allied to politics as to constitute a danger. Generally, talks on economic subjects involving political questions would be banned.163

This led to a published reply from Associate Professor A. C. Fox of the Philosophy Department at the University of Western Australia: he wrote that ‘talks on the air’ were amongst the best ways of rousing public discussion and described the separation of economics from their political bearings as ‘ludicrous’.164 Correspondence between Conder and Fox followed in the West Australian press in which Conder explained the Commission’s position as not wanting to spread views with which some listeners might disagree; Fox, after pointing out that many listeners were unhappy with broadcasts of jazz, crooners and racing, linked free speech to the ‘splendid tradition of our race’.165 Conder concluded the exchange saying that ‘freedom of speech will only be restricted to a point which is believed to be absolutely necessary in the public’s interest’.166

The public was alerted to the issue of censorship at this time as the campaign against the censorship of books escalated.167 The opposition to censorship in broadcasting shared several features with this. Many of the principal players were the same; there was also widespread reaction against the secrecy with which both forms of censorship were carried out. Book censorship was the responsibility of the Department of Customs, applying to fiction and non- fiction publications which were liable to be banned on grounds of ‘indecency’ or sedition; while it was directed primarily at imported material, it affected Australian writers, many of whose books were first published in Britain.168 Opposition to book censorship grew after the banning

162 Douglas Amos, The story of the commonwealth wireless service Adelaide, E. J. McAlister, 1936, 21–22. 163 West Australian, 12 September 1934, 14. 164 West Australian, 15 September 1934, 21. 165 Conder to Fox, 26 September 1934; Fox to Conder, 16 October 1934, NAA: SP1558/2, 666 Talks – Parliamentary Censorship and Interference. 166 Conder to Fox, 25 October 1934, NAA: SP1558/2, 666. 167 Moore, op. cit., 123–125. 168 For a full account of the categories of exclusion, see Moore, op. cit. 58 of the novel Redheap by Australian writer and artist Norman Lindsay; the book had been published in 1930, the first of several by Lindsay that were banned.169 In her comprehensive study of book censorship in Australia, Nicole Moore deems the mid-thirties a turning point in which ‘vocalised anti-censorship protest morphed into organised resistance.’170

In 1934 Melbourne University political scientist William Macmahon Ball formed the Book Censorship Abolition League (BCAL); he set about organising deputations to government, while a stream of articles addressing censorship appeared in serious journals.171 Several of these included radio in their sights.172 Radio was drawn into the growing publicity when the ABC cancelled an advertised ‘discussion’ between Norman Lindsay and Max Montesole entitled ‘Whether the censor censors sufficiently censoriously?’173 The script was immediately published in the Bulletin under the banner ‘Read the dialogue of Norman Lindsay’s Banned ABC Broadcast.’174 While the circulation of the Bulletin was less than in its heyday, it was distributed nationally: the opportunity for public awareness of censorship in radio from this point increased.

Opposition to censorship

Moore attributes changes to the operation of book censorship in Australia to public lobbying: in 1937, an Appeal Censor was appointed to the Literary Censorship Board and sedition regulations changed, followed by the lifting of bans on many novels.175 Opposition to censorship in broadcasting was not co-ordinated by a single organisation but benefited from the energies of those who had campaigned against the censorship of books. The Book Censorship Abolition

169 Moore, op. cit., 120–122. 170 Moore, op. cit., 123–125. 171 Moore, op. cit., 125. 172 Australian Quarterly returned to the issue of free speech on several occasions during the 1930s, e.g. FS Burnell ‘Censorship in Australia’, 1933; F.R. Beasley, ‘Censorship and the exclusion of ideas’, 1934; Norman Cowper ‘The Control of Broadcasting’, 1936; Beatrice Tildesley, ‘Broadcasting in Australia’, 1939; Roundtable published ‘Broadcasting in the Democratic State’ in June 1936 (anonymously, as was their convention). Educating a Democracy, edited by W. G. K. Duncan, Sydney, Angus & Robertson, in conjunction with the Australian Institute of Political Science, 1936, included discussion of censorship as well as radio. 173 Daily Telegraph (Sydney), 1 September 1936, 12, ‘On the Air: Discussion of Censorship’, due for transmission on 2FC and nationally at 9pm, 17 September 1936. The censor was parodied in a script by T.W. Eckersley, ‘When Rabelais calls on the Minister for Customs’, broadcast in August 1936, Cairns Post, 12 August 1936, 10, ‘Wireless Programmes’. 174 Telegraph (Brisbane), 24 September 1936, 14, ‘Read the dialogue of Norman Lindsay’s Banned ABC Broadcast’. 175 Moore, op. cit., 33, 82, 128. The books admitted to Australia subsequently included Brave New World, Ulysses and Farewell to Arms. 59

League was absorbed into the newly-formed Australian Council for Civil Liberties (ACCL) in Melbourne in December 1935.176 The Council’s purpose was the defence of ‘the rights of freedom of the press and of free speech, thought and assembly’.177 Several of its founding members, such as Melbourne City Health Officer, Dr John Dale, writers Vance and Nettie Palmer, and bacteriologist Professor HA Woodruff were experienced broadcasters.

The ACCL published a small pamphlet by Brian Fitzpatrick in 1937 listing six pieces of legislation that it judged ‘a menace [to] Australian democracy’: these included the Broadcasting Act of 1932.178 Fitzpatrick pinpointed the regulation whereby the Minister had the power to prohibit any broadcast, so long as notice was submitted in writing, and castigated parliament for its indifference in permitting legislation that created an opportunity for abuse.179 He suggested that the public might not be aware of the Minister’s power:

Many people may think that the Commission has complete control of broadcasting and that there can be no political interference of the management. Nothing is further from the facts.180

Fitzpatrick detailed instances of broadcast censorship in the previous four years, including the case of Mrs Mabel Freer who was denied entry to Australia and whose name could not be uttered on the ABC.181 He urged the electors of Australia to demand of parliamentary candidates ‘a pledge to work for the amendment of the Six Acts to restore stolen liberties.’182

The ACCL was instrumental in the publication of a talk by Judge Alfred Foster that was intended to be broadcast by the ABC only to be withdrawn by Foster when the ABC demanded cuts that he deemed unacceptable. The subject of the talk was freedom of speech; following the example

176 The Council was formed as the Council for Civil Liberties; this thesis will follow the naming used by Waghorne and Macintyre who refer to it from its inception as the Australian Council for Civil Liberties (ACCL), James Waghorne and Stuart Macintyre, Liberty: A History of Civil Liberties in Australia, UNSW Press, 2011. 177 Waghorne and Macintyre, op. cit., 8. 178 Six Acts against Civil Liberties, Melbourne, Advance Press, 1937. Brian Fitzpatrick’s name is not on the pamphlet, but Waghorne and Macintyre refer to him as the principal author, Waghorne, op. cit., 14. 179 Six Acts, op. cit., 5. 180 Six Acts, op. cit., 24. 181 Six Acts, op. cit., 25. In 1936, the government refused Mrs Mabel Freer the right to enter Australia on the grounds that she would bring about a divorce; Kel Robertson has documented the complexity of the case in which Imperial masculinity clashed with government intransigence, see Kel Robertson with Jessie Hohmann and Iain Stewart, ‘Dictating to One of ‘Us’: the Migration of Mrs Freer’, Macquarie Law Journal 12, 2005, 241–267. 182 Six Acts, op. cit., 5. 60 of the Bulletin with Norman Lindsay’s banned broadcast in 1936, the ACCL rushed the text into print.183 The cover stated in underlined capital letters that it was ‘the full uncensored text of a national talk which was to have been broadcast through national station 3AR on May 2, 1938’.184 Newspapers ensured the public learned of the ban when the Sydney Truth labelled the PMG, Senator McLachlan, Australia’s ‘Goering of the Air’ who was whittling away the freedom of its people; the leader of the Commonwealth Labor Opposition described the banned broadcast as ‘emasculated by an ignorant and prejudiced edict’.185

Broadcasting in the cause of peace

Commentary on the Foster ban and broadcast censorship more generally became muddied at this time. The ABC explained the cuts it demanded of Foster’s script on the grounds that he had included attacks on individuals and institutions in Australia who had no right of reply: it justified the principle of restrictions on freedom of speech in broadcasting because of the impracticality of providing airtime to anyone who felt offended by a broadcast.186 Invited to comment on the Foster case, the PMG McLachlan took the opportunity to portray broadcast censorship in Australia purely in terms of the League of Nations Convention on Broadcasting in the Cause of Peace, to which Australia had acceded in 1937 in keeping with its support of appeasement.187 Only days before the date scheduled for the Foster broadcast, several newspapers had commented on the convention, which was explained as an agreement to prohibit broadcasts likely to prejudice international understanding or be an incitement to war.188 Within a week of the Foster ban, McLachlan declared ‘there is no censorship on broadcasting except that I will not allow any statements to go over the air of a provocative character likely to injure our relations with other countries or to injure the sacred cause of world peace’.189 This was not accepted by the press, who attributed the Foster ban solely to the government without any reference to the Convention. One exception was an American magazine, Living Age, which linked the Convention to Australia’s practice of censorship, which it

183 Judge Foster’s Banned Speech, Council for Civil Liberties, Melbourne, 1938. 184 ibid. 185 Dubbo Liberal and Macquarie Advocate (NSW), 7 May 1938, 1. 186 Sydney Morning Herald, 7 May 1938, 11, ‘Free Speech: Mr Cleary states case for Commission’. 187 News (Adelaide), 5 May 1938, 11, ‘Minister on Radio Freedom: Censorship Aspect’; Sydney Morning Herald, 28 May 1937, 5, ‘Incitement to War, Broadcast Propaganda Prohibited in Australia’ 188 Dubbo Liberal and Macquarie Advocate, 26 March 1938, 6, ‘World peace: Use of Broadcasting’; Mercury, 30 April 1938, 10, Broadcasting for Peace: Convention among Nations’; Daily Telegraph (Sydney), 29 April 1938, 7, ‘Radio Safeguards’. 189 News (Adelaide), 5 May 1938, 11, ‘Minister on Radio Freedom: Censorship Aspect’. 61 described as ‘probably unequalled outside the totalitarian States’: it also called it ‘fungus-like’, a suggestion it might spread out of sight.190

The issue of radio censorship was now playing to a public gallery, its next act involving a talk in July 1938 by social worker Anne Caton who had recently returned from Spain; she was required by the ABC’s South Australia manager to delete the word ‘German’ from her description of the planes involved in the bombing of Guernica. She refused, and in a published statement called the decision ‘deplorable’.191 The ABC defended the excision on the grounds that the original statement would offend the sizeable German community in South Australia; this made little impression on the press, with one newspaper headline proclaiming ‘Hitler – the unseen chairman of the ABC’.192 The left-wing World Peace magazine renamed the ABC ‘the Australian Board of Censors’ as it fulminated about this and other demands to edit speakers’ scripts.193 The cumulative effect of these after the Foster ban was not lost on the public: Inglis recounts an incident in 1938 when the failure of a transmitter during a session of ‘The Watchman’ prompted thirty people to phone the ABC with accusations of censorship.194

Commercial radio was also affected by the government’s position: in comments about Australia’s part in the Geneva Convention, the PMG had made clear that broadcast licences were at stake.195 After 2GB commentator Eric Baume criticised Hitler and Mussolini in late 1938, the PMG Cameron warned 2GB it might lose its licence.196 Baume was the editor of the Sunday Sun, owned by the conservative Associated Newspapers who proceeded to restrict its editors’ right to broadcast. A rival Labor newspaper commented in verse:

190 Herald, 5 August 1938, 2, ‘Our “Fungus-Like” Censorship is Worst Outside Fascist States – U.S. View’ 191 Murray, op. cit., 141; Daily Examiner (Grafton), 8 July 1938, 4, ‘Broadcast Ban’. Caton had already broadcast the talk in the Eastern states, a reminder of the inconsistency across the ABC, see News (SA), 11 July 1938, 1, ‘Defends ABC Action Over German Plane Incident in Talk’. 192 Murray, op. cit., 141. 193 World Peace, 1 October 1938, 139; it reported cuts demanded of a talk by Mrs Longworth of the International Peace Campaign by 2KO, Newcastle, World Peace, 1 September 1938, 127. 194 Inglis, op. cit., 63; see also a letter to The Age about Kurt Offenburg cutting out mid-sentence during a talk, asking if it might be viewed as ‘suppression of our traditional ‘freedom of speech’ by the censors’, The Age, 1 September 1938, 10, ‘Ill Manners at the ABC’. 195 Courier Mail, 29 April 1938, 4, ‘Ample Safeguard in Regulations’. 196 Griffen-Foley (2009), op. cit., 362. 62

For 2GB was forced to bow at Orders from the PMG, And in Baume’s place is Dr Louat, Yes-man of the UAP.197

The government’s power to withdraw a commercial licence was dramatically demonstrated in late December 1938 when 2KY’s licence was revoked; by one account, post office workers ‘were ordered to hack through its transmission cables’.198 The action followed a series of broadcasts perceived as critical of government policy by 2KY commentator, JK Morley. Unions round the country rallied and petitions were flown to Cameron, before an apology was issued by the station and it returned to transmission three days later. The event was widely reported, causing the influential Sydney Morning Herald to question ‘Draconian’ ministerial power over broadcasting and to call for a judicial process in its stead.199

The severity of the action taken against 2KY was contrasted with the government’s refusal to intervene when Nazi propagandist, Count Von Luckner visited Australia in June 1938.200 Union organiser Lloyd Ross had spoken on 2KY of Von Luckner’s fascist sympathies and his intention to mollify Australians to Hitler.201 Protesters were mobilised when the German entered Sydney Town Hall for the first of several scheduled public appearances.202 The ferocity of the confrontation caused Von Luckner to confine his later appearances to ‘invitation only’ audiences and a number of radio broadcasts.203 Von Luckner gave a talk on the ABC despite its initial denials that he would broadcast, leading to a protest outside its Sydney studios.204 A subsequent talk on 2UW was reported for the stand made by two musicians booked for the following programme who refused to play after him.205 Discussion was robust, with letters to newspapers

197 Daily News (Sydney), 10 December 1938, 4. Frank Louat was on the executive of the conservative United Australia Party, see Martha Rutledge, ‘Louat, Frank Rutledge (1901–1963)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/louat-frank-rutledge-10863/text19281, published first in hardcopy 2000, accessed online 14 May 2018. 198 Murray, op. cit., 142. 199 Sydney Morning Herald, 23 December 1938, 8, ‘Free Speech on the Air’. 200 Terry Irving and Rowan J. Cahill, ‘Welcoming the Nazi Tourist’ in Radical Sydney: Places, Portraits and Unruly Episodes, Sydney, University of New South Wales Press, 2010, 226. 201 Irving and Cahill, op. cit., 227. 202 op. cit., 227. 203 op. cit., 229. 204 Argus, 24 May 1938, 3, ‘Von Luckner Incident: Crowd Demonstrates’. 205 Newcastle Sun, 21 May 1938, 1, ‘Harpist “Struck” After Von Luckner Spoke on Radio’. 63 questioning whether von Luckner himself was being denied the freedom to broadcast.206 It is not evident that senior conservative figures participated in these debates to defend government censorship.207 Out of this mix, the voice of Macmahon Ball emerged as particularly prominent.

Should the air be free?

William Macmahon Ball was a key figure in the campaign against book censorship and arguably provided much of the intellectual leadership for the debates over censorship in broadcasting. A political scientist at the University of Melbourne, Ball began presenting radio talks for the ABC in 1934; he became an admired and popular speaker for talks on social and international issues.208 He also reflected on broadcasting as a source of public opinion. Ball had travelled in Germany in the early 1930s, giving him the opportunity to imbibe debate about the nature of radio and its political potential: one could even entertain an encounter between Ball and the philosopher Walter Benjamin, given the active interest Benjamin had then in experimenting with radio as a means to engage listeners in critical thinking.209 In a radio talk in 1936, ‘Should the Air be Free?’, Ball speculated on the ways in which radio could be constituted to allow more access and less constraint; he proposed an impartial panel of women and men whose task was to select speakers from whomever wished to broadcast, as well as seeking out speakers whose views were neglected.210 He advocated the abolition of pre-prepared scripts and the rejection of the ‘insane idea’ of limiting debate to ‘pro’ and ‘con’, stressing instead that all views should be heard; he concluded with the assertion ‘there is so much to be said for giving people opinions they find unpalatable’.211

206 CE Wilson, letter to the editor, The Age (Melbourne), 15 June 1938, 12; M. J. Richardson (Brighton) and GF Young (Apollo Bay), letters to The Age (Melbourne), 21 June 1938, 10, ‘Count von Luckner’; News (Adelaide), 5 May 1938, 11, ‘Minister on Radio Freedom’. The ACCL initially refrained from objecting to Von Luckner’s speaking in public, on the grounds of free speech, Waghorne and Macintyre, op. cit., 20. 207 J. Michael Sproule has noted the small number of articulate defenders of the status quo in America during the rise of progressivism in the 1930s, J Michael Sproule, Propaganda and Democracy: the American experience of media and mass persuasion, New York, Cambridge University Press, 1997, 117. 208 Kobayashi, op. cit., 47. 209 Graeme Osborne, ‘William Macmahon Ball: Making Communication Visible’, Australian Journal of Communication, Vol. 24 (3), 1997, 70; Kang, op. cit., 80–85. 210 Script held by the NLA, Ball papers, MS 7851, Series 9, Folder 12, ‘Should the air be free?’. 211 ibid; Bridget Griffen-Foley notes that Eric Baume likewise wanted to get his listeners thinking, see Griffen-Foley (2005), op. cit., 5–6. 64

In 1938, Ball edited a book in which he condemned interference to broadcast speakers’ views.212 His primary target was the ABC and he wrote with the assurance of an eye-witness inside the Commission:

The ABC exercises an active and continuous censorship over broadcast talks... there is consequently a tendency either to drop altogether, or to confine to broadcasts on ‘safe’ topics, those who have spoken on world affairs in a way that in unpalatable to the Government or to influential sections of the public.213

He wrote that ‘timidity is coming to be recognised as the broadcasting official’s vocational disease, though the officials themselves prefer to call it a sense of public responsibility’.214 However, Ball was prepared to separate the Commission of the ABC from the government: the main thrust of his argument was against government ministerial power to deny speakers the right to criticise government policy.215

Ball’s position was revealing in two other respects: its forward-thinking ideas about radio news and its traditional acceptance of censorship on the ground of ‘decency’. Ball took seriously the government’s attempt to justify censorship on the grounds that speakers might be not sufficiently informed; he turned this around to press the case for public education on current affairs as a responsibility of the national broadcaster.216 Neville Petersen regards this as a critical moment for the articulation of objectivity as a requirement for ABC news, in contrast to the accepted partisan news coverage of the press.217 Secondly, Ball, like William McNair cited earlier, took no issue with prohibitions against radio speakers on the grounds of defamation, obscenity and blasphemy; he regarded this as the province of the courts, and by implication, contestable and transparent.218

212 William Macmahon Ball, ‘Australian Broadcasting and World Affairs’, Press, Radio and World Affairs: Australia’s Outlook, edited by William Macmahon Ball, Melbourne, Melbourne University Press, 1938, 125–46. 213 Ball, op. cit., 135–137. 214 Ibid, 138. 215 Ibid. 216 Ball, op. cit., 144–145; ‘A national broadcasting system should be the chief organ for the education, as distinct from the propagandising, of democracy, the central citadel of those who believe in literal principles of government.’ Ball, op. cit., 145. 217 Petersen, op. cit., 51, 63, 90. 218 See Moore, op. cit., 124. Moore cites writer Jean Devanny as holding both positions. Likewise, the ACCL accepted that free speech be within the laws of blasphemy, libel, slander and sedition, noting that ‘those laws may not be perfect but they can be repealed or amended’. See the preface to the publication of Judge Foster’s Banned Talk, 3. 65

In 1939, the Australian Council for Civil Liberties accorded prime significance to the place of radio speech in a fresh bid to end censorship in the name of democracy:

The censorship of broadcasting is the most serious restriction of freedom of speech, for this is so intimately connected with the discussion of matters of Australian importance.219

The use of the word ‘intimately’ is resonant of the language around broadcasting: the ‘intimacy’ of radio had become one of its key characteristics in discourse over the previous decade.220 The ACCL’s assessment of spoken-word radio confirms the distinctive place created by broadcasting in Australia as a place for singularly Australian expression and exchange of ideas; the government’s control over the ABC and commercial sector was held up as contrary to the interests of democracy.221 In particular, the Council objected to the lack of accountability the Minister enjoyed with any intervention. The section of the report dealing with broadcasting ended with a summons to the public: ‘citizens of Australia must press for these reforms. And they must press energetically.’222 An opportunity presented itself in the early years of the war when the Menzies government set up an inquiry into broadcasting.

Joint Parliamentary Committee into Broadcasting, 1941–42

The simmering discontent over the degree of ministerial intervention in broadcasting was one factor that caused Prime Minister Robert Menzies to set up a review of both public and commercial radio in 1941; other factors included a need to confirm the composition of the Commission of the ABC, although according to Paul Hasluck, it was also intended to give restless backbenchers something to do.223 Menzies established a Joint Parliamentary Committee into Broadcasting under the chairmanship of William Gibson, the same politician who had been PMG at the start of Australian broadcasting; the Committee surveyed a range of issues including the business and technology of broadcasting, the ABC’s political independence, religious, women’s

219 Dorothy Davies, How Australia is governed Council for Civil Liberties, Melbourne, 1939, 19. 220 Johnson, op. cit., 72–76. 221 Davies, op. cit., 19. 222 Davies, op. cit., 20. 223 Other issues included complaints from doctors about unregulated advertising of bogus medicines and calls for greater Australian content on air. This was shortly before Menzies resigned as leader of the United Australia party having lost the support of the parliamentary party, see Paul Hasluck, The Government and the People, 1939–41, Canberra, Australian War Memorial, 1952, 421. 66 and news broadcasts.224 It was not expected to discuss the wartime censorship conditions that had been imposed in line with precedents from World War I and with which most broadcasters complied.225

Several witnesses brought freedom of speech to the attention of the committee during hearings that took place across the eastern states over eight months. Professor E. Morris Miller, Vice Chancellor of the University of Tasmania, differentiated the authority of Parliament from that of a Minister, saying ‘no citizen in a democratic community can dispute the supremacy of Parliament over any of its instrumentalities, but that supremacy is different from control exercised by a Minister as Minister.’226 Dr J. S. Battye, Chairman of the ABC advisory committee for WA expressed his disapproval for the censorship of controversial talks:

We have had more than one instance where controversial talks have been censored, apparently because someone in authority, assuming a degree of omniscience, has considered the meat too strong for the Australian stomach. Neither freedom nor progress can run along these lines.227

Outside academic circles, Sydney civil engineer Archibald Frew envisaged a time when Parliament established a wireless forum to which any citizen could contribute material that would not be censored on any grounds, ‘because it is too long or too short, is controversial, affects religious subjects, is not of sufficient public interest, is not in keeping with the policy of the government and the like’.228 It would only be subject to editing to remove repetition and any obscenity, or otherwise inappropriate material, to serve the desire of the speaker to be heard:

If necessary the whole of the letter shall be re-written, but still retain its sense to the fullest degree. If the author has done his duty, as a citizen, in the public interest, to the best of his ability, it is up to the Government to assist him to the best of its ability.229

224 The committee heard from a large range of witnesses whose statements were minuted; while it referred to written submissions running into the hundreds, none of these has survived. 225 Public and commercial broadcasters are considered in later assessment to have handled Department of Information censorship requirements in house, arguably from fear that they might lose funding or licences. John Hilvert, Blue Pencil Warriors: censorship and propaganda in World War II, St. Lucia, University of Queensland Press, 1984, 4, 8; Edward Vickery, ‘Telling Australia’s story to the world: the department of Information 1939–1950’, PhD thesis, ANU, 2003, 217. The relation between the DOI and broadcasters will be discussed further later in this thesis. 226 Minutes, Joint Parliamentary Committee on Broadcasting, 1 August 1941, Hobart, 119. 227 Minutes, Joint Parliamentary Committee on Broadcasting, 14 January 1942, 648. 228 Minutes, Joint Parliamentary Committee on Broadcasting A. Frew, Sydney, 12 January 1942, 440. 229 ibid. 67

The Broadcasting Act which followed in 1942 reduced the authority of the PMG by allowing the Commission to determine the nature and extent of all political broadcasts, as opposed simply to political speeches; and while it did not forbid the Minister from demanding or prohibiting the broadcast of any material, any request thenceforth, as well as being in writing, would be included in the Commission’s annual report.230 This transparency can be deemed a small, but not insignificant, additional dent in government power, as it enabled the public and not simply a committee or cabinet to be fully aware of any Ministerial intervention.

Reactions to the legislation were mixed, suggesting that the turmoil over government intervention in the late 1930s had left many smarting at the association between broadcasting and government: one newspaper expressed its disappointment that despite provisions to benefit broadcasting such as the formation of a Standing Committee on Broadcasting, ‘[the Act] does not inspire general confidence because there lurks beneath some clauses a tendency suggesting strongly that the real purpose is to gain political control of broadcasting’; another paper called the standing committee ‘the most objectionable clause’, arguing against any committee of politicians permitted to exercise any supervising role over the ABC which should be independent and impartial.231 The Sydney Morning Herald singled out the requirement to issue directives in writing as ‘no safeguard against abuse of power.’232 The fact that these responses came from outlets across the country is a telling indicator of the significance that radio had acquired in public life in less than twenty years. During that time, the perception of the government’s right to power over radio had shifted from Frederick Eggleston’s acceptance of a need for control to a chorus expressing concern against it. Much of this change in attitude was due to the many women and men who had brought radio’s civic role to public attention.

Conclusion

This chapter has surveyed the development of radio in Australia between the wars in terms of the regulation and legislation that underpin broadcasting, in conjunction with the use of spoken-word radio for overtly political purposes. It has shown that radio was used extensively by politicians, individuals and groups of citizens to disseminate their views; at the same time, government policy in relation to broadcasting was given a high public profile. The 1942

230 Inglis, op. cit., 106. 231 Mercury (Hobart), 20 May 1942, 3 ‘Whither Broadcasting’; Courier-Mail (Brisbane), 2 May 1942, 4, ‘Politics over Broadcasts’. 232 Sydney Morning Herald, 1 May 1942, 4, ‘The Broadcasting Bill’. 68

Broadcasting Act recognised a greater range of interests in broadcasting than the regulations of 1923: where radio at its inception had been envisaged by many as a source of entertainment, by the end of the 1930s it was widely depicted as a site for civic engagement; its connections with newspapers and listener letters enabled it to function as an auditory public sphere.

Throughout the interwar period, individuals outside institutions set the pace for change and public awareness: in the 1920s, George Taylor and Emil Voigt were significant for their part in interpellating the public as participants in determining radio’s operation. William Macmahon Ball played a crucial role in the later shift in attitudes to the government’s control over broadcasting. Much of the public attention that was generated round this was due to the stance taken by a succession of speakers over a period of years. The debates over censorship also showed that, despite their engagement with the issue, many individuals were divided about a need for constraints on broadcasting.

The role of government will be addressed further in this thesis, but it was just one of many factors that determined access to spoken-word radio. Many interest groups were keen to broadcast: some had considerable support, others were particularly resourceful, and all had to adopt or develop effective ways of using a medium in a process of formation. The next chapter examines how one professional group interacted with radio to communicate with a wider public. Many scientists in Australia between the wars were optimistic that broadcasting could bring scientists into debates over public policy and increase public understanding of science for its social consequences. Their mixed success exposed the complexities of gaining access to radio, with repercussions for the people and concerns that would dominate the interwar public sphere. Chapter Two

Science talks: scientists in the public sphere

Do you ever listen to Professor Dakin broadcasting on Science in the News? If we could only imbue leaders with his broad, tolerant, yet informed, outlook the world would become a very satisfying place in which to live, wouldn’t it? ‘A Brisbane Woman’s Letter’, Morning Bulletin, 25 April 1939.1

By 1939, Sydney University’s Professor of Zoology, William Dakin, had a reputation far beyond the laboratory and lecture room; his radio talks Science in the News, fifteen-minute commentaries based on recent developments in science, attracted such favourable attention across Australia that they were rescheduled for fortnightly broadcasts shortly after their launch as a monthly feature in March 1938. The listener above is clear about the reasons for her praise: the speaker was knowledgeable, wide reaching, and non-partisan, to the point where – as the world lurched towards war – these appeared model qualities for political leadership. For many scientists at the time, associating politics with science was no mere rhetorical gesture: a growing number of scientists by the late 1930s believed that scientific method had a vital part to play in determining social policy.2 Dakin used the broadcast medium to inform and educate a general audience not only about the latest developments in science and technology, but also about their social implications. His series gave radio a significant role in the spread of a new mode of thinking, along with the implication that ideas usually associated with higher education could be accessible to all.

Michele Hilmes puts questions of power at the heart of all broadcasting: who determines who speaks, on which subject, and under what circumstances?3 The previous chapter discussed government control of Australian radio; this chapter will examine the role of radio station ‘gatekeepers’ as they affected one professional group. Science and scientists were a significant part of interwar Australian radio: their research was necessary for its technical success, their voices contributed to popular programmes and their early advocacy of broadcasting supported

1 Morning Bulletin (Rockhampton, Queensland) 25 April 1939, 4, ‘A Brisbane Woman’s Letter’. 2 Roy and Kay MacLeod, ‘The Social Relations of Science and technology 1914–1939’ in The Fontana Economic History of Europe, Vol. 5 The Twentieth Century, 1st edition, Carlo M. Cipolla, New York, Fontana, 1977, 324. 3 Hilmes (1997), op. cit., xiv. 70 its educational ambitions. While many scientists were keen to use broadcasting to reach a larger public, their success was mixed; this was due to divided attitudes within the science community as well as inside broadcasting organisations. The consequences were not without political significance, and by implication, the public sphere: radio historian Donald Ulin has applied the thinking of Latin American education theorist Paolo Freire to broadcasting about science in order to argue that teaching scientific literacy is as inevitably political as teaching reading.4 In 1959 Professor Eric Ashby, former Professor of Botany at the University of Sydney and a frequent ABC speaker in the early 1940s, spoke of the danger of science broadcasts presenting discoveries as if ‘a display of miraculous relics in the Middle Ages’.5 He argued for a form of science broadcasting that equipped listeners to make better informed decisions about social policy. The radio talks of the University of Sydney’s William Dakin went a considerable way towards achieving this but were discontinued by the ABC during the war. For these reasons, scientists are a compelling case to examine for the motivations, obstacles and consequences of a professional group aspiring to contribute to the public sphere by means of radio.

Science on interwar radio in Australia has received little attention to date.6 Research for this chapter has involved mining archives from institutions and individuals, as well as press coverage and journals at the time, to recreate the landscape of speakers, subjects and audience response that constituted early science broadcasting in Australia. It underwent several changes that inform the chronological structure of this chapter. Science talks began with the inception of broadcasting in the 1920s and flourished until the early 1930s; William Dakin’s celebrated Science in the News series spurred interest in broadcasting that linked science with social issues, but the onset of war saw a decline in science on the air. This chapter does not include the

4 Donald Ulin, ‘Scientific Literacies: the Mandate and Complicity of Popular Science on the Radio’ in Susan Squiers, editor, Communities of the Air Durham, Duke University Press, 2003, 164–194, 180. 5 Eric Ashby, ‘Dons or Crooners?’ Three lectures given in Guildhall London on the subject of communication in the modern world, some problems with the popularisation of science, British Association of Science 1959, 190. 6 Science broadcasting is not discussed by the established scholars of Australian radio history, such as Lesley Johnson, Ken Inglis, and Bridget Griffen-Foley, op. cit.; Ann Elias has analysed Professor William Dakin’s radio talks without placing him in a context of other science speakers, Ann Elias, op. cit. Nor has there been extensive investigation of the connections between scientists and politics in Australia, see Phillip Geery and Lachlan Clohesy, ‘Patronised servants: Australian Scientists in the 1940s’, in Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society, Vol. 99, Issue 2, December 2013, 114–132. The colonial period and post-World War 2 have both received much more attention from scholars such as Roderick Home and Roy MacLeod. There have been a number of biographies, particularly of Thomas Laby, David Rivett, and Philip Crosbie Morrison that touch to varying degrees on their subject’s activity with radio, mostly without reference to other speakers. Phillip Geery omits Eric Ashby’s radio work in ‘Eric Ashby: A scientist in Russia’ in Political Tourists: travellers from Australia to the Soviet Union in the 1920s–1940s, editors, Sheila Fitzpatrick and Carolyn Rasmussen, 2008, 260–276. See also Jennifer Bowen ‘Riding the Waves: Professor Laby as Imperial scientist and Radio Visionary’, in Historical Records of Australian Science, 28, 2017, 1–8. 71 natural history programme of Philip Crosbie Morrison that began on commercial radio 3DB in late 1938, initially as publicity for a new print magazine, Wildlife. Morrison later used the programme to campaign for national parks and this warrants separate discussion within the context of post-war radio science and audience engagement.7 It is also beyond the scope of this chapter to investigate the involvement of the medical profession with radio between the wars; by 1936, the Australian branches of the BMA were giving regular radio talks and the BMA campaigned successfully for regulations for medical advertising that were introduced into Commonwealth law in 1942.8 Agricultural talks, often given by state Department of Agriculture officers, are also excluded from this chapter. Both medical and agricultural broadcasting between the wars are worthy subjects for further examination, particularly the latter for its connections to Australian ideas of rurality.

Science broadcasting in Australia differed from its manifestations overseas, due to the differences in national radio systems as well as the cultural position of science and scientists; recent studies of the development of science on the radio in Britain and the United States make it possible to see more clearly the points of difference and similarity across these systems.9 While some scientists became significant figures in Australian radio, the inertia or reluctance of others within the profession to be involved was also evident. This reveals the complex nature of the modern mediated public sphere: a space shaped by practice, it is subject to the tensions between those who choose to participate, those who prefer to stay away and those with the authority to grant admittance. Early science broadcasts are an effective key to unlocking some of the shifting dynamics of radio’s spoken-word programmes, their makers and their audiences within the context of public engagement and the public sphere.

7 See Graham Pizzey, Crosbie Morrison: Voice of Nature, Melbourne, Victoria Press, 1992. 8 The Australian branches of the BMA became the Australian Medical Association (AMA) in 1962. 9 David Livingstone discusses the vagaries of the transnational appropriation of scientific ideas to argue that scientific understanding is shaped by local practices, including the social position of scientists and the place of science popularisation, see David N. Livingstone, Putting science in its place: geographies of scientific knowledge, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2003,12; for analyses of national science broadcasting outside Australia, see Marcel Chotkowski LaFollette, Science on the Air: Popularizers and personalities on Radio and Early Television, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2008, and Allan Jones, ‘Speaking of Science: BBC Science Broadcasting and its Critics 1926–64’, PhD thesis, Department of Science and Technology Studies, University College London, 2010. An earlier study by Gary Werskey discusses the BBC broadcasts of several left-wing, interwar British scientists, Gary Werskey, The Visible College, London, Allen Lane, 1978. 72

1924 – 1932: the university years

In October 1924, a meeting of the University of Melbourne Extension Board noted an item of business following the opening of radio station 3LO earlier the same month:

The Director reported that he had been in communication with the Broadcasting Company of Australia and had discussed with them a scheme for lecturettes of 20 minutes duration, which might be given from time to time by members of the University Extension Board panel of lecturers. A fee of 2 guineas is to be paid by the Broadcasting Company to the Board to be handed to the lecturers.10

The surviving minute does not make clear who approached whom, whether the University or the Broadcasting Company sought out the other. There was motivation on each side to make contact: 3LO needed material to fill up airtime, at a time when the wireless staple, music, was costly when live and difficult to transmit when recorded; meantime, Melbourne University was short of funds and sought to raise its public profile, something radio appearances could well bring about.11 An active association between the university and the radio station ensued, continuing in different forms over many decades.

The University of Melbourne was not the only university at this time to enter into an arrangement with a radio station. Indeed, Australia’s six universities had already been alerted to the possibilities of broadcasting following a co-ordinated bid to the Commonwealth government for a university ‘waveband’ for educational broadcasting and research purposes.12 The proposal had been made by university physicists round Australia on the initiative of University of Adelaide Professor Kerr Grant. In November 1923, the newly-formed Graduates Association at Adelaide University had resolved that Adelaide University should make such a request, saying ‘a great opportunity is opened up by wireless telegraphy for the extension of University influence and dissemination of university teaching’.13 President of the Graduates

10 Minutes of meeting, University of Melbourne Extension Board Standing Committee, 22 October 1924, Minutes of meetings of Standing Committee, University of Melbourne Archives (UMA), 19. 11 ibid. 12 Thomas Laby, letter to Professor Kerr Grant, 29 April 1924, University of Adelaide Archives (UAA); University of Melbourne Council Minutes. ‘Waveband’ is the word used rather than frequency or wavelength, suggesting that the vocabulary was in a fluid state. 13 Professor Brailsford Robertson, President of the Graduates Association, letter to University of Adelaide Council, 23 November 1923, UAA. 73

Association, biochemist Professor Brailsford Robertson, added presciently ‘it may be necessary to develop a special technique of teaching by this medium’.14 The proposal to Adelaide University Council resulted in the formation of a committee including Robertson and Professor Kerr Grant. The small size of, and regular conferences between, the six Australian universities enabled the development of a network of interest in radio both within campuses and across the country.15 The approaches by physicist Kerr Grant to his counterparts - Professor Laby at Melbourne, Professor Ross at the University of Western Australia (UWA) and Professor Parnell at the University of Queensland (UQ) - met with immediate agreement.16 Frederick Eardley, Adelaide University Registrar, wrote to the Postmaster General (PMG) on 6 May 1924 setting out the case for a University-dedicated waveband.17

As discussed in the first chapter of this thesis, the regulations about radio broadcasting in Australia were revised in 1924 following protests against the ‘sealed-set system’ adopted in 1923.18 In September 1924, it was reported to the All Universities Conference in Adelaide that the government ‘had decided to set aside a band of waves in connection with wireless telegraphy for educational purposes’.19 No such radio station emerged, but the incident demonstrates that the universities were aware of the idea and supportive of it. It is significant that Eardley cited the activity of American universities in educational broadcasting in his approach to the PMG; this underscores the place of the global circulation of ideas about radio, in this instance possibly facilitated by Brailsford Robertson who had studied in California.20 University physicists in particular took an active role in early American radio and the formation

14 ibid. 15 These were also building on other shared interests and experiences, for example, Professors Kerr Grant of the University of Adelaide and Ross of UWA both participated in the 1922 expedition to Wallal in Western Australia to observe the total solar eclipse, part of an experiment to validate a prediction of Einstein’s general theory of relativity. For a thorough discussion of academic networks in the Britannic world, see Tamson Pietsch, Empire of Scholars: Universities, networks and the British academic world 1850–1939, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2013. 16 Their positive replies are in the University of Adelaide Archives. 17 Letter from Eardley to PMG, 6 May 1924, UAA;, Minutes of Council meeting, 2 June 1924, UMA, 137, item 31, ‘on the request of Professor Laby it was resolved to join in making an application on behalf of the universities of Australia to the Commonwealth Government for the reservation of a wavelength band in wireless telegraphy for the purpose of broadcasting by the universities’. 18 The system of ‘A’ and ‘B’ class licences was adopted in July 1924. 19 Western Argus (Kalgoorlie, WA), 2 September 1924, 11, ‘Australian Universities Professors in Conference’. 20 Kerr Grant was a physicist and wireless amateur. Robertson, a chemist, may have heard from American scientists about the Science Service, a US news service on scientific matters that added broadcasting to its press activity in the early 1920s, see La Follette, op. cit. Robertson died at the age of 45 in 1930; one of his students, Dr Stuart Pennycuick, became a frequent broadcaster in the 1940s. 74 of college stations.21 They also took the lead in actual programme-making to the envy of biologists, with the Smithsonian Institute’s Austin Clark noting ‘the physicists, chemists and astronomers have the public ear’.22

Undeterred by the failure of the Australian government to support a separate broadcasting service, the universities set about making individual local arrangements. At the first experimental transmission in August 1924 of 5DN, later South Australia’s first ‘B’ class station, University of Adelaide Professor of Engineering Robert Chapman gave a talk on electricity.23 The proprietor, Jack Hume, proposed regular broadcasts of university material, subject to some sharing of costs, to which the university agreed promptly.24 The University of Western Australia reported in December 1924 that it had broadcast on the newly-launched 6WF ‘a series of seventeen extension lectures on alternative Mondays’.25

The universities in Melbourne, Sydney, Hobart and Adelaide had begun extension, or public, lecture programmes in the late nineteenth century; these were motivated by a desire to improve their public standing as well as contribute to social improvement.26 Through their Extension boards, universities entered into institutional partnerships with radio stations. This was assisted by the overlapping interests of key individuals: physicist Professor Ross and biochemist Professor Robertson, both enthusiasts for educational broadcasting, were chairs of the UWA and University of Adelaide extension boards respectively. A proposal for broadcasting lectures for external degree students came later at the University of Queensland; while noting the added bonus of their accessibility to the general public, the idea was not pursued.27

Scientists figured significantly amongst academic pioneers at the microphone and science subjects featured more in radio talks than in traditional extension lectures. The subjects of the latter were most often from the Humanities: for example, Melbourne University’s list of twenty- two extension classes for June 1924 has only two dealing with science, on nature study and

21 See Hugh Richard Slotten, ‘Universities, Public Service Radio and the ‘American System’ of Commercial Broadcasting 1921–40’, Media History, Vol. 12, No. 3, 2006, 253–272. 22 La Follette, op. cit., 35. 23 The Register (Adelaide, SA), 22 August 1924, 8, ‘First Broadcast Lecture: Professor Chapman’s Address: A Huge Invisible Audience’. 24 Letters from Hume, 26 August and 2 September 1924, UAA. 25 West Australian, 9 December 1924, 10, ‘University Extension Lectures: a useful year’. 26 Derek Whitelock, Adult education in Australia, Rushcutters Bay, Pergamon Press Australia, 1970, 152– 153, 157; extension lectures in Australia began variously between 1886 and 1895. 27 Senate proposal, 1933, proposed by Professor Henry Alcock, University of Queensland Archives (UQA). Alcock, an historian, was later the Queensland member of the ABC National Talks Advisory Committee (1937). 75 psychology, with English literature the most popular course.28 At Sydney University, humanities dominated tutorial classes and public lectures during the 1920s; occasional courses in science and technology were run in conjunction with professional organisations for limited enrolments. Radio was accessible to a larger, less defined audience and scientists seemed ready from the start to try the new medium.

One of the first science broadcasters appearing under the auspices of the University of Melbourne Extension Board was geologist Dr Clive Loftus-Hills in April 1925.29 After a talk on ‘the marvel of electric rays’ in the first week’s operation of 6WF in Perth in June 1924, UWA’s Professor Ross went on to become a frequent broadcaster and advisor to the WA Listeners’ League.30 Biochemist Professor Robertson of the University of Adelaide spoke on ‘food we eat and why’ on 5DN in July 1925.31 The committee of the University of Melbourne’s Extension board that was handling requests for radio speakers included ophthalmologist Sir James Barrett and Dean of Medicine Professor W. A. Osborne. Barrett developed a passion for radio, becoming president of the Victorian Listeners’ League and continuing to advocate for a university station, while Osborne became a regular broadcaster later on commercial radio, appearing as a panellist on the audience-driven programme Information Please, as well as hosting a war time nutrition series, What shall we have for dinner?32

Not all science speakers were academics: in Queensland, long range weather forecaster Inigo Jones gave many talks on 4GQ covering subjects that included primeval fish, the spectroscope and the Gulf Stream.33 In Western Australia a rare woman speaker, Euphemia Ross, a science graduate and the wife of Professor Ross, was previewed in 1926 for a 6WF talk on ‘Women in Science: Madame Curie’.34 As Michele Hilmes and others have argued, the impact of talks on

28 University of Melbourne Extension board minutes, June 1924, UMA. 29 The Argus (Melbourne), 27 April 1925, 20, ‘Wireless broadcasting programmes.’ 30 Daily News (Perth), 8 November 1926, 6, ‘The Broadcast Listener’. 31 The Register (Adelaide), 18 July 1925, 7, ‘Good Programmes from 5DN’. 5DN was a ‘B’ class station which commenced broadcasting on 15 February 1925. 32 Roe, op. cit., 81; Barry O. Jones, ‘Osborne, William Alexander (1873–1967), Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/ osborne-william-alexander -7929/text13799, published first in hardcopy 1988, accessed online 9 December 2015. Information Please is likely to have been copied from the US programme of the same name and format which began in May 1938 and in which listeners sent in general knowledge questions which were put to a panel of academics and celebrities. 33 Cairns Post (Queensland), 9 July 1928, 9, ‘A science talk ‘the Gulf Stream’. 34 Daily News (Perth), 8 November 1926, 6, ‘The Broadcast Listener’. Euphemia Ross, a graduate in physics and geology, lectured for her husband on occasion, see Hutchison, D. E., ‘Ross, Euphemia Welch (1889–1971), Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/ross-euphemia-welch-8551/text14487, published first in hardcopy 1988, accessed online 3 May 2017. Thanks to Dr Ian Rae who has pointed out that other 76 listeners derived from more than their literal content.35 Scientists in Australia before World War 2 were usually men, largely British-born and trained, and interwar science broadcasters were often men of mature years. Of the most popular and frequent interwar science speakers, the majority were born in the UK.36 Eric Ashby and Crosbie Morrison were the first science speakers under the age of 40 to broadcast when they began in the late 1930s; until then the median age was mid-50s, with Osborne and Pennycuick on air into their late 60s. Science broadcasting perpetuated the association of men with science training and expertise, at the same time as it presented radio as a vehicle for conventional masculinist hierarchies of power.

Available titles indicate that while the subjects of science talks were not topical, many were nonetheless contemporary: from the examples cited here, it can be noted that Madame Curie was still alive, that electricity was only in the process of becoming an everyday utility and that talks introduced listeners to new devices such as the spectroscope and new discoveries such as subatomic particles. While many early broadcast talks on the humanities were preoccupied with the past, science on the radio was focused on the future with scientists leading the way. Evidence suggests this was an association some scientists were keen to cultivate despite a general lack of public awareness of their field.

Public perceptions of science in Australia

Science in the Australian press in the 1920s consisted largely of reports of international developments interspersed with accounts of local public lectures and demonstrations.37 The prevailing picture was that scientific research happened elsewhere; likewise, the prestige of scientists overseas was greater. America emerged as a world leader in science in the aftermath

organisations apart from universities were later invited to participate in science broadcasting; for example the Australian journal, Chemical Engineering and Mining Review, reported in 1931 a request for its members to co-operate with 2BL ‘in a scheme of short talks over the air entitled ‘The Romance of Everyday Things, such as Soap, Rubber, Gelatine etc.’ Chemical Engineering and Mining Review, July 1931, 387. It is not clear how extensively radio stations approached such organisations and this area warrants further investigation. 35 Michele Hilmes, ‘Radio and the Imagined Community’ in The Sound Studies Reader, edited by Jonathan Sterne, London, Routledge, 2012, 351; Allan Jones discusses the framing of radio science talks as contributing to their meaning, Jones, op. cit., 52–55. This is an application of the ideas developed by Foucault in relation to discourse, see ‘The Order of Discourse’, in Untying the Text: A Post-Structuralist Reader, edited by Robert Young, London, Routledge Kegan Paul, 1981, 51–78, for example, the reference to institutional support (55). 36 Inigo Jones, Alexander Ross, Harold Woodruff, Eric Ashby, William Dakin, Samuel Wadham, and W. A. Osborne were British born while Crosbie Morrison, Robert Crowe, and Stuart Pennycuick were born in Australia. 37 Maureen Burns, ‘A Brief History of Science Communication in Australia’ in Media International Australia, February 2014, 72–76. 77 of World War I; its scientists were held in great national esteem and the popularisation of science, already established in the early twentieth century, increased in the 1920s, particularly with the advent of radio.38 Scientists in the British Empire did not benefit from similar interest and support. Many Australian scientists felt they had been ignored by the government during the war.39 Furthermore, Australia’s science heritage was a thinly woven cloth. While the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) was formed in 1888, Roderick Home has shown that geologist Archibald Liversidge, the founder of the AAAS, was single- handedly responsible for most of the papers presented at its meetings.40 Science in Australia was overwhelmingly practical, taken up with documenting the flora and fauna of the continent or seeking solutions to develop its agricultural and mining potential; the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), established in 1926, had an explicit brief to address issues in rural science.41 Throughout this time, communication with the public on scientific matters had been accorded a low priority.42 In her study of the Australian Association of Scientific Workers (AASW), Jean Moran concluded ‘science in Australia did not visibly impinge on public consciousness in the post [First World] war period’.43

This assessment overlooks the ubiquitous publicity around radio as science, as well as a communications medium.44 In 1924, the influential Sydney Morning Herald published a leader under the heading ‘universities and empire development’, in which it discussed the responsibility of universities in the dominions to participate in research for the prosperity of

38 Germany and USA were arguably leaders in science before World War I, see Fritz Stern Einstein’s German World, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1999, 44; Roy and Kay MacLeod discuss the significant roles of Japan and France in the early part of the century, as well as USSR by the 1930s, MacLeod, op. cit., 301–363; for a comprehensive account of the popularisation of science on American radio, see Marcel LaFollette, Science on the Air, Chicago, 2008. 39 Professors Laby and Osborne assisted with the development of an anti-gas respirator during World War I, but it was not taken up by the government to Laby’s lasting displeasure, see Edmund Muirhead, A man ahead of his times: T.H. Laby's contribution to Australian science, Richmond, Spectrum Publications, 1996, 115. 40 The organisation became the Australian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science (ANZAAS) in 1930; Jenny Metcalfe and Toss Gascoigne, ‘The Evolution of Science Communication Research in Australia’ in Science communication in the world: practices, theories and trends, edited by Bernard Schiele, Michel Claessens and Shunke Shi, Dordrecht, Springer, 2012; for Liversidge and AAAS, see R. Home, op. cit. 41 Burns, op. cit., 72; much of the research of physicist Thomas Laby in the early 1920s was concerned with the problems of freezing beef for export, The Argus (Melbourne), 29 August 1925, 20, ‘Frozen Beef: Interesting research work’. 42 Joan Clarke, ‘Scientists as Intellectuals’ in Intellectual Movements and Australian Society, edited by Brian Head and James Walters, Melbourne, Oxford University Press, 1988, 97. 43 Joan Clarke, op. cit., 96–99; Jean Moran, op. cit., 36; neither looked at the contribution scientists made to radio. 44 Johnson, op. cit., 11–16. 78 the Empire.45 It argued that dominion-based research was an essential complement to work done in Britain and the two examples it proposed were tropical medicine and the science of atmospherics, saying of the latter:

Its bearing upon wireless and aviation makes it a most important factor in Imperial development. The conditions for atmospheric research at, say, Cambridge, are quite different from those at Montreal, Sydney and Bombay. Experiments have to be conducted at many scattered points and here is a task to which the universities of the Empire could with advantage address themselves.46

These sentiments would have been received well by physicist Thomas Laby, Professor of Natural Philosophy at Melbourne University, a research scientist of distinction and avid supporter of the empire.47

Professor Thomas Laby, advocate for science broadcasting

Laby had been one of the supporters of the Adelaide-initiated attempt to obtain a wireless licence for the Australian universities, following which he maintained an active interest in broadcasting until his death in 1946. He was not a broadcaster himself and there is no record of him appearing before a microphone.48 His interest was primarily in broadcasting policy: he actively promoted science on the radio as part of a commitment to broader education of the public and to the inclusion of scientists in political deliberation.49 He belonged to overlapping interest groups which enabled him to contribute to science broadcasting in Australia through his part in the circulation of ideas: La Follette has pointed to the similar benefit to science broadcasting in America from encounters between like-minded people.50 Laby’s commitment to radio as a vehicle for science was underpinned by his allegiance to the British Empire as well as elements of his personal background.51 The relationship between the empire and Australia is a recurrent theme in this thesis: radio functions as a stage on which different understandings of the future of the empire in Australia were played out.

45 Sydney Morning Herald, 22 August 1924, 8, ‘Universities and Empire Development’. 46 ibid. 47 Anduaga, op. cit., 124, 140 (citing Oliphant). 48 This might be linked to his reputation as a terrible lecturer, see Muirhead, op. cit., 73 49 Jennifer Bowen, ‘Riding the Waves: Professor Laby as Imperial scientist and Radio Visionary’, in Historical Records of Australian Science, 28, 2017, 1–8. 50 La Follette, op. cit., 47. 51 Anduaga, op. cit., 140. 79

Thomas Laby was born in regional Victoria in 1880. He did not fit the mould for a university science professor in early twentieth-century Australia, many of whom were from Britain, or if Australian, usually from well-to-do backgrounds. Laby’s education was the result of evening classes and scholarships, culminating in the award of an 1851 Exhibition, a prestigious scholarship open to science graduates in the British Empire. He studied radioactivity in Cambridge under J. J. Thompson and later with the New Zealand physicist Ernest Rutherford, with whom he maintained an enduring friendship.52 Laby was appointed Professor of Natural Philosophy at Melbourne University in 1915 and one of his first actions was to join the Melbourne branch of the Round Table. The Round Table was a men-only movement committed to the perpetuation of the British Empire; its membership in Australia was influential, if not large, consisting mainly of academics, business men and lawyers, including historian Professor Jerry Portus, introduced in Chapter One of this thesis, and Herbert Brookes, vice chair of the ABC in the 1930s.53 The Round Table conceived of the twentieth century British Empire as a partnership between Britain and the Dominions, necessitating political education for Dominion citizens to equip them for their new role.54 This ‘decentring’ between centre and periphery was in many ways parallel to the encouragement that Ernest Rutherford gave the 1851 scholars to undertake original scientific research after leaving Britain.55

This contributed to the reasons Laby had for taking radio seriously: intellectually, it was a scientific challenge; politically, it had the potential to further the educational objectives of the Round Table; together, these meant radio could consolidate a new role for scientists within the empire, of which the nation was a part. In 1926, Laby brokered a deal whereby radio 3LO paid the University of Melbourne £500 a year for research into radio transmission and reception in Victoria.56 He was later a foundation member of the Radio Research Board, the first government-funded research enterprise in Australia not concerned with primary production, a

52 Laby wrote an extended obituary of Rutherford in which he noted his mentor’s early work in wireless, suggesting that Rutherford was responsible for discoveries later patented by Marconi, see Thomas Laby, ‘Lord Rutherford’, Australian National Review, 1 January 1938, 13–24; Laby was working on the publication of his correspondence with Rutherford when he died in 1946, see Muirhead, op. cit., 112. 53 Leonie Foster, High Hopes: the men and motives of the Australian Round Table, Melbourne, Melbourne University Press in association with The Australian Institute of International Affairs, 1986; Laby was later secretary of the Melbourne branch of the Round Table for many years. 54 ibid. 55 Katrina Dean, ‘Inscribing Settler Science: Ernest Rutherford, Thomas Laby and the making of careers in Physics’ in History of Science, xli, 2003, 217–240; Anduaga, op. cit., 140. 56 In NSW, the University of Sydney’s Professor of Chemical Engineering, John Madsen, entered into a similar financial arrangement with 2FC, Anduaga, op, cit., 129. 80 purpose which led one commentator to call it an ‘enigma’.57 It was partly in his capacity as 3LO technical advisor that Laby appeared before the Royal Commission into Wireless in 1927. He spoke about his preference for a wavelength for 3LO which would work well for less expensive crystal sets; he also urged a ‘public service’ purpose for broadcasting.58 Four years later, he was one of a delegation of academics who pressed for the establishment of the ABC. In the 1930s, he argued for the involvement of scientists in devising solutions to the Depression; later in the decade, he called for greater participation by scientists in the ABC’s output as talks became a central feature of its activity.59

1932–38: radio talks, science and ‘gatekeepers’

When the ABC was established in 1932, it inherited the working arrangements that had already been put in place by the universities and their respective ‘A’ stations whereby talks by academics were organised by University Extension Boards. Science was a major part of this, with Melbourne’s ‘A’ stations programming more science talks than any other subject.60 Sydney University took responsibility for scheduling talks every week night between 1931 and 1933; out of nineteen series programmed for the period January-April 1933, eight were directly concerned with science, including the geology of Australia, the history of physics, insects, and modern psychology (given by a solitary woman speaker, Mildred Musico).61 However, in 1933 the Commission informed the universities that in future it would make arrangements with speakers itself.62

The broadcasting landscape in Australia underwent several changes in the 1930s, with significant consequences for spoken-word programmes. As well as the setting up of the ABC, there was a rapid increase in the number of commercial radio stations and their profitability. Many of the commercial sector’s leading figures began to establish in popular perception a distinction between the publicly-funded broadcaster and those sustained by advertising. One Brisbane newspaper in 1934 identified entertainment as fundamental to radio’s appeal and questioned the need for a public broadcasting service:

57 W. F. Evans, History of the Radio Research Board, 1926–1945, Melbourne, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, Australia, 1973, 1; Anduaga, op. cit., 129. 58 Laby, Minutes, Royal Commission on Wireless 1927, Vol. 2, 211; Geelong Advertiser (Victoria), 26 March 1925, 5. 59 Bowen, op. cit., 8. 60 Minutes of Extension board meetings, 4 April 1932, 31 July 1933, 4 May 1934, UMA Extension board 93/21, 97/60, Box 1. 61 University of Sydney Extension Board Annual Report 1932/33, 10. 62 University of Sydney Extension Board Annual Report 1932/33, 13. 81

The ‘B’ class stations have done so extraordinarily well in NSW that many well-informed people are beginning to ask whether the system of control of the National stations will continue… or whether Australia will shortly have to change to the American system and provide its radio entertainment for one and all completely free of charge.63

The possibility that legislation or regulation could change the ways in which broadcasting operated was a situation of which commercial broadcasters were well aware. Many active in Australian commercial radio in the 1930s kept a watchful eye on developments in the United States where speculation persisted about the introduction of a public broadcaster or stricter requirements of commercial stations. David Goodman has argued that this caused American commercial radio to operate voluntarily within a ‘civic paradigm’; he contends that a ‘public service’ approach to programming was adopted as a ‘kind of insurance policy’.64 This was not intended to provide compensation after the event but aimed to prevent any damage in the first place. Its objective was to maintain a largely self-regulated commercial system by circumventing any call for America to adopt a model like the BBC.

Australia’s dual system of broadcasting enabled its commercial broadcasters to take a different approach in order to achieve the same end, that is, self-regulation. On his return from a visit to America in 1935, A. E. Bennett, the manager of Sydney radio 2GB, gave an interview to the Australian Women’s Weekly magazine in which he characterised the different purposes of commercial radio and the ABC in Australia:

“Australia had a national service”, he said, “which rightly shouldered the responsibility of educational talks and left the commercial stations free to look after their own particular business – supplying popular entertainment.”65

In the years that followed, reports appeared in a succession of newspapers that underscored this distinction between the ABC and the commercial sector.66 Over the course of the decade, the

63 Sunday Mail (Brisbane), 23 September 1934, 26, ‘Radio in the South- Popularity of B Stations’. It can be noted that the possibility of abolishing the ABC has continued till the present day. 64 Goodman (2011), op. cit., 35. 65 Australian Women’s Weekly, 24 August 1935, 18, ‘Will Search for Radio Talent– 2GB Director Back from America Makes a Resolution’. A similar distinction existed in America where college stations provided broadcasting with an educational objective. 66 Herald (Melbourne), 2 May 1936, 47, ‘Do we listen to radio talks?’; Advertiser (Adelaide), 20 October 1936, 21, ‘Value of B Class Stations’; Sydney Morning Herald, 12 July 1937, 8, ‘Radio Taste’. 82 number of talks on commercial stations declined; science talks, apart from medicine and nutrition, almost disappeared.67

The idea of an opposition between entertainment and education in relation to radio influenced practice within broadcasting organisations as well as commentary outside. At different times, the ABC resisted and reinforced the dichotomy. In early 1934, Charles Moses was appointed Federal Talks Supervisor by then ABC General Manager, Major Conder. British-born Moses had joined the Australian Broadcasting Company in 1930 because of his aptitude as a sports commentator; his rise was meteoric, aided by ‘an instinct for pragmatic, quick-thinking opportunism’.68 One of Moses’ first acts as Talk Supervisor was to impress upon speakers the need to be ‘entertaining’ in their talks.69 In the same year, William Cleary became ABC chairman. Cleary had left school at the age of 14, later completing a university degree after evening studies. He had excelled as a manager in business and the public sector, showing a skill for negotiating among warring parties.70 He was a former WEA lecturer and committed to an educative purpose for the ABC, a position he justified on one occasion by appealing to the way American commercial radio sought to educate its audience.71 It is not clear whether Cleary was aware of the strategic reasons for American radio adopting its civic paradigm– or in what way he too was playing a strategic game, given the acceptance of Australian commercial radio’s commitment solely to entertainment.

On his appointment to the ABC, Cleary took an active interest in its spoken-word output; in his assessment, it was of a poor standard. Rather than demolishing it, he set about repairs.72 After the resignation of Conder in 1935, Cleary promoted Moses to the position of General Manager.73 Together, Cleary and Moses undertook a substantial restructuring of the ABC resulting in the

67 Talks on medicine could have dubious provenance; the BMA’s protests in 1941 resulted in the legislation in 1942 for approval from the Director-General of Health for broadcast advertisements relating to health; talks on nutrition might find commercial support, with Osborne’s What shall we have for dinner? sponsored by a food manufacturer. 68 Neville Petersen, ‘Moses, Sir Charles Joseph (1900–1988)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/moses-sir-charles- joseph-15044/text26241, published first in hardcopy 2012, accessed online 1 July 2015. 69 Moses, letter to Ball, 19 September 1934, NLA, William Macmahon Ball, MS 7851, Series 1. 70 Alan Thomas, ‘Cleary, William James (1885–1973)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/cleary-william-james- 5677/text9591, published first in hardcopy 1981, accessed online 3 May 2016. 71 William Cleary, ‘Why National Broadcasting?’, speech to Legacy Club luncheon, 8 August 1940, Papers of W. J. Cleary, NLA, MS 5632. 72 Inglis, op. cit., 44. 73 Moses remained General Manager until 1965. 83 appointment of six ‘Controllers’ who would be based in Sydney.74 One consequence of this overhaul was a reduction not in the number of talks, but in the number of talks speakers. From this time, outstanding presenters from different states were relayed across the country; Professors Dakin, Charteris, and Portus were among the first to qualify for national exposure.75 Walter Murdoch, professor of English at UWA, was also recruited for nationwide talks and became a particularly admired speaker.76 Several scientists who had acquired experience as broadcasters within their home states were not given national relay; this included University of Adelaide physicist Professor Kerr Grant, committed to public communication and listed in 1935 for a talk in South Australia about the Depression from a scientist’s point of view.77

New formats were introduced and there was greater promotion for talks with the publication nationally of booklets listing forthcoming series. The Commission’s Annual Reports from 1935 make clear the increasing interest in the presentation of controversial subjects within the limits of government censorship. However, as the incidence of talks on social science and foreign affairs rose, the proportion of science programmes in the total output diminished: weekly talks listings in the Listener In magazine between 1932 and 1936 show science talks decrease to an average of one evening talk a week in place of several in the early 1930s.78 Less interest in science was also evident in deliberations the ABC commenced to bring well-known speakers from Britain to Australia.

A central figure in this was Professor Portus, from 1934 the Chair of History at the University of Adelaide after holding the post of Head of Tutorial Classes at the University of Sydney. Portus was committed to broadcasting as a means of public education, but this did not extend to talks about science. While planning a trip to Britain in late 1936, Portus was asked to act on behalf of the ABC in identifying and sounding out eminent Britons for a proposed speaking tour of Australia.79 Before he left, he drew up a list of fifteen names that included only one scientist,

74 Inglis, op. cit., 49. This did not do away with state managers who retained considerable authority, including censorship powers as chapter 1 has shown, but the restructure lessened their control over scheduling as more programmes were ‘mandated’ nationally. 75 ABC Annual Report June 1935, 16–17. 76 Inglis, op. cit., 30; Murdoch was cited in the minutes of the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Broadcasting, 1942. 77 The News (Adelaide), 22 July 1935, 10, ‘Broadcasting’. Kerr Grant was committed to communication with the public and wrote a column for an Adelaide paper. 78 A sampling of weekly listings from 1934–1937 suggests this decline, by comparing the frequency of science talks listed by the University of Sydney Tutorial broadcasts in 1931 with later listings, see Listener In, 30 March 1934,10; 2 February 1935, 4; 1 February 1936, 6, 9 May 1936, 4,9 January 1937, 29, which show at most one evening science talk a week, often none. 79 NAA: SP1558/2, 602, ‘Talks–Professor Portus–Overseas visit and report ‘: correspondence over his remuneration of £100. 84

Julian Huxley, of whom he commented to Moses, ‘his specialty is biology and I suppose we would have to let him stick to that if he came out’.80 In placing Portus’ suggestions in order of interest, Moses relegated Huxley to a ‘B’ list.81

In his autobiography, Portus makes no secret of the influence that he had on the Commission’s working.82 He made a further suggestion to Moses at this time that had a crucial impact on talks generally and science broadcasting in particular– that the ABC recruit the Queensland WEA organiser B. H. Molesworth as its new Federal Controller of Talks.83 Moses considered that the initial appointee, South Australian academic Rudolph Bronner who had trained in philosophy and had also been recommended by Portus, was ineffectual; Bronner was transferred to schools broadcasting where he acquired a distinguished reputation.84 Brisbane-born Molesworth had undertaken post-graduate study in Oxford, England, after a degree in economics and history in Queensland; he had taught political economy at the University of Sydney’s tutorial classes at Broken Hill in western NSW before becoming director of the WEA in Brisbane. In 1934, he had been funded by the Carnegie Foundation to study adult education in America and Britain. During his travels, he had observed radio programmes and production carefully.85 His own experience of broadcasting had begun in 1925 and he had given many talks since; his wife, a champion tennis player, also broadcast on women’s sport.86 Molesworth was the ABC’s Controller of Talks until 1955; his influence on its spoken-word output was considerable and he is a central figure in several chapters of this thesis. He had a profound commitment to adult education, believing it to be necessary for the functioning of a democracy; this made him a strong advocate for the forms of broadcasting he saw as conducive to educative ends, and an implacable opponent to those with which he disagreed.

80 ibid; as if to explain the inclusion of Huxley’s name in the first place, Portus did add that modern biology had very wide social implications. 81 ibid. 82 G. V. Portus, Happy Highways, Carlton, Melbourne University Press, 1953, 269. Margaret Van Heekeren has documented Portus’ commitment to radio as a means of public education in keeping with his Idealist philosophy, Van Heekeren op. cit. 83 Inglis, op. cit., 57. 84 Inglis, op. cit., 56–7. 85 Molesworth, Bevil H. Adult education in America and England, Melbourne, Melbourne University Press, 1935. 86 ABC National Talks booklet 1935, 13, broadcast listed for 17 January 1935. 85

Science in the news

At a meeting of the National Talks Advisory Committee in late 1937 and only months into his new post, Molesworth announced a new monthly talk, ’Popular Science in the News’, to be presented by Professor William Dakin of the University of Sydney.87 The timing so soon after Molesworth’s appointment makes it unclear who was responsible for Dakin’s engagement. Dakin was no stranger to the ABC: he had been broadcasting since 1929 when a member of the University of Sydney Extension Board’s Broadcasting Subcommittee and had sat on the ABC’s National Talks Advisory Committee throughout the 1930s. During a trip overseas in 1936, he had corresponded with both ABC Chair Cleary and General Manager Moses about what he had seen and heard of radio broadcasting.88 His comments from Britain included observations of studio production, suggesting that his own later skill as a broadcaster was assisted by careful study as well as natural aptitude:

We have put forth quite as good a programme of ideas. Possibly our carrying out has been less successful; we have neither the money nor the field to choose from. But I heard several speakers who could not “put it across” and was told that they would not be asked again. Yet this was despite a real drilling, for new speakers are compelled to read the whole of their talk they are going to give whilst a “tutor” is in another room with loudspeaker or telephone listening. Actually, they do this ‘coaching up’ better in USA and I’ll tell you about it when I arrive.89

Few papers by Dakin have survived. A newspaper interview in 1940 reports that he understood radio as a bridge between the university and the public so that ‘what is discovered after years and years of painstaking research may be of general use’; he insisted that science did not end in the laboratory and urged the Australian public and business community to engage more with universities.90

Dakin’s biography shows some similarities with other scientists who became active in Australian broadcasting between the wars: they actively supported adult education, had a background of modest means and displayed a wide range of other interests, as well as a creative

87 NAA B2111 TKS/14, Minutes of the National Talks Advisory Committee, October 1937, 5. 88 NAA: SP1558/2, 625 Talks– General file on Xavier Herbert, Professor A.B. Taylor and Professor W. Dakin, April–June 1936. 89 Dakin, letter to Moses, 26 October 1936, NAA: SP1558/2, 625. 90 Lockhart Review and Oaklands Advertiser (NSW), 26 November 1940, 4, ‘Professor Delighted: 12-page scientific letter from ironworker’. 86 urge to conduct research.91 William Dakin was born in Liverpool, the son of a coal merchant; he was a graduate of Liverpool University and retained a Merseyside accent throughout his life– this was commented on favourably, if rarely, in Australian press reports of his radio talks.92 He arrived in Australia in 1913 at the age of 30 to set up the Department of Biology at the University of Western Australia; in 1917, he became Chair of the UWA Extension Board. Physicist Alexander Ross took a similar path, arriving from Edinburgh to take up the UWA Chair of Physics in 1912; he assumed the Extension Board chair on Dakin’s return to Britain in 1920. Dakin came back to Australia in January 1929 as Professor of Zoology at the University of Sydney. He had a broad range of interests, being an accomplished pianist, photographer and painter, as well as having a passion for sailing.93 His publications include a study of Australia’s coastline and he gave a number of radio talks about the ocean; this has led Ann Elias to argue that he changed Australian consciousness by making the coast, instead of the interior, emblematic of the country.94 Dakin gave many occasional talks for the ABC, as well as the BBC, and he was often singled out for praise as a broadcaster.95 Science in the News was to make him a star: after the series’ first run, Dakin’s name was known across Australia and he was one of two talks presenters to be cited as exemplary by the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Broadcasting in 1942.96 By the end of the war, his name was a byword for scientific explanation.97

91 Gary Werskey’s study of interwar British scientists documents the difficulties, practical and social, for those without private means to pursue an academic career. Ross had been unable to pursue his desire to study medicine after the early death of his father, see D.E. Hutchinson, op. cit.; Dakin studied in Germany and Italy, and held positions in Belfast, London and Liverpool before being appointed to UWA. His peripatetic career parallels that of Lancelot Hodgen, documented in Werskey, op. cit., 104. Tamson Pietsch has discussed the links across the British Empire that this mobility resulted in, Pietsch, op. cit. In addition, Ross and Dakin (as well as Hodgen) married women who were science graduates and often collaborated with their work. 92 Advocate (Melbourne), 14 June 1944, 17, ‘I’m glad that Professor Dakin is on the air again … I like his north of England accent with its “wan” for one.’ 93 Alan Colefax, obituary of Dakin in Australian Journal of Science Vol. 12, No. 6, 1950, 208–209; Ursula Bygott and K. J. Cable, ‘Dakin, William John (1883–1950), Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/dakin-william- john-5863/text9971, published first in hardcopy 1981, accessed online 10 March 2015. 94 Elias, op. cit. 95 See The Worker (Brisbane), 19 September 1934, 17, “Occasionally a [radio] lecturer, such as Professor Dakin, speaks the language as it should be spoken: but these occasions are rare.” 96 The Lockhart Review and Oaklands Advertiser (NSW), op. cit.; Dakin’s photograph appeared in the Daily Examiner (Grafton), 7 July 1941, 3, ‘Prof Dakin’; Kilmore Free Press (Victoria), 16 October 1941, 8, ‘The Radio: the importance of trifles’. The only other talks speaker named in the Joint Parliamentary Committee report was UWA professor of English, Walter Murdoch, see Joint Parliamentary Committee on Broadcasting Report 1942, 39. 97 A council meeting discussion in the ACT during 1945 was reported as follows: “Mr Gourgard advanced the reason that the dust storms experienced in Canberra could cause discolouration with the dust settling on water in the reservoirs. Dr Nott: Even Professor Dakin would not have given that as a reason.” The Canberra Times (ACT),20 September 1945, 2, ‘Advisory Council’. 87

Dakin adopted a professional approach to his work on Science in the News. He knew what he required and put his requests for assistance to the ABC’s Moses:

Let’s have lunch … I am writing to confirm our conversation this morning. Will the Commission please ask their London Press agent to send out cuttings from English papers on Science and preferably to suggest that a suitable selection be sent by air mail… would you also please instruct the librarian Mr Hone to notify me (as he does other speakers on special subjects) of references to Science in the Australian press, and to let me see the American science newsletter which is obtained for the Watchman. My first “Science in the News” talk involved seeking interviews in two science laboratories. I shall let you have a report on the possibilities after I’ve tried 3 months.98

The first edition of Science in the News was broadcast on 6 March 1938 and press reports of its success were immediate:

The talks by Prof W.J. Dakin on “Science in the News” have proved so popular that they are to be given more frequently in the future. …they will now be on fortnightly. Listeners interested in invention and in the progress of the sciences, particularly on the practical side, should therefore listen on Sunday next at the usual Sunday Talks Hour of 6.30.99

Science in the news continued until late 1941 with a break of two months at the start of 1940.100 Thirteen scripts survive from 1939 that demonstrate how Dakin used the magazines the ABC had ordered alongside a conviction that science be understood for its larger social implications. A typical talk covered two or three reported developments in science overseas as well as occasional references to listeners’ letters; there was an explanation of how each innovation under discussion worked and what it achieved, its consequences for the broader community and a reminder of the internationalism of science- this in particular is a contrast to the rampant nationalism of the time. On 19 March 1939, his talk began with an account of the world’s largest new telescope in California; he commented on a report by the Astronomer Royal on the increased interest in astrology in Britain, and he concluded with news of the splitting of the

98 Dakin, letter to Moses, 10 February 1938, NAA: SP1558/2, 625. 99 Illawarra Mercury (Wollongong, NSW), 13 May 1938, 10, ‘Radio News a Popular Series’. 100 There were later revivals in 1944 and 1945 when it was broadcast weekly for several months under different names in different states such as Science Notebook or Science Today as well as Science in the News. 88 uranium atom. He noted that the telescope was being constructed ‘neither for glory in war nor commercial gains’, making clear he valued more its contribution to pure research ‘to advance man’s pure knowledge and curiosity’.101 Astrology he condemned quickly as ‘pure bilge’, while noting its rising popularity in Sydney, which phenomenon he attributed to an irresponsible press. The atomic structure of uranium and the technique of splitting it were carefully explained, along with the interjection- ‘startling, isn’t it’- before he added that the current work was the result of collaboration between laboratories in a succession of countries round the world, including one in Sweden staffed by German refugees.

The talks were written throughout in an informal style that presumed no familiarity with scientific terminology on the part of the audience. Dakin’s scripts operated within the gender conventions of the day in which scientists were generally ‘he’, so that a remark about the amount of rouge required for the world’s largest telescope invited the aside, ‘think of that, my lady listeners’. There was a breezy informality about the language that contributed to the talks’ appeal as in ‘tonight the usual mixed grill of news from the scientific world’.102They show an inclusive approach to the listener, acknowledging the listener’s existing knowledge rather than pointing out what they do not know: ‘you all know how the heart is constructed’, ‘you may not know – I certainly didn’t’, ‘don’t tell me you didn’t know this thing’.103 Dakin positioned himself as a citizen alongside the listener; the deictic style contributed to the warmth of the relationship between speaker and listener, as in ‘I told you about the cyclotron last year’ and the reference to ‘all of us in Australia’. ‘Please, think it over’ were his words to listeners after he confessed to his concerns about the lack of support for science in Australia.104 He gave a talk as scheduled on 3 September 1939, the evening war was declared, and probably struck a chord with many in the audience with the words ‘I feel at a loss this evening to be helpful’.105

Dakin used the talks to do more than inform listeners about science as technology: repeated talks explore the relationship of science to government, the economy and labour. For example, a discussion of the disastrous sinking of the British navy submarine, Thetis, in June 1939 with the loss of ninety-nine lives, addressed both the scientific issue of pressure and the regulations for

101 NAA: SP300/1, 7 Science in the news scripts, 16 April 1939. 102 NAA: SP300/1, 7 Science in the news scripts, 9 July 1939. 103 NAA: SP300/1, 7 Science in the news scripts, 16 April 1939 (‘you all know how the heart is constructed’) 2 April 1939 (You may know, I certainly didn’t); 19 March 1939 (I told you last year) 30 April 1939 (‘don’t tell me you didn’t know this thing’). 104 NAA: SP300/1, 7 Science in the news scripts, 16 April 1939 (‘please, think it over’), 14 May 1939 (‘all of us in Australia’). 105 NAA: SP300/1, 7, Science in the news scripts, 3 September 1939. 89 working conditions for deep-sea divers in Australia.106 Dakin reminded listeners that scientific understanding was demanding of all equally, saying ‘there is no easy or royal road to learning.’107 He made clear that science needed to be handled with care, that it was liable to abuse as well as good use. One script, citing correspondence from two listeners, addressed the issue of race.108 Dakin promptly called it ‘pseudo-science … erected to justify political and economic ambitions’, going on to say that there was ‘no pure race of humans, [we are] all hybrids… and there is no such thing as an Aryan race’. 109

Praise for the series continued to pour in. The outbreak of war did not dampen interest and the talks held their own alongside international matters; one correspondent to a Melbourne newspaper complained that re-scheduling by the ABC of Science in the News would clash with a foreign affairs talk on another station: ‘surely a little thought could arrange things differently and let us hear both?’, wrote one letter to the Melbourne Argus. 110 The talks’ ideas were applied to local situations: the Cootamundra Herald cited Dakin’s dismissal of the claim that intelligence is determined by parental occupation as part of an argument for taking pride in Cootamundra’s heritage.111 The Cessnock Eagle and South Maitland Recorder quoted his call for greater scientific research to build the case for more government support for education in Australia post war, arguing ‘the old order must end’.112 However, Dakin’s impact on science communication was not limited to his own radio talks; in 1939, he was instrumental in the creation of an organisation for Australian scientists that had the specific objective of increasing contact with the public. Dakin may himself have seen this as a prelude to building new bridges with radio; it was, however, to transpire that not all scientists shared his enthusiasm with the medium.

Australian Association of Scientific Workers

Dakin’s talks expressed dissatisfaction with the way the press informed the public about developments in modern science. Many scientists shared this attitude, within a larger concern that science and scientific method were not understood or valued by the bulk of the population;

106 NAA: SP300/1, 7 Science in the news scripts, 12 June 1939: this was critical of working conditions for divers in Australia; a later talk on the Thetis (23 July 1939) referred to Haldane’s experiment replicating the disaster. 107 NAA: SP300/1, 7 Science in the news scripts, 19 March 1939. 108 NAA: SP300/1, 7 Science in the news scripts, 6 August 1939. 109 ibid. 110 The Argus, 1 December 1939, 2, ‘Wireless Talks’. 111 Cootamundra Herald (NSW), 5 July 1940, 2, ‘Brains are Classless’. 112 Cessnock Eagle and South Maitland Recorder (NSW), 10 April 1942, 2, ‘The Old Order must End’. 90 as war loomed, scientists mobilized in 1939 so that they could speak with one voice.113 Dakin put the motion at a meeting of scientists in Sydney on 19 July that they establish the Australian Association of Scientific Workers (AASW); other state (and New Zealand) branches followed and by late 1941 its membership totalled 530 men and women from the six universities, CSIR, state government and industrial laboratories.114 The probable model for the AASW was the British Association of Scientific Workers which had emerged from the growing disquiet amongst British scientists in the 1930s about their political impotence.115 Contact with Britain, particularly amongst those of British descent, facilitated the spread of these ideas to scientists in Australia.

The AASW attempted many roles in its limited life.116 Jean Moran sums up its essential motivation as an attempt ‘to forge a social engineering role for scientists– to change the status of scientist from ‘outsiders’ to political ‘insiders’.117 To a degree they had some short-term success; in Moran’s assessment, ‘by late 1941, the AASW had a good deal of credibility within the scientific community and government circles’.118 The state divisions operated with some autonomy with contact maintained by the regular publication of the association’s monthly publication, Bulletin.119 Its reports kept members across the country informed about on-going subcommittee enquiries into pay for women scientists, unscientific advertising, the patent medicine industry, science education, and publicity: this last referred to the use of the press and radio to reach a wider public.120

113 The genesis of the AASW is discussed in detail by Jean Moran in ‘Scientists in the Political and Public Arena: the Australian Association of Scientific Workers, 1939–49’ Griffith University, Brisbane, M Phil. Thesis, 1983; and more recently, Phillip Deery and Lachlan Clohesy ‘Patronised servants: Australian Scientists in the 1940s’, Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society, Vol. 99, Issue 2, December, 2013, 114–132. 114 Dakin’s name is absent from the record of subsequent activity of the Association, neither as an office- hearer, nor active on any subcommittee. This may be due to his commitment to Science in the News or to his work during the war with camouflage. There is little known of his family circumstances, other than that he had a wife and a son, who served in the RAAF; Moran, op. cit., 62. 115 Deery and Clohesy op. cit., 116. 116 These roles include the organisation of post-graduate courses for scientists, adult education about science, lobbying government on behalf of ‘science’, campaigning for better pay and conditions for scientists, and conducting inquiries on issues of concern to scientists. Many rallied to its cause with the outbreak of war, given widespread frustration that the government was slow to enlist the services of scientists (Moran op. cit., 62). The Bulletin ceased in 1948 and the AASW was dissolved in 1949. 117 Moran, op. cit., 1. The thinking was that if scientists were more involved in political decision-making, that is, if their views were actively sought and taken seriously, improved pay and status would follow. 118 Moran, op. cit., 62 119 The activities of the AASW were also reported in the Australian Journal of Science, which was launched in 1938. 120 An address by Dr S. E. Williams, one of the founders of the AASW, given in Melbourne in August 1939 refers to the need for action to influence public opinion, and cites press, radio and film, saying ‘there is opportunity to do a great deal’, AASW archives, ANU E101A/24/13 91

AASW Press service

The Publicity Subcommittee went about its business in a thoroughly scientific manner. The NSW division analysed the coverage of science in the Sydney Morning Herald for December 1939.121 It found that science constituted half as many column inches as motoring and barely one sixth of agriculture articles; as for the science news that was printed, it observed that ‘the emphasis given to any article depends almost entirely on its ‘sensation’ appeal,’ while coverage of eminent scientists ‘would not usually be complete without some reference to his [sic] golf score or home life.’122 It concluded with the hope that ‘efforts will be made to communicate to the public-at- large some idea of scientific method, something of the scientific tradition of clear thinking and careful doing, rather than slightly garbled accounts of experimental highlights and oddities.’123 The Victorian division conducted a similar analysis of the major newspapers in Melbourne, following which Professor J.S. Turner of the University of Melbourne Botany Department set up a ‘press service’ to broker the placing of science material in the Melbourne press.124 This met with some success: they were congratulated in October 1941 by the NSW Secretary of the Association for ‘arranging for the publication in The Age of one science article per fortnight’.125

The number of radio talks organised by the AASW was small, compared to its achievements with the press. In some ways this is not surprising as talks were in decline on commercial radio where airtime often required payment: Professor W.A. Osborne of Melbourne, for example, was able to present talks on nutrition during the war with sponsorship from a baking powder manufacturer.126Through the WEA, the NSW division of the AASW had access to airtime on Sydney commercial radio 2KY, whose licence was held by the Trades and Labour Council.127In May 1941, Malcolm Andrews interviewed R.O. Chalmers, both members of the association, about Bernard Lovell’s Science and Civilisation, a book that highlighted the concern amongst scientists that society as a whole was not benefitting from their work.128

121 AASW archives, ANU E101A/8/12 122 AASW archives, ANU E101A/8/12 123 AASW archives, ANU E101A/8/12. 124 ibid.; Bulletin No 15 May 1941, 1, article by B. A. Boas. 125 AASW archives, ANU E101A/24/13, F. Wood, letter to G. Batchelor, 1 October 1941; twenty-two articles by members were published between August 1940 and September 1941, Bulletin No. 21, November 1941 (n.p.). 126 What shall we have for dinner? was broadcast weekly on 3DB for several months in 1942; many of the scripts were published and show Osborne to have a warm regard for his subject. 127 The WEA had its airtime on 2KY reduced in 1943 after a disagreement with the Labor Party, see WEA Annual Report 1943. 128 AASW archives, ANU E101A/24/13. 92

In August 1941, the ABC ‘s new editor of special talks, Kenneth Henderson, appointed for the express purpose of co-coordinating programmes about post-war reconstruction, arranged to meet representatives of the Association.129A formal memorandum was issued after the meeting setting out the terms of a working arrangement: the Association would provide Henderson with the names of those scientists working on Reconstruction and in return Henderson would give publicity to the work of the Association.130In the absence of further documentation, it is not clear how effectively this was pursued. A separate note of the meeting by the Association reveals some lack of confidence about the relationship, particularly over the style of broadcast that would take place:

We raised the question of the presentation of these talks and stressed the value of conversational or dialogue presentation, so that special material could be dealt with by someone familiar to it. Especially would this form be suitable in talking of the relation of Science to society generally. Henderson may accept the latter suggestion but appears to want to do all the talking himself.131

This reveals that Association scientists were conversant with radio formats, such as dialogue as opposed to a single speaker, and had a clear preference for one over the other. While this need not be a rejection of scripted delivery, as discussions and interviews were often rehearsed and scripted at this time, it conveys confidence in a question-and-answer format as more likely to engage the listener. The further insistence that answers on a subject be given by ‘someone familiar to it’ underscored a belief in the importance of the listener hearing the authentic voice of the scientist.132 Taken together, these suggest that the scientists involved in the meeting had thought about, and appreciated, the specificity of the radio medium. Nonetheless, there is no available evidence that the AASW participated in the ABC’s later broadcasts dealing with post- war reconstruction.

129 Rev. Kenneth T. Henderson had been a newspaper editor in WA and was responsible for ABC religious programmes for much of the 1940s. He figures in chapter 6 of this thesis in the analysis of discussion programmes. 130 AASW archives, ANU E101A/8/12; this memorandum, among others, was referred to by Henderson when he appeared at the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Broadcasting on 13 January 1942 as evidence of the wide-ranging approach his series would take. 131 AASW archives, ANU E101A/8/12. 132 It was common practice in America by the early 1940s for science material to be voiced by actors, see La Follette, op. cit., 140. 93

In 1943, the WEA again offered the NSW division of the AASW its slot on Radio 2KY, this time for a series of five talks under the heading ‘The Scientist in Wartime’. There is a note in the correspondence that there would be no fees for the talks.133All work for the AASW was honorary, undertaken by scientists working full-time: as the war progressed, apologetic letters of resignation spill out from the Association’s files.134In 1943, William Nicholls resigned from the position of Convenor of the NSW Subcommittee on Publicity noting that just a little headway had been made, before adding ‘with regard to Radio, John Dease of 2GB was contacted but is unable to help to any extent. It was suggested that Sid Jordan of 2KY may possibly be of value. This however has not been followed’.135It may be that some of the AASW members were disheartened: its archives refer to a planned submission from the Association to the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Broadcasting in 1941 in which it offered to assist ‘in obtaining speakers and subjects in order to increase the amount of genuine scientific education offered to the public by broadcast programmes’.136The submission itself, assuming it was made, has not survived, while the archived note states that ‘many listeners prefer only music.’137

The Association did not lose its ambition of influencing media coverage of science. In 1946, it circulated nationally the idea of setting up a ‘scientific press bureau’ in Australia. This would publicise scientific events, supply articles on scientific subjects, improve the accuracy of news items on science, act as a liaison between scientists and the press and ‘supply information available from scientific work, relating to social problems of the day, so that the scientific method may be more widely applied to such problems’.138 The plan was to employ full-time staff consisting initially of one scientist and one journalist who would generate sufficient funds from the sale of articles so that the Bureau would be self-sufficient. The proposal resembled the American Science Service, an agency established in 1920 by a wealthy publisher to provide copy about science for the press and, after its inception, radio.139 The AASW had no similar backing and could only ask for financial assistance from scientific organisations in Australia. A letter was duly drafted but it is not clear whether it was ever sent, let alone any indication of organisations

133 WEA Annual Report 1943, 21; AASW archives, ANU E101A/8/12. 134 For example, Andrews resigned on 20 March 1944, ANU E101A/8/12. 135 AASW archives, ANU E101A/8/12, Nicholls, letter to Acting Sec, AASW, NSW, 20 January 1943. 136 AASW archive, ANU E101B/7, Submission; the submission itself, assuming it was made, has not survived. 137 AASW archive, ANU E101B/7, Submission. 138 AASW archives, ANU E101A/24/12, Folder: Press bureau. 139 There is no explicit reference to the American Science Service in the available AASW archive or later commentary of the Association; conversely, the AASW unscientific advertising campaign quoted US experience, ANU E101A/24/2. 94 in Australia willing to contribute to such a venture.140 So far as radio was concerned, the science community had to wait until the ABC appointed a specialist science producer in 1964.141 Moreover, despite the valiant efforts of the AASW during the war to raise the public profile of science, fissures were appearing amongst scientists themselves about radio as an appropriate platform for science.

Scientists’ problems with radio

Between 1941 and 1943, the AASW Bulletin discussed the twin issues of scientists’ competence to speak on matters of social policy and their use of language suitable for a general audience. CSIR officer Dr W.I.B. Beveridge wrote about the need for scientists to be better informed about the relation of science to society; he also addressed the challenge of speaking to a non-scientific audience and recommended S. M. Tucker’s book Public Speaking for Technical Men.142 The CSIR biologist E. Ferguson Wood urged that technical language be kept at bay, writing ‘if we wish to help our fellows the least we can do is to ensure that they understand us’.143 Professors Marc Oliphant and Eric Ashby called for more communication with the public, while the Bulletin put to its readership that ‘scientists must not shy at the word ‘politics’.144 In 1943, ‘GWL’, Melbourne soil scientist Dr Geoffrey Leeper, summarised the report of a science conference in London on the issue of communicating effectively with the general public; he singled out John Baker’s BBC broadcasts Biology in Everyday Life as exemplary.145 The London conference made clear that a gulf between scientists and the general public was often exacerbated by the language they used and put the onus on scientists to improve their communication.146

While many academics wrote newspaper columns and broadcast radio talks in the 1930s, it must be noted that their engagement with public life could be contested:

140 AASW archives ANU E101A/24/12; Victorian Bulletin supplement, April 1946. 141 Peter Pockley was appointed science producer in 1964, https://www.smh.com.au/national/peter- pockley-champion-for-science-in-a-wakening-world-20130927-2ujjr.html, accessed online 10 October 2017. 142 Bulletin, No. 17, July 1941, letter dated 9 May 1941 (np; at this stage the Bulletin was some foolscap sheets stapled together). 143 Bulletin, No. 18, September 1941. 144 Bulletin, No. 31, September 1942, Oliphant; No. 32, October 1942, 2, Ashby; No. 35, January 1943, 3. 145 Bulletin No. 45, October 1943, 3; Leeper was also a close friend of the political scientist and frequent broadcaster, William Macmahon Ball. 146 The AASW archives include a written reference to a letter to Nancy Wakefield, described as ‘a radio script writer of ability and sympathetic to AASW’, suggesting some recognition that broadcasting required a particular kind of writing, 20 March 1944, AASW archives, ANU E101A/8/12. 95

Their more active intervention in public affairs [was] not always welcomed by those persons in the community who believed that universities should be content to produce lawyers, doctors, engineers and teachers of perfect orthodoxy.147

Some scientists saw themselves as rightfully apart from the public by virtue of their expertise, arguing against any moves that would jeopardise that position. In a letter to the Australian Journal of Science in 1941, chemist Dr I. M. Wark wrote:

Do not let our scientific societies regard it as part of their function to offer advice gratuitously about economics and sociology. The scientist will lose his present position as leader and advisor in scientific matters if his societies offer advice too freely about other matters.148

This letter was accompanied by an endorsement from the journal’s editors, ‘[we] are glad to publish this further letter from Dr Wark’, adding that Wark’s conclusions concur with an editorial published earlier in the year. Similar attitudes were included in the AASW Bulletin: magazines were dismissed with the suggestion that they presented science ‘for thrills’; a book review by ‘HJM’ of a British reprint of popular science broadcasts was critical of the use of everyday language saying ‘a feeling almost amounting to discomfort is experienced on reading a phrase of basic English when one is aware of a single word or technical term which completely describes the author’s objective’.149 The press was often cited at this time as the medium for reaching a broader public. At the Queensland AASW Conference in 1942, Dr A. Wade was adamant about the need for ‘scientifically trained men to enter the political sphere’; he suggested ‘scientific articles in the press, university extension lectures and open days at labs’.150 Radio was often not mentioned at all, and it is not clear whether this was an oversight or a preference for the written word as a more fitting vehicle for transmission of scientists’ ideas.151

An antagonism to science communication by means of radio was apparent at Dakin’s death in 1950. An obituary in the Australian Journal of Science acknowledged his extraordinary popularity as a broadcaster; it also referred explicitly to the criticism this incurred from other

147 R.M. Crawford, An Australian perspective, Madison, University of Wisconsin Press, 1960, 70 148 Australian Journal of Science December 1941, 101. The Australian Journal of Science was established in 1938 with the stated purpose of reaching a wider readership than professional scientists; it provided regular updates of the activities of the AASW. 149 Bulletin No. 5, Bulletin No. 15. 150 Bulletin No. 32, October 1942. 151 Bulletin No. 27, May 1942. 96 scientists.152 No detail was provided, but the fact that it was included in an official tribute suggests the disapproval was established and credible. It suggests that some scientists could not reconcile representation on radio with their authority as experts, and that the latter counted for more than public awareness of their work. In a modern technological world, this effectively disenfranchised many citizens within this sphere of interest: scientific matters with social consequences did not go on the agenda for public discussion and those who determined policies relating to them could not be held to account.153

Radio’s problems with scientists

As noted earlier, senior figures at the ABC in the later 1930s favoured social science over science as a fitting subject for radio talks. The ABC’s new Federal Controller of Talks, Molesworth, also insisted that speakers on social matters be suitably qualified. This was clearly demonstrated in the aftermath of the 1939 visit to Australia by the eminent Californian physicist Dr Robert Millikan to give a series of ABC radio talks.154 Millikan, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1923 for the discovery of cosmic rays, was the first overseas speaker brought to Australia by the ABC.155 The proposal that the Commission issue such an invitation came from its vice chair, Herbert Brookes, during a trip overseas. Brookes had already shown good judgment with suggestions for speakers and the inclusion of a scientist was not entirely surprising: Brookes was himself an engineering graduate and brother-in-law of the head of CSIR, David Rivett; he was also connected to physicist Professor Laby through their membership of the Melbourne Round Table.156

During a trip to America in 1938, Brookes wrote to ABC Chair Cleary that he had put the idea of a visit to Millikan, whom he regarded as ‘a splendid speaker on the air’:

152 Alan Colefax, ‘Obituary of William Dakin’ in Australian Journal of Science, 1950, Vol. 12, No. 6, 208–209. Colefax, a former student of Dakin, was part of the team broadcasting the ABC children’s programme, the Argonauts. 153 Ulin, op. cit., discusses the further issue of the lack of neutrality in determining what constitutes scientific knowledge and its implications for broadcasting. 154 NAA: SP1558/2, 619, Talks– Dr R.A. Millikan, Memo from Cleary to Commissioners, 12 July 1938. Laby had earlier played a part in bringing about a series of radio talks in 1937 by Dr Harrie Massey, a former student of Laby, see Minutes of meeting of Full Commission, 29 May 1937, 10 NAA: B4542, 2. 155 By odd coincidence, when Laby urged in 1926 that leading scientists be invited to visit Australia, he gave Millikan’s name as an example, The Age (Melbourne), 16 April 1926, 10, ‘Scientific research: News ideas in Australia’, 156 Inglis, op. cit., 30 (Brookes suggested Walter Murdoch and Macmahon Ball as potential speakers); Alison Patrick, ‘Brookes, Herbert Robinson (1867–1963), Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/brookes-herbert- robinson-5372/text9089, published first in hardcopy 1979, accessed online 14 February 2016. 97

To my great joy he said he would be willing to consider the proposal and would greatly enjoy a trip to Australia. … I did not mention any suggestion of terms. I leave this to you, naturally, since my part was necessarily wholly tentative… Taking a shot at it I should say £500 plus travelling expenses… I leave this matter in your capable hands with my blessing.157

Millikan had been actively involved with science broadcasting since the early 1920s: he was a supporter of the American Science News Service from its founding, later backing a move to make it free to user outlets.158 While Brookes described his suggestion to invite Millikan to Australia as tentative, it was acted on as a directive; General Manager Moses instructed Molesworth to seek contributions forthwith from the universities and CSIR towards the anticipated total cost of £700.159

Arrangements for the visit took almost twelve months to conclude, as Millikan required customs clearance for scientific equipment and permission for a series of experiments he planned to conduct in Australia.160Nine radio talks were scheduled, and a number of public lectures advertised, with ABC publicity introducing Millikan in lavish terms:

Instead of a world-famous singer or musical instrumentalist, the ABC is now introducing to Australia a star in another firmament … Millikan, one of the world’s greatest intellects, a research worker in physics, who has made astounding discoveries.161

Newspaper coverage of the visit was equally generous, while it also indicated the breadth of Millikan’s planned talks:

Dr Millikan’s talks are refreshing draught from the fountain of knowledge, golden fruits from the tree of life. Dr Millikan has two classes of talks. The University talks are

157 NAA: SP1558/2, 619, Talks – Dr R.A. Millikan, extract from letter circulated by Cleary, 12 July 1937 158 La Follette, op. cit., 103. 159 ibid; the annual salary for a talks officer at this time was £350–400; most male speakers received a fee of 4 or 5 guineas per talk. The total contribution from outside sources was £359 (including £150 from the New Zealand Broadcasting Service and 10 guineas from the University of Queensland), NAA: SP1558/2, 619, Talks – Dr R. A. Millikan. 160 ibid; Millikan proposed atmospheric experiments with balloons; permission was required from Customs, the Bureau of Meteorology, the PMG, and Federal and state governments, plus quantities of hydrogen. 161 NAA: SP1011/2, 1342, R. A. Millikan, American Scientist–press cuttings and written publicity’. 98

undiluted science, as most people understand the word. The ABC broadcasts, on the other hand, “come down to earth” for the doctor talks of bread-and-butter things that concern us all. For instance, on Sunday next at 6.45 Mr Millikan will take as his subject “Science and Unemployment”.162

The titles of Millikan’s talks, several of which were partially reprinted in newspapers, included ‘Evolution in Religion’, ‘Education in a Democracy’, ‘Science and the Standard of Living’, and ‘The Possibility of a Warless World’. His concern was not just the functioning of matter, but also the behaviour of men and women. This accorded with the position of Dakin and the AASW that scientists apply their minds to social problems of the day. Millikan’s visit was later endorsed by Professor Laby, who spoke at the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Broadcasting in 1941 for bringing to Australia more eminent scientists as radio speakers; he also proposed on this occasion that programmes about science and its social relations should be seen as an obligation for the ABC in the same way that music programmes were perceived.163 Yet for the very reason of their subject matter, the talks by Millikan struck a different note within parts of the ABC.164

In January 1940, after Millikan, his entourage and apparatus had left, Molesworth put his views on the record to Charles Moses.165 He acknowledged the approval that the talks had received, saying ‘there is no doubt that Mr Millikan’s talks had a wide audience and that they were enjoyed by a large number of listeners’.166 But he went on to note that there was a minority who were not happy with the talks:

Amongst the critics were to be found many serious students of social subjects. I, personally, did not like Dr Millikan’s talks at all.167

Molesworth revealed that he was misled into expecting Millikan to speak on science, when he actually spoke on subjects which, according to Molesworth, ‘could have been handled far better

162 Northern Champion (Taree, NSW) 21 October 1939, 8, ‘Dr Millikan’s Series Concludes’ 163 Joint Parliamentary Committee on Broadcasting, Minutes 1942, 115–119; Laby’s interest in broadcasting was not confined to science, as he also urged more discussion programmes and the importance of maintaining contact with developments in broadcasting overseas. 164 Frank Clewlow, Controller of Productions, claiming to speak for others as well as himself, complained about Millikan’s talks to General Manager Moses calling the talks ‘fairy tale propositions about thinking better of our neighbours … American political propaganda,’ NAA: SP1558/2, 619 Talks– Dr R. A. Millikan, 26 September 1939. 165 Molesworth, letter to Moses, 25 January 1940, NAA: SP1558/2, 619, Talks– Dr R. A. Millikan. 166 Ibid. 167 Ibid. 99 by many of our Australian graduates in Economics and Social Subjects’.168 Molesworth held that social matters were the exclusive remit of qualified social scientists. He held this position alongside a deep commitment to radio as a means of assisting the formation of opinion by listeners, as the final chapter of this thesis will show. His position on Millikan was echoed in a letter to the Commissioners of the ABC by fellow historian, Professor Portus, who criticised Millikan’s talks on behalf of the South Australian Talks Advisory Committee and asked that guest speakers should not be permitted to broadcast their opinions on subjects ‘on which they have no special claim to speak with authority’.169

A full meeting of the ABC Commission discussed the issue of ‘authority’ to speak; this was a contentious issue given the debates round government censorship that had grown in the late 1930s. The minutes of the meeting do not include the detail of discussion but show that the Commission concluded ‘it could not accept the view that no one except a specialist in the subject concerned be allowed to talk about such subjects’.170 It added that ‘a scientific specialist, for instance, might be qualified by reading and thought outside his speciality to discuss a literary, social or religious problem’.171 This was arguably the closest the ABC came to articulating an editorial position on scientists and broadcasting in its early years, although it is more in recognition of scientists’ abilities outside science than an endorsement for addressing the links between science and society. Insofar as it accorded with the views of the AASW and Thomas Laby, its chances of being put into practice were shortly to be reduced. In 1940, the membership of the Commission changed as the terms of Brookes and two others expired; none of the replacement Commissioners had a background in science.172

Power lay with Molesworth who made day-to-day programme decisions and determined most of the appointments to the advisory committees that supported him. He continued to be guided by the view that social science was the most fitting subject for radio. In his 1935 report on adult education in Britain and America, he had remarked favourably on a BBC attitude, as he understood it, that purely scientific subjects were not successful for radio talks: ‘social subjects’, he wrote, ‘are the most popular, they arouse interest and stimulate discussion.’173 These attitudes underpinned Molesworth’s subsequent actions in regard to the ABC’s science output.

168 ibid 169 NAA: B4542, 3, Minutes of meeting of Full Commission, 31 January 1940, 4. 170 ibid. 171 ibid. 172 Inglis, op. cit., 93–94. The new Commissioners were a lawyer, an accountant and an ordained Methodist, as well as pastoralist, Richard Boyer. 173 Molesworth (1935), op. cit., 62–63. 100

Despite being consistently popular with listeners, Dakin’s Science in the News came off the air at the start of 1942; the minutes of the National Talks Advisory Committee noted that listeners might tire of the same voice.174Dakin’s war work included the design of camouflage devices for New Guinea and Central Australia, although he broadcast occasional talks during the war. An illness caused his retirement in 1948 and death in 1950; his role as ‘science friend’ to the nation had effectively ended and the relationship of science to society was not part of regular post-war science talks.

Conclusion

This chapter has investigated science broadcasting in the first two decades of radio in Australia and revealed that the driving force behind this sprang from those within the science community itself. A core group of scientists in the 1920s looked to radio as a space for public communication about science, their professional networks facilitating the spread of ideas about broadcasting and its potential to raise awareness of science in its many forms. Science was the subject of many radio talks in the early 1930s during which the University of Sydney’s Professor William Dakin began broadcasting. He honed his skills over many years before launching Science in the News in 1938; audiences welcomed its blend of science and social concerns. Dakin was instrumental in 1939 in the creation of the Australian Association of Scientific Workers, which included radio as an outlet for public communication about science.

During the interwar years, Melbourne physicist Professor Thomas Laby also pushed the case for science broadcasting; he argued that the public should be informed about science and that scientists have a voice in the making of social policy. However, this position was not shared by all within the science community or inside the ABC. Some scientists baulked at public communication, fearing a threat to their professional status and authority; for different reasons, not all gatekeepers at the ABC accepted science as the ideal choice for radio talks. Radio broadcasting had been in existence for less than twenty years, but in this time, different attitudes had taken hold about the nature of representation and authority in connection with broadcasting, as well as its ‘true’ use as a form of civic empowerment. These views blocked the development of science broadcasting for a further generation, limiting scientists’ bid to use

174 A short exchange of internal memos reveals Molesworth’s view that Dakin could ‘be trying at times’, Molesworth, letter to Acting General Manager Bearup after a fuss over studio allocation, 18 December 1941, NAA: SP1558/2, 666. 101 radio to gain access to the public sphere and for scientific thinking to extend more broadly amongst the public.

Underpinning these positions was a judgment about what radio could – and should – communicate to listeners. In all cases, it refuted the notion that listening was passive. This chapter has exposed several factors that influenced attitudes to broadcasting as a means of public communication, from vanity to political principle. Professor Laby’s commitment to radio was informed by his vision of a new partnership for Australia within the British Empire, a view shared by the Round Table organisation. However, while radio could be considered as an instrument for refashioning the relationship between centre and periphery, it was also used to consolidate more traditional conceptions of the imperial bond; for this purpose, specific forms of spoken-word programmes were deployed and modes of listening promoted. The next chapter investigates empire-themed programmes and their consequences for the public sphere. Chapter Three

‘Tune in with Britain’: the imperial frequency of early radio

4000 CHEER “Tune in with Britain” says Lyons FURORE OF WELCOME1

When Leader of the opposition United Australia Party, Joseph Lyons, adopted ‘Tune in with Britain’ as his campaign slogan for the Federal election in 1931, he was appealing primarily to Britain’s Depression economic policies. But the resonance with wireless as a symbol of modern life was unavoidable; in addition, parliamentary debate was underway on legislation to create a public broadcaster in Australia for which the British Broadcasting Commission was a model. The election slogan would appear to have been well chosen: Lyons’ victory put the Scullin Labor government out of office and without making any major changes, the new parliament passed the bill that brought the Australian Broadcasting Commission into existence in July 1932. At the end of that year, the newly-minted ABC joined with commercial stations to rebroadcast the BBC Empire Service transmission of the first Christmas message by King George V. Australian listeners were intrigued and delighted to hear the monarch’s voice – ‘a most astonishingly successful experiment’, proclaimed the Sydney Morning Herald; The Sun chimed in ‘the finest impulse of a statement of modern times and only possible at this stage of the world’s development’.2 The broadcast affirmed the pre-eminence of Protestantism, the royal family and Great Britain in Australian cultural life and listening to the seasonal royal address became an annual ritual across the country.3

Australia’s relations to Britain were tested by the emotional and financial debts of World War I. The nature of the relationship was subject to redefinition between the wars: the previous chapter noted how scientific research has been located in the vanguard of a more collaborative partnership between the Dominions and Britain, while the Round Table organisation envisaged

1 The Sun (Sydney), 3 December 1931, 2, ‘4000 cheer’. 2 Sydney Morning Herald, 27 December 1932, 7, ‘The King’s Voice distinctly heard’; The Sun, 27 December 1932, 7, ‘Thrill of Kinship’. 3 Macintyre (2009), op. cit. 168, notes the sectarian element of national commemorations between the wars. 103 more equal political co-operation. While radio was seen as useful for these purposes, it also offered more conservative empire loyalists a timely instrument for reaffirming traditional imperial affiliation.4 This objective was assisted by the BBC Empire Service, which was created in 1932 with a specific brief to spread allegiance to the empire throughout the British world; despite the intention that it enable an exchange of programmes between Britain and the Dominions, the Empire Service was most clearly associated in Australia with the rebroadcasting of British material on both ABC and commercial stations.5 Many Australian newspaper proprietors were avid empire-loyalists; their papers gave generous coverage of empire-themed programmes, alerting a secondary readership of this aspect of broadcasting. As newspaper groups themselves invested in radio stations, programmes promoting empire were readily included in their output.6

While several histories of Australian radio have discussed the BBC Empire Service briefly, there has been to date no sustained investigation of its operation in Australia, nor of the range of programmes concerned with empire that were produced locally and their cultural consequences.7 The priority accorded the former colonial power by Australian broadcasters was significant for the influence it had on the formation of Australian identity as an imperial Dominion. It should be noted that fidelity to the empire was accompanied by support for the ‘White Australia’ immigration policy. Between the wars, the British government’s opposition to the White Australia policy in no way dampened Australian embrace of both its imperial links and racially restrictive approach to immigration; allegiance to the British Empire was explicitly linked to support for White Australia by politicians such as W.M. Hughes and the ex- servicemen’s association.8 The contribution of the BBC Empire Service to Australian broadcasting was consonant with this, given its intended community of listeners from which

4 David Hood, ‘Conservatism and Change: the RSL and Australian society 1916–1932’, PhD thesis, Department of History, University of Adelaide, 1994, 4. 5 Simon Potter, Broadcasting Empire: the BBC and the British world, 1922-1970, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2012, 98–102. 6 It can be noted that while the interwar press has constituted a key source for radio historians, it was not a disinterested reporter of events and attitudes in relation to the medium; its attention could be selective and partial. 7 Johnson, op. cit., 197; Inglis, op. cit., 33. 8 for a discussion on Australian intransigence before World War I over the White Australia policy despite British objections, see David Atkinson, ‘The White Australia Policy, the British empire and the World’, Britain and the World, vol. 8, issue 2, 2015, 204–224; for an account of the persistent link between race and Australian allegiance to Britain during World War I, see Peter Cochrane, Best we Forget, Melbourne, Text, 2018. Britain’s position in relation to the policy arose when Japan, with whom Britain had signed a trade treaty, objected to the White Australia polity. The coupling of empire and white Australia is demonstrated by a 1930s cinema newsreel featuring former Prime Minister, W M Hughes, 'Empire Is Essential To White Australia’, http://education.abc.net.au/home#!/media/1666915/what-australia- wants-is-alliance-with-britain- accessed online 9 November 2018. 104

‘non-Whites in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean, and indigenous people in the dominions, were largely ignored’.9 This chapter will draw on newspaper coverage and a range of archival materials to survey the ways in which ideas of empire were developed in spoken-word radio in Australia between the wars and assess their wider repercussions for the public sphere.

The BBC Empire Service has received renewed attention in recent years, resulting in several transnational studies about its overall purpose and practice.10 These are complemented by Mary Vipond’s study of Canada’s early encounters with the Service, an approach that underscores the value of specifically national-based scrutiny.11 Programmes relating to empire varied in form and content, demonstrating the different ways radio enabled listener engagement; formats developed for empire-related broadcasting could recur in other contexts as broadcasters sought new ways of reaching audiences. A key component of many empire-themed broadcasts was their sonic quality, arising from voice and ambient sound, and their invocation of the domestic space of listening. These were not incidental features of the transmissions but integral to the way in which they became meaningful, as shown by their prominent place in reports of the Christmas broadcasts by the British monarch. The reception of these in Australia will be discussed, in comparison with the well-publicised ‘fireside chats’ of US President Franklin Roosevelt.

This chapter will show that the public and commercial sectors of broadcasting in Australia were both actively involved in presenting the empire to the public. Several kinds of transmissions were used for this purpose and these underpin the organisation of this chapter: the early association of wireless with empire; the launch of the BBC Empire Service and its range of broadcasts; and the inclusion of imperial elements in broadcasts of Australian commemorative occasions. Drawing on the rhetoric of race and family, many broadcasts portrayed the link to the

9 Potter, op. cit., 14; Empire-themed broadcasting in Australia can be understood in part as fulfilling a function similar to American radio’s construction of racial difference during the same period, Hilmes, op. cit., xix, 75–96. Australian radio’s articulation of race in relation to Aborigines is discussed later in this thesis. 10 Potter, op. cit.; Thomas Hajkowski, The BBC and national identity in Britain 1922–53, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2010; Paddy Scannell, Radio, television, and modern life : a phenomenological approach, Oxford, Blackwell, 1996; Sîan Nichols, ‘Brushing up your Empire: Dominion and Colonial Propaganda on the BBC’s Home Service, 1939–45’ in The British World: Diaspora, Culture and Identity, edited by Carl Bridge and Kent Fedorowich, London, Frank Cass, 2003, 207–30; these build on earlier studies by Asa Briggs, The History of Broadcasting in the United Kingdom, Volume 2: The Golden Age of Wireless, London, Oxford University Press, 1995; Gerald Mansell, Let Truth be Told: 50 years of BBC External Broadcasting, London, Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1982. 11 Mary Vipond, ‘The Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission in the 1930s How Canada’s First Public Broadcaster Negotiated “Britishness”’ in Canada and the British World: Culture, Migration, and Identity, edited by Philip Buckner and R. Douglas Francis, UBC Press, 2006, 4. 105

British Empire as a non-negotiable component of Australian nationhood; it was presented as central to national identity and, by implication, determined access to the public sphere.

Radio: the limitless world of the ether

The tuning dial of many interwar radio receivers displayed an extensive geography of signals available to the listener.12 The idea – or ideal – of international broadcasting was established early in the development of radio amid optimism that broadcasting between nations could increase international understanding and decrease the likelihood of future hostilities.13The League of Nations planned a radio station in Geneva to broadcast globally and the International Broadcasting Union (IBU) was established, also in Geneva, with Australian broadcasters joining in 1929.14The IBU advocated reciprocity between member nations and during the interwar decades organised series of broadcasts to which several countries, including Australia, contributed. The annual reports of the ABC throughout the 1930s reveal that it understood internationalism as one of its responsibilities, with a ‘specialist officer’ appointed in 1936 to oversee international relations; rebroadcasts from a range of countries were detailed as well as participation by the ABC in joint international broadcasts.15 However the frequency of BBC rebroadcasts established Britain as the dominant source of overseas programmes.

Newspapers reported developments in radio round the world, but the experience of actually hearing radio from other countries was less common for Australians, other than radio amateurs, in contrast to those living in more densely populated parts of the globe. As late as 1936, Melbourne writer Nettie Palmer began an appraisal of listening to radio in London with an almost awe-struck account of the multitude of radio signals available from the Continent.16 Shortwave reception had an enthusiastic following in Australia, evident from the large number of clubs and magazines formed to support the activity; from the mid-1930s, with radio news limited in Australia, many advertisements for radio receivers promoted their shortwave

12 Andreas Fickers, ‘Visibly Audible: The Radio Dial as Mediating Interface’ in The Oxford Handbook of Sound Studies, edited by Trevor Pinch and Karin Bijsterveld, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2011, 411– 458. 13 See Suzanne Lommers, Europe – on air: interwar projects for radio broadcasting. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2012, 49; the BBC’s World Radio magazine carried articles in languages other than English, see advertisement for Linguaphone: ‘If you are really to get the best out of the Foreign Broadcasts, you must have a knowledge of foreign languages’, e.g. World Radio, 15 November 1929, 762. 14 Much of its work was with European countries and regulating frequencies across the Continent, see Lommers, op. cit., 82. 15 ABC Annual Report, 1936, 28. 16 Nettie Palmer, ‘Listening in in London’ in Listener In, 4 January 1936, 18–19. 106 features.17 Overseas broadcasts came within reach of less technically inclined or equipped listeners when a local station rebroadcast another station’s output as it was received by shortwave or radiotelephone; this offered the promise of simultaneity of listening with audiences in different places.18 An alternative form of rebroadcasting involved the recording of programmes and their broadcast elsewhere.

Reports of rebroadcasting in Australia began in 1925 when relays from America transmitted through Melbourne station 3LO and Sydney’s 2BL were hailed as ‘wireless history’.19 As a gesture to mark the arrival of the American navy in Sydney Harbour in July 1925, 2BL rebroadcast a news bulletin from Pittsburgh station KDKA prompting ‘many telephone messages, verbal messages and letters of congratulations from listeners’.20 The first Dutch overseas transmission by Queen Juliana in 1927 was reported with interest:

There was, of course, nothing very startling about the speeches, but it was an interesting novelty for Australians to hear the voice of a ruling sovereign in Europe 10,000 or 12,000 miles away… International re-broadcasting, though only now beginning in Australia will continue to develop.21

The Netherlands was not the only country to experiment with international broadcasting and Australian newspapers carried details of transmissions from Germany, Russia and Italy as well as stations in the USA.22 Readers were also informed of developments closer to home, as experiments took place with short-wave transmission from Australia. The significance of these is the support they failed to attract in preference to reception of transmissions from overseas.

17 Daily Standard (Brisbane), 3 February 1934, 4, ‘Advertising – Good News for Radio Receiver Owners!’; West Coast Sentinel, 24 June 1938, 4, ‘The organisation designs the finest short-wave station can build the finest all-wave receiver’. 18 This can depend on circumstances as early radio reception was not an exact science. 19 Evening News, 7 February 1925, 1, ‘9000 Miles off: Broadcasting Music’; News (Hobart), 25 April 1925, 11, ‘KDKA America’s Wonder Station Re-broadcast from Sydney’. 20 The Sun (Sydney), 28 July 1925, 16, ‘KDKA News- 2BL Re-broadcasts’ (including baseball scores). 21 Forbes Advocate (NSW), 14 June 1927, 6, ‘Dutch Queen speaks from Sydney’; Victorian papers also reported attempts to rebroadcast the Dutch greeting locally, The Argus, 2 June 1927, 11, ‘Wireless from Holland- Queen Wilhelmina’s Address Heard Faintly in Australia’. 22 Briggs, op. cit., 345; Mansell, op. cit., 25. 107

AWA’s Voice of Australia

Australia’s short-wave experiments in the 1920s were due to the enterprise of Ernest Fisk, managing director of AWA.23 Fisk, a long-standing member of the Royal Empire Society, argued for the development of wireless as a means of achieving imperial unity.24 He undertook a series of tests from Melbourne in 1928 and the language used to report their success confirmed London’s centrality in the British imperial world, alongside a glimpse of radio’s potential to reverse it:

Countries in all parts of the world have come to look upon this vast Commonwealth with a new respect as a result of the tests– have come to recognise this, the youngest nation in the great British Empire, as a leader in this astonishing new science … It is because of this, the reversal of what might reasonably be regarded as the natural order of events– the old countries of the world showing the way for young countries to follow– that Australia has earned such prominence.25

For Fisk, global broadcasting from Australia was entirely compatible with the imperial order.26 In 1931, he set up a short-wave service, the ‘Voice of Australia’, to broadcast to the world. It was classified as ‘experimental’ but continued broadcasting a mix of music and talks until 1939. Despite Fisk’s abundant energy, it received only sporadic press attention locally and arguably confirmed Australia’s part in international broadcasting as more a receiving ear than a transmitting voice.27 While rebroadcasts of material from other countries contributed in small ways to radio output over the 1930s, Australia’s preferred signal was from Britain; this accorded well with the ambitions of the BBC’s overseas service.28

23 Inglis, op. cit., 6–7; for a comprehensive analysis of Fisk and AWA, see Jock Given, ‘Transit of Empires: Ernest Fisk and the Worldwide Wireless’, PhD thesis, University of Melbourne, 2007. 24 Given (2007), op.cit., 23. 25 The Register (South Australia), 26 April 1928, 12, ‘World Broadcasting –3LO speaks for Australia’ 26 Jock Given (2009), ‘Another Kind of Empire: The Voice of Australia 1931–39’, in Historical Journal of Film, Television and Radio, Vol. 29, No. 1, March 2009, 52. 27 ibid. 28 The German government overseas news service, Transocean, was ‘rebroadcast’ on the ABC between 1932 and 1935 (it is possible that the text was read aloud by an Australian announcer); it was initially free of charge and cancelled when a fee was imposed, although the ABC had by that time misgivings about it as propaganda, NAA: SP1558/2, 717, ‘News–Transocean News Service’. 108

BBC broadcasts to Australia: experimental start

The Director General of the BBC, John Reith, had written in 1924 of the benefits international broadcasting would bring the empire; the BBC was also well aware of the advantage it would gain by such association.29 Reith’s campaign for an overseas service was initially not heeded; arguably it was the success of the Dutch broadcasts in 1927 that triggered approval for the BBC to commence international short-wave transmissions on an experimental basis.30 Trial broadcasts to the Dominions began with an Armistice Day ceremony in November 1927. This was well reported by the Australian press, as ‘the first time in history the Dominions and Colonies will have an opportunity of sharing London’s commemoration by audible link’.31

The aim of the broadcast according to one of the organisers, Britain’s Daily Express newspaper, was to link up former soldiers across the Empire ‘to help renew wartime comradeship’. Australian ‘comrades in arms’ were invited to join a chorus of 10,000 voices to sing wartime marching songs.32 The identification of a specific audience across the world linked by a shared history was a feature of the subsequent reporting of many Empire broadcasts. This initial trial, by several accounts, was picked up favourably in Ottawa, Montreal and Bombay but a very poor signal prevented rebroadcast in Australia.33 The collaboration of the Daily Express is telling in the light of subsequent support for rebroadcasting by Australian newspapers and may have contributed to future developments through the regular exchange of ideas in the Empire Press Union.

Between 1927 and 1932, the BBC continued to experiment with shortwave broadcasting and to debate the future of the service behind closed doors. BBC Chief Engineer, Captain Peter Eckersley, argued against proceeding while the technical quality of reception was too unreliable to be guaranteed.34 After being named co-respondent in a divorce case, he was summarily dismissed by Reith, making way for a replacement who was far more prepared to countenance a

29 Briggs, op. cit., 343; Potter (2012), op. cit., 1. 30 Potter (2012), op. cit., 38. 31 Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners’ (NSW), 2 November 1927, 7, ‘Armistice Day Broadcast’. 32 ibid. 33 Armidale Express (NSW), 15 November 1927, 1, ‘Armistice Night- Successfully Broadcast’; Advocate (Tasmania), 14 November 1927, 5, ‘Armistice Day Programme’. 34 Graham Mytton, ‘Audience research at the BBC World Service 1932–2010’, Participations: Journal of Audience and Reception Studies, Vol. 8, Issue 1, May 2011, 77. 109 regular shortwave radio service from Britain. This was conceived with two objectives: to promote enthusiasm for the empire at home and to foster belief in the ‘global Britannic community’ abroad.35 The former would be assisted by the reciprocal broadcast in Britain of programmes produced by Dominion broadcasting services. In addition, the global transmission was intended to service two audiences: Britons in the colonies would be reached by direct shortwave broadcast and listeners in the settler Dominions would be reached by rebroadcasting as well as shortwave.36

Australian newspapers kept readers posted on developments. In September 1932, Melbourne’s stylish Table Talk magazine reported in jaunty fashion:

The day of Empire broadcasting is drawing nigher and nigher. The BBC is actively preparing for the great debut of the new Great Grand Service which will put the voice of John Bull on the air.37

In Sydney, The Sun chose to alert readers to the impressive ‘prospectus’ of planned symphony concerts including ‘novelties which might never be attempted here’, giving as an example a new oratorio by twentieth-century German composer Paul Hindemith.38 In mid 1932, the Sydney Morning Herald advised readers of the imminent start of a daily service, adding that ‘Britons in all parts of the world viewed with regret the comparative backwardness of England in the matter of world-wide broadcasting’.39 The article noted the great advantage this would be to British people in parts of the world without regular broadcasting services; it was cooler in its estimation of the benefit to those others ‘in the larger dominions with reasonable access to broadcasting stations and other amusements, as well as the newspapers of the land, [who would] probably find nothing of great interest or benefit in the transmission on most occasions.’40 There was considerable accuracy to this prediction; later evidence showed limited Australian listening to the service. The presence of the Empire Service in daily radio listings was however a constant reminder of the significance of Britain in Australian life.

35 Potter (2012), op. cit., 1. 36 ibid, 39–40. 37 Table Talk (Melbourne), 15 September 1932, 4, ‘Table Talk of the Week’. 38 The Sun (Sydney), 5 October 1932, 15, ‘From the Lighter-side Layer’. 39 Sydney Morning Herald,17 December 1932, 12, ‘Broadcasting – An Empire Service commences on Monday’. 40 ibid. 110

Tuning to the BBC Empire Service

The BBC Empire Service was launched on 19 December 1932; the BBC had not received any additional funding for the service and its initial programmes were taken from BBC domestic output. The empire was divided into five, later six, zones to each of which two hours would be broadcast daily.41 The broadcast for Transmission Zone 1, Australasia, was received in the Eastern states of Australia between 7.30 and 9.30 pm, later shifted to 5.00 to 7.00pm.42 The majority of its transmissions in the 1930s adopted the practice standard with shortwave services from other countries: music dominated, in between spoken-word announcements and talks that framed the transmission as originating from Britain.43 The daily Empire Service broadcast to Australia generally consisted of more than an hour of music, a fifteen-minute talk or story (on Sundays, a sermon), a light entertainment programme, such as Mixed Pickles and Lavender Potpourri, and the news, ten to fifteen minutes in duration with a sports summary.44 The schedule was adhered to rigorously which caused some consternation later within the BBC: during the 1938 Munich crisis, senior staff were aghast that the Empire Service was broadcasting a programme about traditional English ballads while more responsive American stations relayed detailed commentary from the Continent, despite the generally better provision of daily news by the BBC in contrast to American services.45 Meanwhile, the technical challenge of shortwave transmission to Australia was enormous: by one estimation, 70% of the Empire Service’s early output was unintelligible in Australia.46 From 1934 the BBC made available to the Dominions recordings of features and concerts; ‘bottled’ programmes, as Asa Briggs termed

41 ‘Variety’ here includes drama, book readings, and light entertainment. 42 The exact start and finish time of the two-hour interval varied over the 1930s. 43 E.g. the July 1935 edition of World Radio, a BBC publication from 1925 detailing short-wave transmissions globally shows that most countries’ output was dominated by music. In Australia, the daily output from the Dutch shortwave service in Eindhoven was listed showing artists and repertoire as well as talks speakers. This is in contrast to AWA’s ‘Voice of Australia’ of whose content there was minimal detail. 44 Some of the light entertainment shows featured regional British hosts interviewing Britons about the history and character of particular parts of the country, e.g. Harry Hopeful. These speakers spoke in regional accents; the programmes, always scripted and rehearsed, were liked for ‘authenticity’ and condemned for their sentimentality in Britain, Paddy Scannell, Radio, Television and Modern Life: a phenomenological approach, Oxford, Blackwell, 1996, 25–29. It is not clear how Australian audiences responded to these. 45 Mansell, op. cit., 38; Michele Hilmes, Network Nations: A Transnational History of British and American Broadcasting, New York, Routledge, 2012, 55. 46 Simon Potter (2008), ‘Who listened when London called?’ in Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, Vol. 28, No. 4, October 2008, 481. 111 them, were, for a fee, dispatched for local broadcast and were the predecessors of the transcription discs that were sent out from the BBC to radio stations post-war.47

The schedule for the direct broadcasts of the BBC Empire Service, or Empire Station as it was listed, was published alongside the output of local stations in Australian newspapers and radio magazines; this gave programme titles, but often not the names of artists and speakers unless they were Australian or particularly eminent.48 A series of talks for the BBC by Australian journalist Janet Mitchell was previewed in 1934, while a NSW regional newspaper in 1935 alerted readers to the British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden speaking on the Abyssinian war.49 In 1936, whether by popular demand or otherwise, the BBC’s chief engineer, Sir Noel Ashbridge, gave a number of talks to explain the service’s poor reception.50 At a conference about women and broadcasting held at the BBC in 1936, one of several Australian women to attend, Dr Isa Younger Ross, expressed the appreciation of Australian rural listeners for BBC programmes; as domestic radio reception could be poor for rural Australians, this may have been all they were able to receive.51 There is little testimony available from interwar listeners in Australia about their interest in, or response to, regular Empire Service broadcasts; while it is recorded that hundreds of overseas listeners’ letters reached the BBC in the 1930s, barely any have survived.52

Recorded programmes from the BBC Empire Service covered the same range of music, variety and talks transmitted directly on shortwave with the exclusion of news. In the first two years of

47 Briggs, op. cit., 353; Mansell op. cit., 23. 48 Some newspapers also published alongside domestic listings the shortwave schedule from Eindhoven, Holland. Australian radio magazines often published details of shortwave services round the world, recommending the best frequencies and times when they could be received locally; the BBC’s publication, World Radio, also listed other services as well as its own. 49 The Age (Melbourne), 3 October 1934, 10, ‘Empire Broadcast Talks’; Northern Star (Lismore), 18 October 1935, 13, ‘Radio–News of the War–Broadcasts from Overseas’. 50 Sydney Morning Herald (NSW), 18 March 1936, 10, ‘Wireless- short wave problems – aerial at Daventry’. 51 Women’s conference: The Archive Vault, https://wdc.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/tav/id/2784/, accessed online 15 November 2016, 89. 52 Summaries and extracts were printed in World Radio, published by the BBC from July 1925 until 1939, https://www.americanradiohistory.com/World_Radio.htm Emma Robertson has analysed much of the available correspondence which shows several common themes but little specifically from Australia, see Emma Robertson (2012), ‘It is a real joy to get listening of any kind from the homeland’: BBC radio and British diasporic audiences in the 1930s’, in Diasporas and Diplomacy: Cosmopolitan contact zones at the BBC world Service (1932–2012), edited by Marie Gillespie and Alban Webb, New York, Routledge, 2013, 23–39; and Emma Robertson (2008), ‘”I get a real kick out of Big Ben”: BBC versions of Britishness on the Empire and General Overseas Service’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, Vol. 28, Issue 4, 2008, 459–473.

112 the service’s operation, Australian commercial stations as well as the ABC subscribed to these programmes. Communication between Australian commercial broadcasters and the BBC could be warm: in early 1938, J. Beresford Clark, the Empire Service director, wrote to congratulate H.G. Horner, the ABC’s former NSW manager, on his appointment as managing director of 2GB, saying ‘there is no need to emphasise how much we in the BBC value the friendly relations and co-operation of all broadcasters overseas’; he asked that his cordial greetings be conveyed to Sir Hugh Denison, chairman of Macquarie Broadcasting Services Ltd., which had interests in fifteen commercial radio stations including 2GB.53

Access to commercial stations was limited from 1934, after the BBC agreed to an ABC demand that it have exclusive rights over Empire Service talks and concert programmes in Australia.54 It should not be inferred from this that the ABC necessarily held the material in great esteem; the ABC earned a reputation for criticising recorded BBC programmes, arguably with some justification given the scathing report a senior BBC staff member wrote after a trip to Canada in 1936 in which he condemned the output as poor by amateur standards.55 An analysis by the Empire Service in 1937 of Australian press reports about their programme output found little interest overall.56 Yet this was not related to a lack of interest in hearing British speakers by the ABC; from the mid 1930s, the ABC was actively investigating bringing speakers from Britain to Australia on its own initiative.57

The ABC’s criticism of BBC material must be placed alongside the frequency with which it rebroadcast British programmes. Potter suggests this was substantial during the mid 1930s.58 However, rebroadcasts of BBC programmes were not transmitted on national relay: as the ABC had negotiated the dispatch of multiple recordings, each state manager could programme the material as he determined. The ABC submitted monthly transmission figures to London that reveal considerable variation from one state to another over a period of years: for instance, in March 1935, NSW broadcast six BBC programmes, Victoria seven (of which only two were in common with NSW), and Queensland seventeen; in September 1937, NSW rebroadcast three

53 The Sun (Sydney), 7 June 1934, 23, ’2UE Features’; Clarke, letter to Horner, 5 January 1938, BBC WAC E1/388. 54 Potter (2012), op. cit., 63. 55 Potter (2012), op. cit., 47–48; R. B. Walker, ’Denison, Sir Hugh Robert (1865–1940)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre for Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/denison-sir-hugh-robert-5955/text10159, published first in hardcopy 1981, accessed online 14 March 2017. 56 Potter (2012), op. cit., 48. 57 NAA: SP1558/2, 602, Talks–Professor Portus–Overseas visit and report. 58 Potter (2012), op. cit., 90. 113 programmes, Victoria and Queensland one each, and Tasmania six.59 This put the BBC material at a disadvantage in terms of the publicity it might receive compared to national relays that were routinely well promoted.

In 1937, to the BBC’s chagrin, the ABC declined to take a further series of programmes; it was later talked around by the fortuitous presence in Australia of the service’s director, Clark.60 Simon Potter has pointed out the difficulty facing the beleaguered Clark as the Empire Service attempted to cater to the dominions and colonies with a common set of programmes.61 Apart from their daily listing in Australian newspapers, the uneven scheduling across the country and poor publicity made it unlikely that the recorded BBC programmes contributed in a major way to raising awareness of the empire in Australia. However, one category of broadcast for which the BBC Empire Service received unbounded admiration and huge publicity was those by the British royal family; these were also widely broadcast. When Australian commercial stations were denied Empire Service features and concerts in 1934, the BBC had insisted that commercial outlets continue to have access to actuality broadcasts of ceremonial events, royal addresses and sport.62 These were eagerly received.

BBC royal broadcasts: standing for the king

King George V gave the first royal Christmas broadcast to the Empire on 25 December 1932. The BBC could take some credit for the occasion as it came partly from the urging of its Director General, John Reith; according to radio historian Paddy Scannell, Reith ‘worked long and hard to persuade the king to speak, from his home and as head of the family, on this particular day’.63 The first Christmas address was written by Rudyard Kipling and, despite the use of a personal gold-encrusted microphone, George V’s delivery followed to the letter the mode of presentation introduced by the BBC’s first head of talks, Hilda Matheson.64 Matheson’s significance was noted in the introduction of this thesis: her advocacy of intimate delivery, as if speaking to one person rather than a mass, replaced the style of pulpit or lecture delivery which many radio

59 BBC WAC E5/5/4 Empire Transcriptions. 60 Clark, Director of Empire Service, letter to Moses, 9 March 1937, BBC WAC E5/5/4; Potter (2012), op. cit., 103. 61 Potter (2012), op. cit., 104. 62 Potter (2012), op. cit., 63. 63 Scannell, op. cit., 155. 64 For Kipling, see Potter (2012), op. cit., 59. For the monarchs’ personal microphones, see Terry Burrows, The Art of Sound: a visual history for audiophiles London, Thames and Hudson, 2017, 146–147. For Matheson, see Hugh Chignell, Public issue radio: talks, news and current affairs in the twentieth century, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2011, 206 114 speakers used when broadcasting commenced.65 The consequence with the Christmas address was not simply that the King adapted to a style of speaking that had evolved for radio: the broadcasts also radically changed public understanding of the British monarchy.66

Interest in the broadcast was enormous. In Britain, a radio was taken into St Paul’s Cathedral and the congregation stood to hear the transmission, which enjoyed immediate success at home and abroad. 67 International press coverage was so great that the BBC collected two thousand leading articles, with hundreds of letters coming from listeners in the United States.68 Newspapers in Australia reported in detail the interest round the world after the event; they had already previewed it assiduously with one columnist advising listeners that they would be requested to sing the National Anthem at its conclusion.69 The broadcast commenced with contributions from around the British world, including Canada, New Zealand, Gibraltar, and a British ship docked at Port Said; from Melbourne, a message from the captain of the Australian cricket team was read out.70 There were no voices from India, the Caribbean, or from Africa apart from South Africa, although some were to figure in later transmissions.71

This fanfare was perceived as a particularly powerful element in the build-up to the monarch’s appearance at the microphone.72 Among Australian reports, popular Sydney newspaper The Sun was amongst the most fervent in its embrace of the occasion:

As the roll call progressed and the answering voices of men coming out of lands plunged in darkness or light, snow or heat, cried “Adsum”, a thrill of kinship in Empire stiffened the backbone and lifted the heart and eye to the mountain tops and to the source of light beyond. At last came the thrilling call, “Is that you, Sydney?” A man had need to be of stone to hear that cry unmoved.73

65 Hilda Matheson, Broadcasting, London, T. Butterworth, 1933; Hughes, op. cit., 3; Carney, op. cit. 32 66 Scannell, op. cit., 83 67 The Age (Melbourne), 27 December 1932, 7 ‘Empire Broadcast–Wonderful Success–The King’s Voice Distinctly Heard’; The Age, 28 December 1932 ‘Empire Broadcast- What the World Thinks–Solidarity of the British Empire’. 68 Mytton, op. cit., 78. 69 The Age (Melbourne), 3 December 1932, 15, ‘Empire Broadcast – Extensive Programme’. 70 The Age (Melbourne), 27 December 1932, 7, ‘Empire Broadcast’. 71 Sydney Morning Herald, 26 December 1934, 9, ‘The King’s Speech’. 72 Scannell op. cit., 90. 73 The Sun (Sydney), 27 December 1932, 7, ‘From the Lighter-Side Layer (by Ariel)’. 115

Across Australia, newspapers marvelled at the science that had enabled the broadcast, and many rejoiced at its perceived strengthening of imperial unity. The North-Western Courier in western NSW described listeners being thrilled, not simply at hearing it, but in thinking ‘they belonged to such a fine and noble race of people’.74 The Brisbane Courier headlined one report ‘Voices of Mighty Empire’, highlighting the French description of the broadcast as proof of the ‘innate solidarity of the British Empire’.75 The West Australian judged the king’s broadcast ‘easily the outstanding feature of the [Christmas] festivities’.76 It was also in many respects unavoidable as it was carried by the ABC and most commercial stations; in Sydney, 2UW recorded the speech and replayed it three times on Boxing Day.77

The broadcasting of royal events was an inimitable trump card of the Empire Service and played repeatedly in the following years. One newspaper in NSW enthused over the first rebroadcast of a royal wedding in 1934:

Every owner of a wireless receiver could listen to and be thrilled by the whole of the proceedings. We heard the famous Westminster bells chiming their happy notes and we were treated to a first-class verbal description of the arrival of the King and Queen. No sooner had the guests entered the Abbey than a changeover was made to the microphone which must have been placed a few feet from the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Royal couple … practically every spoken word was clearly heard.78

The experience of hearing the proceedings is reflected in detailed description of its sonic qualities, the writer on this report commenting on the diction of the Archbishop, the nervous quality of the groom’s voice and the ‘deep, calm tones of Princess Marina’. It concluded that the broadcast and others like it ‘knit more firmly than ever those invisible bonds which link the British Empire together.’79 King George V’s Jubilee celebrations were rebroadcast in 1935, his funeral the following year and the coronation of George VI in 1937.

The use of language was important in the broadcasts themselves and in the commentary about them. In December 1935, King George V was reported for ‘his touching address’ to the Empire,

74 North Western Courier (Narrabri), 26 December 1932, 1, ’God Bless our Nation!’ 75 Brisbane Courier, 27 December 1932, 9, ‘Voices of Empire’; 28 December 1932, 9, ‘King’s Historic Broadcast– Foreign Tributes– Innate Solidarity of Empire’. 76 West Australian (Perth), 28 December 1932, 8, ‘Empire Broadcast– A remarkable achievement’. 77 The Sun (Sydney), 26 December 1932, 5, ‘Empire Spoke for Itself– King’s Message’. 78 The Land (NSW), 7 December 1934, 29, ‘Royal wedding rounds out Radio History’. 79 ibid. 116 in which he acknowledged ‘this personal link between me and my people which I value more than I can say’: the continued use of the first-person pronoun showed the talk’s intimacy with its listeners along with its address to the listener as ‘you’.80 Subsequent reports promoted a sense of inclusion amongst the audience: Brisbane’s Courier-Mail distinguished the king’s primary listeners ‘who regard him as head of the family’, from those outside it, ‘the millions of people in foreign countries’ who were, according to the paper, ‘doubtless listening’.81 This encouraged the exercise of imagination required to create a community of unseen fellow listeners throughout the Britannic world, confirming imperial alongside national identity.82

At Reith’s insistence, the king’s Christmas greetings came from his home; this was highlighted in many accounts of the broadcasts.83 In 1932, The Sun informed readers that the king was speaking from Sandringham ‘where his children and grandchildren are gathered around him’; the following year, it set the scene more precisely, detailing how, after lunch, the King would walk to his study and await a red light while the family listened next door.84 A regional paper in NSW noted the king’s ‘friendly and fatherly speech’, before going on to paint a scene of its reception locally:

The Empire broadcast was clearly heard by Wagga listeners. At many a home the frolics of the festive season were suspended by hosts and guests assembled round the radio set and listened silently to the Empire greetings and the royal message of goodwill and, when the National Anthem followed, stood to attention until the last note had faded.85

This account identified ‘home’ as the location for listening as well as the source of the address, establishing some commonality between speaker and listener, as if the public aspect of the broadcast receded before the direct link from one hearth to another; it also noted the disruption to normal time that the broadcast created, as if a special experience of time was shared by speaker and listener.

80 Courier Mail (Brisbane), 27 December 1935, 10, ‘King’s Broadcast to his People’. 81 ibid. 82 Anderson, op. cit., 35. 83 Scannell, op.cit., 155. 84 The Sun (Sydney), 26 December 1932, 5, ‘Empire Spoke for Itself’; The Sun (Sydney), 26 December 1934, 1, ‘Listened-In, Sandringham Party’. 85 Daily Advertiser (Wagga), 27 December 1933, 1, ‘Clearly Heard’. 117

‘Fireside chats’

Bridget Griffen-Foley has noted American radio scholar Jason Loviglio’s observation that the ‘fireside chats’ broadcast by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt were also a break from usual programming, as if an interruption in time and space.86 This was just one of several similarities the royal broadcasts have with the American president’s broadcasts which began a few months later in in March 1933; one commentator has described Roosevelt as ‘emulating’ the King in his fireside chats, while Roosevelt commenced his own annual Christmas broadcasts in December 1933.87 Both the British Christmas broadcasts and American fireside chats are now renowned for their intimacy with a mass audience: this is attributed to the language used, the perceived domestic setting of the speakers, and the qualities of the men’s voices, with both described as sounding warm and friendly.88 The king and president also used radio at other times so that the fireside chats and Christmas messages retained the flavour of a special occasion.89 While their audiences requested more ‘exclusive’ talks from them, this was denied; in Australia, one newspaper justified this in relation to the king by saying ‘so intimate and spontaneous a contact between him and his people should not be allowed to come within the danger of being taken as a matter of course’.90

The effect on the respective British and American listening audiences has been described in similar terms: the broadcasts unified listeners who could put aside local alliances around class and ethnicity to appreciate membership of a body that transcended these. Loviglio has questioned the nature of the social space created by the fireside chats and the extent to which they constituted a democratic use of radio; he concludes that the interest the Roosevelt broadcasts had for listeners was their ‘seeming rhetorical transgression’, as opposed to a genuine alteration of social boundaries.91 In Britain, there was no intention that the Christmas addresses alter existing hierarchies - hardly a matter for a hereditary monarch – but the broadcasts are widely acknowledged for bringing about change. In the assessment of the

86 Griffen-Foley (2017), op. cit., 146, 167, citing Loviglio, op. cit., 6. 87 Tom Fleming, editor, Voices out of the Air: The Royal Christmas Broadcasts 1932–1981, London, Heinemann, 1981, 2. 88 Loviglio, op. cit., 8. 89 FDR’s fireside chats did not follow a predictable pattern, often coming in clusters in response to circumstances; and both George V and FDR broadcast at other times to global audiences about international affairs, e.g. FDR on world peace, Newcastle Morning Herald (NSW),17 May 1933, 7, and the king’s opening of the world economic conference, The Age (Melbourne), 20 May 1933, 13. 90 Levine, op. cit. Lawrence W. and Cornelia R. Levine, with foreword by Michael Kazin, The fireside conversations: America responds to FDR during the Great Depression, Berkeley, University of California Press, 2010, 12; The Sun (Sydney), 28 December 1937, 7. 91 Loviglio, op. cit., 27. 118 historian of the BBC, Asa Briggs, they brought ‘new emotional power and personalisation to the twentieth-century monarchy’.92 Paddy Scannell also argues for a generational shift in the function of the royal family ‘from symbolic head of the British aristocracy in the nineteenth century to symbolic head of the entire nation in the twentieth century’.93 The force of the broadcasts as Empire-wide phenomena was to present the monarch as symbolic head of the whole British family, celebrating Christmas with a global population in a pervasive intimate space in which the emotional aspect of the experience was uppermost.94

An emotional bond was also observed in the reaction of listeners to FDR’s fireside chats, but the context of the American broadcasts differed significantly from the addresses of the British head of state. FDR’s talks engaged with issues of the day, such as the New Deal; the king’s talks, always shorter in duration, consistently avoided topical themes.95 Both stimulated a huge number of letters from listeners, but while those who wrote in response to the king addressed their correspondence to the BBC, American listeners to FDR wrote directly to the president.96 David Goodman has proposed that this action by the American public made the occasion a form of public sphere; he points out that many of the broadcasts explicitly called for a response which should be recognised whether in writing, speaking or thinking as ‘one of the tasks of the modern democratic citizen’.97 By contrast, the king’s addresses invited reflection on the importance of family life within the private sphere; the links with fellow-members of the British Empire were subsidiary to the listener’s relationship with the voice of the monarch.98 The king’s Christmas addresses constructed radio as a site of personal, not civic, engagement, and listeners as family members rather than citizens; public sphere activity was relegated to other times, other places, and by extension, unchanging power hierarchies.

The talks by FDR and George V presented broadcast models to be emulated: Bridget Griffen- Foley has observed the occurrence of the expression ‘fireside chat’ in Australian newspapers in reference to FDR’s broadcasts and speculates whether these inspired the radio talks given by PM Lyons in mid-1933 and later in the decade.99 Given the greater frequency of Lyons’ talks and the limited national networking in Australia, it is possible that they used the style of FDR’s

92 Briggs, op. cit., 357. 93 Scannell, op. cit., 83. 94 The Round Table, 25:100, 1935, 735–745: no author is named, in keeping with the convention of The Round Table. 95 Loviglio, op. cit., 1–37; Potter, op. cit., 68. 96 Levine, op. cit., 3. 97 Goodman, op. cit., 98. 98 Potter, op. cit., 69, notes the negative response to some Dominion contributions. 99 Griffen-Foley (2017), op. cit., 146–147. 119 address rather than the form with its full implications for listener correspondence. On this score, they were arguably more derivative of the king’s Christmas broadcasts. A talk by Robert Menzies during the last days of his prime ministership was written up in a manner closely modelled on coverage of the King:

Mrs Menzies will sit near the Prime Minister when he broadcasts to the world tonight. Their family will listen in Melbourne.100

It then noted that all the radio stations in Australia would carry the talk, followed by shortwave transmission to the world.101 The later wartime broadcasts by Robert Menzies, which were part of a considered strategy to aid his return to political power, were acknowledged as having been inspired by the American president’s intimate talks.102

Anniversary broadcasts, the British Empire and the Australian Press

The Empire presence on Australian radio was well assured, partly as it built on existing commemorations, particularly Empire Day, 24th May.103 Empire Day was launched in 1904 in Britain to boost imperial thinking amongst the British and to serve as a model for the rest of the empire. Australia added the date to its national calendar in 1905, despite the resentment of many immigrant Irish Catholics.104 Empire Day was strongly supported by much of the press, in particular The Sun, a Sydney daily founded by Hugh Denison in 1910. Denison, born in 1865 in Adelaide to a family already wealthy from tobacco, was a businessman of considerable entrepreneurial talent – his grandson later described him as a consummate wheeler dealer.105 He was interested in the new technology of the day, from automobiles to communication, becoming managing director of AWA from 1913 until 1917; in the 1930s he acquired radio stations 2UE and 2GB before setting up the powerful Macquarie radio network in 1938.106 An ardent empire loyalist, Denison was NSW state president of the Royal Empire Society for most of the interwar years, a position occupied after his death in 1940 by Ernest Fisk.

100 News (Adelaide), 17 June 1941, 5, ‘Talk by Menzies on 131 Radio Stations’. 101 ibid. 102 Griffen-Foley (2017), 157 103 Macintyre (2009), op. cit., 168. 104 Mark Pearson, ‘Australia Day and National Identity’, M Litt. Thesis, University of New England, 1990, 54. 105 James Denison, Building a Nation: Hugh Robert Denison, K.B.E.: Patron and Patriot, Mosman, published by The Author, 2004, ix. 106 R. B. Walker, op. cit. 120

The Sun newspaper served Denison as a vocal guardian of Empire. In 1911, it responded to perceived criticism of Empire Day as a national anniversary in unequivocal terms, calling those opposing it ‘petty-souled politicians, who have, even to this day, set themselves against the realisation of those splendid triple ideals– a white Australia, a united Australia, and an armed Australia.’107 The same article went on to remind readers of their duty to instil ‘true patriotic feelings’ in the minds of Australian children. The Sun was later to promote radio programmes celebrating Empire Day with similar vigour.108

The relationship between newspapers and early radio in Australia was both supportive and obstructive: it included much promotional press coverage of radio as well as sustained opposition to the development of radio news gathering.109 Denison’s interest in radio was shared by other newspaper proprietors: 2BL, the first licensed radio station in Australia, had been backed by press proprietor Joynton Smith.110 Keith Murdoch, a former Denison journalist, later managing director of the Herald newspaper empire and also an Empire zealot, was involved with the establishment of radio 3LO in Melbourne in 1924.111 In January 1925, Murdoch’s Herald launched the Melbourne-based radio magazine, Listener In; Denison acquired the Sydney equivalent, Wireless Weekly, in 1929. The political affiliations of these proprietors, as well as the privileged coverage they accorded their own radio stations, has not always been highlighted in histories of Australian radio which have made extensive use of the magazines as source material.

The Sun was a particularly keen observer of developments in broadcasting in the 1920s. In the course of covering the Royal Commission into Wireless in 1927, it urged its readers to familiarize themselves with it and write to their members of parliament.112 Newspapers ran plebiscites of readers to discover the most popular programmes and frequently printed talks by

107 Column by ‘Pro Patria’, The Sun (Sydney), 8 June 1911, 9, ‘Empire Day’. 108 Hood, op. cit., 258. 109 Inglis, op. cit., 34. 110 In 1926, 2BL obliged Denison by broadcasting his speech at a farewell luncheon for his departure to America for two years, The Sun (Sydney), 14 September 1926, 8; Denison was a commissioner for Australia in the US from 1926 to 1928, based in New York, see Walker, op. cit; “Smith’s Newspapers was the first broadcasting station in Australia,” boasted Smith’s Weekly, 11 October 1924, 16; Smith’s Weekly was founded and owned by Joynton Smith; Chris Cunneen, ‘Smith, Sir James John Joynton (1858–1943)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/smith-sir-james-john-joynton-8475/text14731, published first in hardcopy 1988, accessed online 5 September 2017. Smith sold his paper Daily Guardian to Denison in 1929. 111 Walker, op. cit; see also Tom D. C. Roberts, Before Rupert: Keith Murdoch and the birth of a dynasty, St Lucia, University of Queensland Press, 2015. 112 The Sun (Sydney), 14 September 1927, 11, ‘Tune in Wireless Report’. 121 radio speakers. During the first decade of broadcasting while listener numbers were low, this was an opportunity to make a significant impact on the public perception of radio.113 It is not clear how much control newspaper proprietors exercised over which programmes were brought to public attention and those about which little appeared; what is apparent is that broadcast tributes to anniversaries such as the 8-hour day (Labor Day) received little attention while Empire Day programmes were generously promoted. While it might be argued that Labor Day was celebrated on different dates across the states, most newspapers at this time were also state-based.

While Empire Day had been enthusiastically celebrated in the first years of the twentieth century in Australia, its overall support peaked during the years of World War I; by one assessment, its later support narrowed to ‘conservatives, pro-conscriptionists, rich, sectarian Protestants’.114 The arrival of broadcasting gave it a new lease of public life, starting with ‘a special Empire service’ on radio 2FC in 1925.115 By the end of the decade, the ‘A’ stations across Australia broadcast live the proceedings of the Royal Empire Society dinners, creating a tradition which the ABC maintained into the 1940s. The ‘B’, later commercial, stations also carried Empire Day programmes; only 2KY and 2SM, owned by the NSW Trades Hall and the Catholic Church respectively, do not appear to have acknowledged the day.116 While commercial station coverage of the occasion declined over the 1930s, the ABC added Empire Day talks for children during the school day. Empire Day celebrations in Britain focused on children in the confidence it would encourage attitudes supportive of imperial values, including an understanding of Britishness as race; in the context of post-colonial studies, Tracey Banivanua Mar has observed that the force of this link was to impart an association of ‘biological inevitability’ to Britain’s political place in the world.117 Race figured in Australian observance of the day; for example in 1933, the NSW Country Women’s Association organised the broadcasting of talks for Empire Day (the programme included a recording of the King and Queen on loan from a member) with CWA publicity officer Mrs Davidson speaking about the

113 Curnow, op. cit., Appendix 2. 114 Stewart Firth and Jeannette Hoorn, ‘From Empire Day to Cracker Night’, Australian Popular culture, edited by Peter Spearitt and David Walker, Sydney, Allen and Unwin, 1979, 36. 115 The Mercury (Hobart), 23 May 1925, 3, ‘Farmer’s Sydney Service’. 116 Nonetheless, 2KY offered as a prize to ‘the most outstanding stage and radio talent’ in 1936 a trip to England to see the Coronation of King George VI. Bridget Griffen-Foley, ‘Australian Commercial Radio, American Influences – and the BBC’, in Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, Vol. 30, No. 3, September 2010, 342. 117 Tracey Banivanua Mar, ‘Settler-Colonial Landscapes and Narratives of Possession’, The Settler Complex: Recuperating Binarism in Colonial Studies, edited by Patrick Wolfe, Los Angeles, American Indian Studies Center, 2016, 26. 122 work of women in making home life a worthy foundation for ‘the rule of white men over subject races’.118

Radio programmes in connection with Empire Day included day-time ceremonies and evening concerts, with a broad range of papers alerting readers to the broadcasts.119 In 1928, a Queensland newspaper invoked the memory of the previous year’s Empire Day broadcast in previewing the occasion:

Thursday is Empire Day and as usual a monster rally will be held in the Exhibition Hall, Brisbane. Station 4QG has made arrangements for the broadcasting of the function and listeners who remember last year's broadcasting of the Empire Rally will look forward with pleasure to hearing something quite worthwhile on Empire Day this year.120

The call to a listener’s memory can have a powerful effect: Anne Karpf has used psychoanalytic thinking to analyse the experience of hearing the radio voice, noting that ‘each subsequent broadcasting contains nesting within it the earlier ones.’121 By this account, every prompt to the listener’s memory builds on the previous accumulation, engaging the radio audience as individual participants and as part of a community for whom listening to Empire Day broadcast was a shared part of their lives.

Empire Day’s global broadcasting

The pan-imperial scope of Empire Day made it a prime candidate for rebroadcasting. The first hook-up to mark the occasion originated in 1933 in Australia, organised by (Sir) Ernest Fisk, Sir Hugh Denison and the Royal Empire Society.122 It was transmitted by the recently-established ABC, almost certainly assisted by the presence on the Commission of Herbert Brookes and May Couchman; they were both active Empire loyalists who had participated in 1930 in the formation of the Council of Combined Empire Societies of Victoria, a particularly vigilant keeper

118 Singleton Argus (NSW), 24 May 1933, 3, ‘Empire Day, Local Speakers Broadcast’. 119 Labor Daily (Sydney), 24 May 1927, 4, ‘Empire Day, the celebrations’. 120 Queensland Times, 12 May 1928, 13, ‘Wireless waves, notes from stations’. 121 Anne Karpf, ‘The Sound of Home? Some thoughts on how the radio voice anchors, contains and sometimes pierces’, in The Radio Journal, Vol. 11, No. 1, April 2013, 71. 122 NAA: 461, B317/1/1 Part 1B; for a discussion of the ‘Southern Seas’ broadcast, see Given (2009), op. cit., 48. Denison was knighted in 1923, Fisk in 1937. 123 of Empire Day observance.123 The 1933 radio broadcast was titled ‘Southern Seas’ and it was loosely modelled on the inaugural King’s Christmas message of 1932; it began with a roll call of all the Australian and New Zealand broadcasting stations as well as many Pacific island outposts.124 Speaking from Canberra during the programme, Prime Minister Lyons reminded listeners of the royal Christmas broadcast, saying ‘our imagination was profoundly stirred and especially were we touched by the graciousness and homely simplicity of the message which reached us directly from the lips of His Majesty the King.’125 Reception was reported as clear and the broadcast, which also included original musical items, was hailed as ‘a type and extent never before carried out in the Southern Hemisphere’.126

Despite such programmes becoming technically easier in later years, there was no attempt to restage ‘Southern Seas’. As noted earlier, the coverage in Denison’s newspapers showed less interest in sponsoring global programmes which derived from Sydney, being more concerned to cement the imperial bond by receiving material from Britain. An Empire Day programme produced by the ABC in May 1934 for transmission globally through the BBC Empire Service was reported in a dismissive tone by Wireless Weekly magazine, part of the Denison stable:

At 4am on 25th, the Commission will relay to London a special Empire Day programme, beginning with the GPO chimes, followed by the laugh of a kookaburra, probably the only one in the studio who will be amused at having to get up so early. Then there will be Australian music, whatever that is, and 3 sketches by Mr Edmund Barclay: “Wool and John Macarthur”, “The Genesis of the Gold Rush” and “Golden Grain”.127

Empire Day locally continued to be accorded ample airtime by the ABC; each year throughout the 1930s it relayed nationally the annual Empire Day concert at the Melbourne Town Hall. This was organised by the Australian Women’s National League and on many occasions included a broadcast address by its president, ABC Commissioner May Couchman.128 Other imperial anniversaries were celebrated on radio and their broadcasts noted in the press, particularly the radio magazines: these included Trafalgar Day, Shakespeare Day and the national British saints’

123 The Council was formed as a reaction against Scullin’s nomination in 1930 of Sir Isaac Isaacs as Governor General of Australia; see Hilary Rubinstein, ‘Empire Loyalism in Inter-war Victoria’, Victorian Historical Journal, Vol. 70, No. 1, June 1999, 75–76. 124 NAA: 461, B317/1/1 Part 1B. 125 NAA 92266, Lyons’ Southern Seas address, 24 May 1933, 2. 126 Sydney Morning Herald, 11 May 1933, 11, ‘Great Broadcast arranged for Empire Day’. 127 Wireless Weekly, 25 May 1934, 10. 128 Listener In, 24 May 1934, 24; The Herald (Melbourne), 25 May 1937, 13, ‘Empire Demonstration’. 124 days of St George, St Andrew, St Patrick and St David. Meantime, as shortwave rebroadcasting became more reliable, the BBC Empire Service began to contribute to the largest commemorative event in Australia. Anzac Day was central to mainstream notions of Australian national identity; the inclusion of British material folded the empire into Australia’s most celebrated anniversary, confirming British links as a non-negotiable element of Australian identity and by implication, membership of its public sphere.

Anzac Day broadcasts

As with Empire Day, Anzac Day commemorations were already established before radio began. The first public gatherings to mark the ANZAC defeat had taken place in 1916, only a year after the landing by Australian troops at Gallipoli; radio listings show that Anzac figured in broadcasts in 1925, at first on ‘A’ stations and extending to the larger ‘B’ stations in the 1930s.129 The introduction of the dawn service in the later 1920s led to live radio coverage.130 By the mid 1930s, most radio stations acknowledged Anzac in their 25th April programmes; in 1935, The Land newspaper made a barbed reference to 2KY as the one station not doing so.131 In 1937, 2GB’s commentary of the dawn service was relayed to four other commercial stations, three of which were also in Sydney; the service that year was planned to open with a choir of 10,000 voices and 2GB advised listeners to go to bed leaving their radio turned on in readiness of waking to it.132

Anzac broadcasts were initially entirely local, that is, presenting events in their respective state capital cities, although in 1929, the opening of the Australian War Memorial in Canberra was relayed nationally.133 The engagement of listeners was assisted by the proximity of the local events, as well as the participation in the commemoration of actual servicemen from the Gallipoli landings.134 The presence of AIF chaplains and buglers in the ceremonies was also remarked on during the interwar years; Anzac radio dramas, many of which were broadcast in

129 The Register (Adelaide), 24 April 1925, 9, ‘Anzac Day- official arrangements’. 130 There is some debate about the origin of the service but certainly 2GB was broadcasting the Sydney dawn service live from 1932, given a listing in 1932, though The Sun 25 April 1937, 14, claimed the 2GB commentator Frank Grose was describing the service ‘for the ninth year in succession’. The same article details the Great War service of several announcers. For the origins of the dawn service, see http://www.abc.net.au/news/factcheck/2015-04-24/the-anzac-day-dawn-service/6393456 accessed online 19 July 2017. 131 The Land (NSW), 19 April 1935, 19, ‘Anzac Day Broadcast’. 132 Cumberland Argus and Fruitgrowers Almanac (Parramatta, NSW), 22 April 1937, 6, ‘Anzac Dawn Service’. 133 Sydney Morning Herald, 19 April 1929, 6 ‘Anzac Day Broadcasts’. 134 Telegraph (Brisbane), 29 April 1931, 6, ‘Station 4BC– Anzac Day Programme’. 125 the 1930s, boasted original diggers in their casts.135 These occasions blurred imagination and memory, presentation and representation, as the memorial quality of the occasion was co- extensive with the invitation to witness an event afresh.

The Returned Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Imperial League of Australia (RSSILA, later RSL) had a key part in the organisation of Anzac Day commemorations, during which its Diggers’ socials could be transmitted on radio as well as ceremonial speeches by senior members; members were often invited to listen together to the broadcasts at local venues.136 RSSILA actively connected the empire with race, as its central tenets were loyalty to the British Empire and the White Australia policy. Speeches at RSSILA annual meetings affirming these principles were broadcast from 1925. In 1934, the League sought its own ‘B’ station in Victoria; it was reported to be angered when the available licence went to the UAP (who sold the station, 3KY, less than a year later to entrepreneur Frank Thring).137 RSSILA had pressed their case for a radio station on the grounds it could benefit ex-servicemen financially; it also argued that as ‘a non-political, non- sectarian body’, it was a more appropriate licensee than a political party.138

British-originated material was included in Anzac broadcasts in 1930 with a recording of King George V opening the Five Power Naval Conference in England earlier that year.139 A service from St Clement Dane’s church featured in many Anzac broadcasts from the mid 1930s. As a Queensland paper explained in 1936, the church was located opposite Australia House in London:

It was naturally frequented by numerous Australian soldiers during the war and lately it has become the custom to commemorate Anzac Day in London by a special service at the church.140

135 Queensland Times, 14 April 1930, 6, ‘Anzac Day Broadcasts’; Listener In, 23 April 1930, 11. The dramas include A Story of Anzac in 1930 written by Brunton Gibbs; An Anzac at Agincourt in 1932 by Marjorie Naylor; The Twenty Fifth of April in 1935 (repeated in 1937) by William Fitzmaurice Hall; In Memoriam by Gordon Ireland was broadcast in 1936, and The Man with the Donkey, written by Harry Paull, went to air in 1938. 136 For example, Riverine Herald (Echuca, Victoria, and Moama, NSW), 23 April 1932, 2, ‘Central School’; Transcontinental (Port Augusta, SA), 21 April 1933, 3, ‘R.S. & S.I.L.A’; Kadina & Walleroo Times (Kadina, South Australia), 20 April 1935, 2, ‘Anzac Day’. 137 Queensland Times, 31 August 1934, 10 ‘Broadcast Licence: RSSILA resentment’. 138 The Age (Melbourne), 8 September 1934, 17, New B-class Station, Returned Soldiers’ Protest’. 139 Western Age (Dubbo), 23 April 1930, 4, ‘Radio Notes’. 140 Cairns Post (Queensland), 20 April 1936, 8, ‘Anzac Service–Broadcast from London’. 126

The wartime occupation of the church by the AIF could be understood as confirming England as ‘home’. The newspaper explained in a remark likely to resonate with many Australian readers that the service would be preceded by the church’s bells, the chimes celebrated in the nursery rhyme ‘Oranges and Lemons’.141 This appeal to childhood memory served to narrow the distance between Britain and Australia, allowing shared cultural history to forge a link between metropole and periphery; it played on ideas of nostalgia in which British culture underpinned ideas of Australian personal identity. In her analysis of listeners’ responses to the Empire Service, Emma Robertson has argued for the potency of the aural experience to which these transmissions gave rise.142 In newspapers’ detailed reporting of Anzac and Empire Day radio broadcasts, the sonic aspect of these broadcasts is predominant with references to sound underscoring their connection to past memory and authentic voices. It is a reminder that the sound of a broadcast, particularly the extraordinary potency of a voice, is a critical matter in all broadcasting; it will inform further discussion in this thesis

Conclusion

This chapter set out to assess interwar radio’s impact on the public sphere by examining its engagement with the British Empire. Many programmes instilled imperial affiliation, indeed affection, among listeners across Australia. This was most clear in the reception to the broadcasts of the king and British royal family which conjured a delicate blend of private and public experience; each listener was invited to imagine a personal relationship with the speaker at the same time as they were made aware of the global scale of the audience. Radio functioned as a bridging medium, linking each listener to a larger community in which differences of gender and class were erased in the immediacy of the moment and its historical significance. Anniversary broadcasts linked the listener’s own memory into a continuum of shared broadcasts extending over time; spoken-word radio became not simply a purveyor of useful information and entertainment, but an affective thread stitching each listener into the wider fabric of public time and space.

This had repercussions for the public sphere insofar as it indicated those matters that were outside contestation. The separation of royal addresses from everyday programming left intact many of the underlying principles of empire-thinking: a set of ideas about race, conquest and gender that had an enduring currency for much of the twentieth century and beyond. The

141 ibid. 142Robertson (2012), op. cit., 23–39; Robertson (2008), op. cit., 459–478. 127 repeated affirmation of the ‘British race’ in the course of Empire-related broadcasts and the pairing of empire-loyalty with the White Australia immigration policy, in addition to their endorsement by the press, served to reinforce majority attitudes in settler Australia to Aborigines and non-British immigrants; conversely, these conveyed an excluding message to racial and ethnic minorities. It confirmed a notion of Australian identity as white, gendered and loyal to the throne. This supported an understanding of the public sphere in which Australia’s membership of the British Empire was accepted uncritically; the level of enterprise undertaken to minimise cracks in this general perception confirms radio as a key site for public life. However, it also underscores the diversity with which radio came to be associated. The previous chapter encountered possible reluctance within the science community to participate in broadcasting on the grounds of its unsuitability to their professional standing. Radio over the 1930s became a host to a range of positions, from civil libertarians to empire loyalists; their continued involvement with radio shows neither was deterred by the presence of the other.

Two key elements in this chapter were the role of sound and the construction of the radio audience; both of these themes are developed further in the next chapter. One of the most disputed sounds in early radio was the voice of a woman broadcasting; one of the most contested audiences was her community of women listeners. Several radio historians in the past have argued that broadcasting was shaped to boost men’s authority in public life by confirming women’s identification with domesticity and conventional femininity. However recent scholarship has challenged this appraisal. The next chapter will examine ways in which women used words to challenge their representation by radio: their quest for greater control over their access to broadcasting had repercussions for the public sphere.

Chapter Four

Women’s radio voices: sounding out citizenship

I am exceedingly doubtful whether the special subjects selected for broadcasting to women in Australia are as helpfully entertaining as they might be… All women do not require to know how to make kerosene tins into dustpans or wish for lengthy dissertations on a simple cookery recipe. Linda Littlejohn, 19311

On the whole subject of Women’s Sessions, I am convinced, after discussions with several of the Commission’s officers, that many of us are not at all clear as to exactly what we want in the Women’s Sessions. It is a question worth thrashing out sometime soon. ABC internal correspondence, 19372

Radio historian Kate Lacey noted in her study of early German radio that ‘broadcasting is a cultural mode in which gender is produced, reproduced and transformed’.3 So too Australian radio between the wars produced and reproduced male dominance: there were no women owners of radio stations, little participation by women in senior editorial positions and a prolonged debate, conducted largely by men, about the unsuitability of women’s voices on air.4 Indeed, while women’s part in interwar radio has figured in earlier chapters of this thesis, their role has often been on the margins. However, this is misleading. The words of Linda Littlejohn above indicate that broadcasts for women could serve as grist to a feminist mill, becoming an opportunity to challenge conventional thinking about gender rather than meekly accepting its prescriptions. Women’s engagement with radio between the wars in Australia as broadcasters, commentators, and lobbyists was forceful and determined; it contributed, within limitations, to social and political transformation. The purpose of this chapter is to show how this took place and determine its implications for the public sphere.

1 West Australian (Perth), 2 January 1931, 4, ‘An Ardent Feminist’. 2 NAA SP1558/2, 612, B.H. Molesworth, memo to Charles Moses, 18 December 1937. 3 Lacey (1996), op. cit., 11. 4 This last attitude has not disappeared completely, e.g. letter to The Age (Melbourne), ‘Making a Pitch’, 31 July 2018, 17. 129

Radio broadcasting began in Australia twenty years after its women citizens were able to vote in Federal elections. Although the 1902 franchise was rightly celebrated as a victory, it did not lead to equal citizenship for women and men. Between the wars women’s political life was hugely limited, their economic disadvantage baked into legislation and regulation, their participation in public life curtailed by the male dominance of many organisations. New and established women’s groups devised campaigns for equal pay, improved job opportunities, and the right for women to sit on juries; it was an extensive list such that the period has been described as a ‘golden age’ of feminist endeavour.5 Radio was part of this project, as notions of women’s ‘maternal citizenship’ were challenged by calls for women’s rights, as citizens, to economic independence.6 One consequence of these different understandings of citizenship was that women’s relationship to broadcasting did not follow a single path. It simultaneously straddled progressive and conservative positions; it involved women as individuals and in organisations, and resulted, by different yardsticks, in success and setbacks. It also resulted in different modes of expression. Michel de Certeau’s concept of cultural space as a place of practice can be usefully applied in this context as radio gave rise to a range of practices by women.7 By looking at women’s on-air and off-air activity in relation to spoken-word broadcasting, this chapter will argue that radio contributed to the changing perceptions of women’s citizenship in Australia and their place in public life.

This conclusion joins new interpretations of Australian radio history that challenge earlier scholarship about women and radio. By the early 1930s, many Australian radio stations scheduled a daily women’s session; in her influential study published in 1988, Lesley Johnson was unequivocal in her assessment of these:

By designating certain programmes as women’s, radio worked to produce the sense in which all women were commonly defined by one thing: their relationship to the private, domestic sphere of family life.8

5 Marilyn Lake, ‘The Inviolable Woman: Feminist Conceptions of Citizenship in Australia 1900–1945’ in Gender and History, Vol. 8, No 2, August 1996, 197; see also Judith Smart and Marion Quartly, ‘Mainstream Women’s Organisations in Australia: the challenges of national and international co-operation after the Great War’ in Women’s History Review, Vol. 21, No. 1, February 2012, 61–79. 6 Marilyn Lake, Getting Equal: the history of Australian Feminism, St Leonards, Allen and Unwin, 1999, 87– 199. 7 de Certeau, Michel op. cit., xii. 8 Johnson op. cit., 101. 130

The understanding that radio reinforced women’s place as the domestic has underpinned many subsequent references to the gendered nature of broadcasting between the wars in Australia.9 There is no doubt that these sessions included talks on conventionally feminine subjects such as cooking, cleaning, and childcare, as well as beauty tips and celebrity gossip, but there is now compelling evidence that they tackled a lot else besides. In 2017, Catherine Fisher argued that women’s sessions ‘provided platforms for women to speak on a wide variety of topics’; this included rallying women to political action, a theme developed in a more recent study by Fisher to show women’s engagement with internationalism.10 Jeannine Baker has also made a case for the ‘overtly feminist content’ of women’s sessions in the interwar years.11 Both Fisher and Baker have argued for a new appreciation of the manner in which women’s sessions engaged with their audience in contradistinction to Johnson’s characterisation of radio as urging a passive attitude of its listeners.12

This chapter will add to these conclusions by looking closely at on-air broadcasting by women between the wars; it will also consider the related activities of written commentary by women about radio programmes, and women’s reflections off-air on broadcasting policy. These developments are significant in that they enabled discussion by women in relation to radio that was not limited to specific programmes of the moment. Some women were active in one arena, a few across them all. This chapter has been organised into four sections to reflect these different areas of activity: ‘women’s sessions’; radio talks by women; women journalists’ commentary on radio and women; and lastly, women’s engagement with broadcasting policy. Both commercial and ABC radio will be considered throughout.

This reassessment of women and radio in Australia reveals similarities with recent studies elsewhere in the world as earlier histories are now being revised to accommodate arguments for women’s leadership rather than vulnerability, and their resourcefulness rather than

9 Justine Lloyd, ‘Intimate Empire: Radio programming for women in Postwar Australia and Canada,’ Storytelling, Winter 2007: 6, 2, 132; Bridget Griffen-Foley, ‘Modernity, Intimacy and early Australian Commercial Radio’, Talking and Listening in the Age of Modernity: essays on the history of sound, edited by Desley Deacon and Joy Damousi, Canberra, ANU E Press, 2007; Damousi, op. cit., 251. 10 Catherine Fisher, ‘Broadcasting the Woman Citizen: Dame Enid Lyons’ Macquarie Network Talks’, Lilith: A Feminist History Journal, No. 23, 2017, 38; Catherine Fisher, ‘World Citizens: Australian women’s internationalist broadcasts, 1930–1939’, in Women’s History Review, August 2018, DOI: 10.1080/09612025.2018.1506554, 2. 11 Jeannine Baker, ‘Woman to Woman: Australian Feminists’ Embrace of Radio Broadcasting, 1930s– 1950s, Australian Feminist Studies, Vol. 32, Issue 93, September 2017, 294. 12 Johnson, op. cit., 80, 129; see also John Potts on radio listening as passive, Radio in Australia, Kensington, University of NSW Press, 14; Fisher (2017), op. cit., 2; Baker, op. cit., 301; Regarding participation by listeners, Bridget Griffen-Foley has drawn attention to women’s radio clubs, op. cit., 124– 127. 131 limitation, in relation to broadcasting.13 The use of radio by women enabled the formation of a strong counterpublic from which they could challenge the hierarchies of the public sphere.14 Broadcasting became a site of modern civic engagement for women whose right of access to the public sphere was often refused and ridiculed. Recovering this history is important for understanding more fully the position of women between the wars as well as developments in radio in these years.

‘Women’s sessions’: Dorothy Jordan, pioneer

Across the 1920s, morning sessions directed specifically to women listeners became standard across Australian radio schedules. Evidence suggests this was often due to women themselves. Dorothy Jordan, who began broadcasting on Sydney’s 2BL in 1926, was honoured by a leading feminist in 1930 for ‘her inauguration of wireless talks for women’.15 Jordan came to radio with a background in women’s organisations, having been secretary variously of the Housewives Association, the Women’s Union of Service, and the Women’s Forum where she had spoken of the need for world peace and the role of women in the future of Australia.16 Jordan’s statements were consistent with the interwar embrace of ‘maternal citizenship’ whereby women’s role in public life was understood to be linked to their special responsibility for the welfare of children: in a 1935 newspaper interview, she referred to ‘her dream’ to see the end of the annual death toll of 3,000 babies and 300 women in childbirth in NSW.17 Jordan initiated many of the elements that became the stock-in-trade for later women’s sessions and arguably contributed to a demand that other radio stations were obliged to meet. In 1926, Mrs Glencross of the South

13 New histories of women and radio are discovering more active roles for women in several radio landscapes, e.g. Christine Ehrick has explored the ways women in Latin America adapted broadcasting opportunities to keep feminist ideas and ideals in circulation, Ehrick, op. cit.; Michelle Hilmes has illuminated the endeavours of interwar American women broadcasters to negotiate the presentation of broader social issues, Hilmes (1997), op. cit; Kate Murphy has looked at the BBC as a new opportunity for women’s employment between the wars, Kate Murphy, Behind the wireless: a history of early women at the BBC, London, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016; Maggie Andrews has proposed that British radio had the potential to connect women listeners with other women to create an imagined community, Maggie Andrews, ‘Homes both sides of the microphone: the wireless and domestic space in inter-war Britain’ Women’s History Review, Vol. 21, No. 4, September 2012, 605–621, 611. These studies demonstrate the many approaches being deployed to determine how radio engaged with women’s social and political situation in the twentieth century. 14 Fraser, op. cit., 67. 15 Sydney Mail (NSW), 30 July 1930, 20, ‘Women’s World’. 16 Evening News (Sydney), 9 September 1925, 13. ‘Australian Goods; Women’s Forum Interested’; Labor Daily (Sydney), 14 October 1925, 7, ‘To end War Women Confer’. 17 The Sun (Sydney), 17 March 1935, 23, Early Days of Wireless: Pioneer of a Great Task’. 132

Australian Housewives Association called for the introduction of women’s sessions in Adelaide; this suggests that while they were not established everywhere, their reputation had spread.18

Jordan broadcast her views about nutrition, which are best described as wholesome with an emphasis on wheatmeal, prunes and raw milk; her dietary advice was in keeping with the views of the Sydney Theosophical Society, the licensees of 2GB, with whom she broadcast from 1928.19 Her recipes, covering preserves, feeding a family, and cooking for children, were particularly well received: ‘a great fund of information’ said one reviewer.20 Another appreciative report commented that a country school used her recipe broadcasts for the children’s dictation ‘much to the satisfaction of their parents’.21 There was also a sly commercial side to Jordan’s programmes as she regularly promoted new electrical appliances during her week’s broadcasts. This recurred in the mid-1930s when she began a programme called Banish Drudgery in which to wage war on ‘onerous household duties.’22 It was initially claimed that the programme would share with listeners ‘the benefit of accumulated experience gathered from all over the world’ rather than looking to ‘new gadgets’.23 That proved short-lived; but when new gadgets did find their way into the programme, the move was justified with the assertion that women ‘demand modern facilities such as every man has at his disposal in office and factory’.24

No scripts or detailed records survive of Jordan’s programmes. However, she was one of two women to testify at the Royal Commission into Wireless in 1927, an appearance that set a precedent for women themselves to speak publicly about women and radio. Neither Jordan or the other woman speaker, Marie Holmes, had planned to speak but each was provoked into testifying following the remarks of an amateur experimenter and former electrical dealer, Captain Frederick Marks. Marks railed against radio for women, lambasting talks about cookery as an ‘outrage’ and ‘insult’, castigating fashion commentary as ‘repulsive to the women folk of our country’.25 Two days later Dorothy Jordan took to the floor:

18 News (Adelaide), 29 December 1926, 4; a national listing of 5 ‘A’ stations in July 1926 shows only one with talks for women (2BL, Mrs Jordan at noon), Examiner (Launceston, Tasmania) 16 July 1926, 6, ‘Broadcasting, Tomorrow’s Programmes’. 19 Roe, op. cit., 309. 20 Newcastle Morning Herald, 21 July 1926, 12, ‘Broadcasters’; Jordan advocated eating prunes as a substitute for rouge, being an effective means of reddening the cheeks, Sydney Morning Herald, 14 October 1931, 10, ‘Health Week’. 21 Scone Advocate (Scone, NSW), 1 September 1926, 5, ‘Radio and the Woman– Broadcast Talks.’ 22 St George Call (Kogarah, NSW), 30 April 1937, 6, ‘Banish Drudgery’. 23 ibid. 24 Cumberland Argus and Fruitgrowers’ Advocate (Parramatta, NSW), 9 December 1937, 15, ‘Save your energy, says Dorothy Jordan’. 25 Royal Commission into Wireless, Minutes of Evidence, 1927. 133

I wish to draw attention to statements made by a witness a few days ago to the effect that intelligent women did not take an interest in the women’s talk from radio stations. I have here a report showing my weekly subjects. I have also brought along a few letters taken at random from women who have listened in.26

In making her case, Jordan highlighted the active interest her programmes elicited from women, a forerunner of the listener participation that became a feature of many women’s programmes. A week later, Marie Holmes spoke on behalf of the NSW Housewives Association, a body of over 8,000 members affiliated to branches in other states in Australia as well as overseas bodies.27 She called unequivocally for more radio talks for women, giving an extensive list of topics:

We want welfare talks, talks on safety in the home, talks on home remedies, the feeding of the family, house decorating, talks on food values, thrift dishes, vitimince (sic), talks on milk in the home … and to hear what is being worn in Paris, London, New York and such fashion centres. I believe in America they give whole afternoons to wireless talks for the women in the home. I ask for two afternoons weekly in addition to the 40 minutes daily given to radio talks for women in Sydney.28

Holmes’ reference to radio in America is significant for its awareness of broadcasting overseas, signifying awareness of a modern, global phenomenon at the same time as her list of domestically-themed subjects suggests a more traditional outlook. Women’s organisations between the wars, as at other times, had different political agendas: some were concerned to get women out of the kitchen, others wanted to improve conditions in it. Either way, women’s engagement with radio blurred public and private as the debate was not confined to the kitchen and took place outside – in meeting rooms, in the press and on radio itself. The testimony from Jordan and Holmes at the 1927 Royal Commission contributed to the evolving notion in Australia of radio as a new public space in which women’s concerns and women’s voices could be heard by all. It also demonstrated women’s capacity to engage successfully in a public context on behalf of other women.

26 Dorothy Jordan, RCW, Minutes of Evidence, Vol. 8, 2346, 26 May 1927. 27 Marie Holmes, RCW, Minutes of Evidence, Vol. 10, 68 – 70. 28 ibid. 134

Women’s sessions and listener participation

A distinct feature of the women’s sessions that began in the 1920s was their encouragement of the involvement of women listeners. Radio 2GB, established by the Sydney Theosophical Society in 1926, set up in the same year the ‘Advance Australia Radio Club’ to accompany its on-air programme; it partnered with the Country Women’s Association (CWA) to provide facilities for women living in the country to listen to 2GB talks by the Australian Mothercraft Association.29 Numerous ‘radio clubs’ had formed in regional Australia between 1924 and 1925, largely through the efforts of radio amateurs, to demonstrate radio transmission and reception to the local public; in 1924, clubs opened in at least 21 regional towns across NSW, from Ballina to Broken Hill, Lithgow to Narrandera.30 As private receivers became standard, these clubs quickly folded; the cultivation of ‘group listening’ by the CWA suggests a more determined interest to use radio to promote the objectives of the association, which had itself only been established in 1922. In her study of women in early American radio, Donna Halper observed that a willingness to seize the opportunity enabled women to influence broadcasting’s openness to both genders.31 In Australia, the evidence is that women’s organisations sought to use the medium to spread their message; at the same time, women’s radio programmes became the springboard for organised group activity for listeners.

Bridget Griffen-Foley has documented the range of clubs that promoted celebrity announcers at picnics and social events for both men and women listeners.32 Clubs for women could be more purposeful, combining social occasions with charitable fundraising.33 2GB presenter Eunice Stelzer founded the most celebrated of these, the ‘Happiness Club’, in 1929. While women’s listener clubs were frequently cited as examples of commercial radio’s community service, it was not always clear who was entitled to take credit for the achievements of such clubs, the radio stations in whose name they were initiated or the women who actually ran them.34 The

29 Labor Daily (Sydney), 22 October 1926, 7, ‘For the Outback’. 30 Casino and Kyogle Courier and North Coast Advertiser (NSW), 30 April 1924, 2, ‘Radio Club’; the Bombala Times asked ‘what about forming a radio club in Bombala? Nearly every town of any size has its Radio Club’, see Bombala Times (NSW), 7 November 1924, 1, ‘News and Notes’. 31 Donna Halper, Invisible Stars: A Social History of Women in American Broadcasting, New York, M.E. Sharpe, 2001, 10–22. 32 Griffen-Foley, op. cit., 124–129. 33 ibid 34 ibid, 11–13; 124. This elision can be found in subsequent accounts, for example, an article in 2009 about the radio club at 2WG (Wagga) writes ‘radio, as well as providing entertainment and fun, also 135 manager of 2GB from 1926 till 1936, A. E. Bennett, was later to say that Stelzer’s Happiness Club had always been designed as Stelzer’s club and not the radio station’s.35

These clubs confirmed traditional notions of women as dispensers of charity; yet in the context of the 1930s, it could be a sign of autonomy for women to raise funds within a women’s association, instead of the ‘women’s auxiliary’ of a male-dominated charity. In 1931, the feminist Linda Littlejohn did not condemn women’s involvement with charities, but warned women to be selective:

Too long have women been content to do all the hard work and then take a back seat while their senior committees, composed entirely of men, have the gratifying job of spending the money raised by these women.36

She urged that women choose carefully the charities to which they contributed, declaring ‘in future I shall not give threepence to those organisations which deal with welfare… if such organisations have no women representatives on their executive committees’.37 Radio listener clubs pursuing more social aims could offer women access to a space outside church and family, across the sectarian divide. The potential sociability of gatherings stemming from a common connection with radio has been noted in connection with the listening groups organised in Canada in the 1940s.38 In 1942, the membership of Australian women’s radio clubs is estimated at nearly 150,000 from 40 commercial radio stations in both metropolitan and regional areas.39 It also identified radio with the possibility, albeit limited, of social change with women as its agents.

The practice of calling for listener letters has been particularly associated with women’s programmes, although it must be noted that listener correspondence was widespread in the interwar years for men as well as women broadcasters: the ABC news commentator ‘The

quickly adopted a community support role’; it would have been more accurate to have written ‘women created a community support role for radio [by setting up and running a club]’, Amy Heap and Bob Pymm, ‘Women's Wireless and the Web: Local Studies and New Technologies’ in The Australian Library Journal, Vol. 58, No. 1, February 2009, 5–16. 35 Griffin-Foley (2009), op. cit., 140. 36 The Sun (Sydney), 8 November 1931, 24, ‘Australian Women take a back seat’. 37 Sydney Morning Herald, 7 November 1931, 7, ‘Citizen’s Welcome to Mrs Albert Littlejohn’. 38 Goodman (2016–2), 630. 39 Listeners’ radio clubs were in places such as Lithgow, Uralla, Canberra, Swan Hill, and Portland, see Griffen-Foley (2009), op. cit., 11; Griffen-Foley (2007), op. cit., 127–130: this discussion points out the differences between clubs depending on location, from a metropolitan middle-class fondness for charity to the greater concern with sociability in the regional clubs. 136

Watchman’ received many letters and Science in the News presenter, William Dakin, could incorporate listener letters in his programme.40 Advice published in the 1930s for girls interested in a career in broadcasting included replying to listeners’ letters among the duties of announcers.41 There are few early examples of this correspondence although some letters between listeners and 2KY women’s session presenter, Isobel Grey, have survived from the late 1930s; these suggest a close relationship as several writers refer to their previous letters, use pen names reserved for the occasion and sign off ‘affectionately’.42 The public invitation to the audience to communicate with announcers recognised the agency of the listener, whether or not the offer was acted on, and characterised radio as an opportunity for dialogue.

Dorothy Jordan’s working life typified the part clubs played in the duties of a professional broadcaster. In 1928, she moved to 2GB where she presented daily programmes till the early years of World War 2. In 1934, she regularly met listeners to play bridge of which it was reported ‘when Dorothy Jordan and her Bridge Club hold a bridge party, tickets can sell out!’43 Later the ‘Dorothy Jordan Guild’ was formed, with the objective of enabling 2GB listeners to organise visits to hospital patients and the needy.44 Jordan had earlier been the president of a women’s radio club with a different focus. The 2BL Women’s Amateur Sports Association was the first of a succession of sports clubs for women radio listeners where the focus was the woman herself rather than charity for others. Little is known about this club other than a report of Jordan’s farewell party from 2BL in 1928 at which one of the guests was fellow broadcaster Gwen Varley.45 Varley was a broadcaster whose career displays similarities with, as well as differences from, Jordan’s: in particular, she also created an active public space for the listening audience.

40 The sizeable ‘Watchman’ correspondence is noted by Thomas, op. cit., 85; letters to women’s sessions, Fisher (2017), op. cit., 42. 41 Australian Women’s Weekly, 19 August 1933, 9 ‘There’s Opportunity in Radio Careers for Girls’. 42 The papers of P.R. Stephensen include a selection of listeners’ letters to Isobel Grey after Stephensen was interviewed on her session in 1938, SLNSW ML PR Stephensen. Listeners’ use of a nom-de-radio was advocated by broadcaster Irene Greenwood in WA post-war following Grey, see Jeannine Baker (2017), op. cit., 301. 43 Australian Women’s Weekly, 6 October 1934, 6, ‘2GB Highlights–2GB Bridge Club’. 44 Cumberland Argus and Fruitgrowers’ Advocate (Parramatta, NSW), 20 May 1937, 15, ‘Dorothy Jordan’s Guild.’ 45 Sydney Morning Herald, 4 October 1928, 5, ‘Farewell Party’. 137

Women’s radio sports clubs: Gwen Varley

Gwen Varley was born into comfortable circumstances in Melbourne, attending a private girls’ school immediately before World War I where she excelled as an athlete.46 Sport in Australia as elsewhere had traditionally been a highly gendered activity due to the involvement of the body and proximity to others, with many restrictions on women’s participation.47 The prospects for middle-class women interested in sport increased in the early twentieth century, with the appointment of physical education teachers and the construction of grounds at elite schools, a process that continued at universities as greater numbers of middle-class girls undertook academic study.48 Wealthy women took the lead in the administration of women’s sport, but this led to interest from women in all classes.49 Gwen Varley’s passion for sport included a leadership role as well as a reputation for prowess in cricket, tennis, golf, hockey, swimming, fencing, croquet, skating, rowing and basketball.50 After a stint as sports mistress at the exclusive Hermitage School for girls in Geelong, she moved to Sydney and became organising secretary of the City Girls’ Amateur Sports Association; it was ideal timing for the start of radio broadcasting, an opportunity she was quick to catch.51

Women’s team sport in particular experienced a boom between the wars with radio offering significant support.52 Varley led the way in late 1926:

An extensive series of sporting talks for girls and women has been arranged by Broadcasting Station 2BL, Sydney. Miss Gwen Varley gives the addresses at 11.30am daily. She has dealt with “The Evolution of Women in Sport”; “The Sportswomen of today”; “The Value of Sport for Women”.53

The development of women’s sport shares some parallels with women’s overall involvement with radio broadcasting between the wars: in both cases, there was an undercurrent of

46 Marion Consadine, ‘Varley, Gwendoline (1896–1975)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/varely- gwendoline-11913/text121341, first published in hardcopy 2002, accessed online 22 November 2016. 47 Marion Stell, Half the Race: a history of Australian women in sport, North Ryde, Angus & Robertson, 1991, 26. 48 Stell, op. cit., 30, 38. 49 Stell, op. cit., this point is made on several occasions. 50 Consadine, op. cit. 51 ibid; Stell, op. cit., 73, on the founding of the City association by Jean Stevenson and Eleanor Hinder (Hinder later broadcast talks on the ABC, Maitland Daily Mercury (NSW), 12 March 1938, 11, ‘On the Air’). 52 Stell, op. cit., 49. 53 The Tumut and Adelong Times (Tumut, NSW), 14 December 1926, 1, ‘Girls and Sport: Broadcast Talks’. 138 disparagement about women’s suitability for the activity, and like women broadcasters, sportswomen were often the butt of cartoons and unsubstantiated appeals to science.54 Over the course of the late 1920s and early 1930s, radio coverage of women’s sport grew to include broadcasts of results, interviews with sportswomen and match summaries, as well as the sponsorship of women’s sporting events by radio stations.55 The fact that radio and women’s sport were often in partnership is significant for women’s greater, and more varied, public visibility.

In 1928, it was reported that ‘the movement started by 2BL for the formation of women’s sporting clubs is growing apace’.56 Listeners could participate in sports activities and competitions organised by the club associated with Varley’s programme. Varley, like Dorothy Jordan, also wrote for the press about her field of expertise, consolidating her standing as an authority.57 She also spoke in her capacity as an expert on ‘women and physical culture’ at events such as the NSW Countrywomen’s Conference, an occasion to which the feminist United Associations of Women (UAW) annually dispatched a debating team.58 As organiser of the 2BL women’s session, Varley used much of her airtime for practical talks about sport and features about sportswomen’s achievements. In 1932, women members of the Australian Olympic team were studio guests, so affirming to the public the high standards and international status of sportswomen.59

Varley continued running radio clubs when she joined Melbourne’s 3AW in 1935.60 The 3AW Women’s Association competed against teams from 2CH in Sydney and 7HO in Hobart, which as interstate events attracted the attention of their respective newspapers.61 Varley also became president of the Victorian Radio Women’s Club, an association for women working in broadcasting; reports of its luncheons and guest speakers underscored the emerging

54 Stell, op. cit., 72.; Stell cites the Sydney Morning Herald in1938 ‘Sportswomen have come to regard it as inevitable that after any meeting they hold in any sport they will be immediately subjected to a series of denunciations from a section of the community … dress etc… indeed, sportswomen are considered fair targets because they do not live up to some individuals’ idea of what women should do – principally stop at home.’ 55 Stell, op. cit., 231. 56 Northern Star (Lismore), 7 July 1928, 15, ‘Radio and women’. 57 Sunday Times (Sydney), 29 September 1929, 11, ‘Our New Feature: Miss Gwen Varley to cover women’s sport for ‘The Sunday Times’. 58 This conference challenged traditional ideas about women and the land; the UAW had a long-term position endorsing women’s suitability as farmers. 59 The Sun (Sydney), 18 September 1932, 1, ‘Olympians to broadcast’. 60 Consadine, op. cit. 61 Stell, op. cit., 231. 139 professional status of women broadcasters.62 Throughout this time, Varley also broadcast other material in the women’s sessions ranging from fashion advice to occasional travel talks; she also undertook a range of programmes from Open the Mail Bag to Gwen Varley- the good conversationalist.63

However, talks about women’s sport were fewer after 1935, while those offering shopping advice and tips on home decoration increased; in 1937, Varley compered the Radio Mannequin Parade before her retirement from broadcasting during the war.64 A parallel change took place in newspapers in the later 1930s, when press coverage of women’s sport was relegated from the sports pages to the women’s sections of newspapers, and women journalists were confined more to social pages whose content was increasingly taken up with fashion and celebrity gossip.65 While talks dealing with subjects other than traditionally feminine subjects declined on many commercial stations in the later 1930s, the ABC was being urged to cover a more varied agenda.

ABC Women’s sessions in the 1930s

The Australian Broadcasting Commission inherited a daily women’s session at its establishment in 1932. One of the five foundation Commissioners, Mrs May Couchman, has figured earlier in this thesis for her commitment to the British Empire. While this implies an affinity for conservative ideas, Couchman was highly active in promoting women in public life; she had a lengthy association with the Australian Women’s National League and became its president in 1927.66 Couchman was not appointed to the ABC with any specific responsibility for women listeners, but she made it her business to champion broadcasting for women whom she believed to be poorly served by traditional women’s fare. Couchman began by asking that the content of the women’s sessions be broadened ‘to attract the average woman of intelligence’, following

62 Little information is currently available about this association. 63 Grenfell Record and Lachlan District Advertiser (Grenfell, NSW), 8 May 1930, 3; ‘How to play Golf – Miss Gwen Varley’; Daily Advertiser (Wagga), 17 July 1934, 2, 3LO Melbourne listing for Gwen Varley, The Good Conversationalist. 64 The Age (Melbourne), 8 April 1937, 16, ‘3AW Features for Women’; during the early years of the war, Gwen Varley broadcast The Home Front on 3AW until the beginning of 1941, and a monthly talk on 3DB for part of 1942 after which she appears to have ceased broadcasting. 65 Stell, op. cit., 232; see also Jeannine Baker, ‘Australian Women Journalists and the ‘Pretence of Equality’, in Labour History, No. 108, May 2015, 1–16. 66 Judith Smart, ‘Couchman, Dame Elizabeth May Ramsay (1876–1982)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/couchman-elizabeth-may-ramsay-12359/text22205 accessed online 11 October 2017. 140 which Mrs John Moore (Gladys Owen), was hired to review its programmes.67 Moore was a painter and journalist, although the quality that appeared to secure her the job was being a woman ‘who has travelled extensively’ – a sure indication of a woman of a certain class.68

The revamped programme covered domestic subjects, the arts, and a ‘weekly overseas letter’, largely drawn from British and American magazines; it also allocated some regular airtime for women’s organisations. Varley’s sports talks for women were moved to the evening, as their primary audience was thought to be business girls; ‘business girls’, referring to women working for a wage, had occasional specialist programmes in the 1930s.69 They are a reminder that there was an extensive, if dispersed, amount of programme-making for, and by women, for which records are thin. Moore’s attention was only directed to the ABC women’s session in Sydney, though similar ABC programmes existed in the other state capitals. In 1933, the Educational Broadcasting Committee in Western Australia organised afternoon talks for women on 6WF, including three four-part series on the history of the emancipation of women, women and the law, and women in agriculture; it is noticeable that these were often not included in newspaper listings which gave ample details of talks on infant welfare.70 In 1936, the Listener In magazine wrote favourably of the 3LO women’s session in Melbourne hosted by Mrs M. Lynch, ‘Judith’, saying ‘the Radio Friend tries to secure someone to talk in a simple, friendly, but expert way about books, travel, art and international problems.’71

ABC women’s programmes were, however, subject to direction by their male management. After a complaint about Mrs Lynch in 1937, a further review of women’s sessions was commissioned; Josephine O’Neill, the former editor of a newspaper women’s page, recommended a mix of practical, topical and entertainment-based features.72 By this means, the

67 Inglis, op. cit., 32; NAA: C1869, 14; Owen was subsequently appointed organiser for the Sydney women’s session between 1933 and 1936; she was talks editor from 1936 to 1938 and ‘advisor of women’s interests’ from 1938–40, see Cedric Flower, ‘Owen, Gladys Mary (1889–1960)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University 68 NAA: SP1558/2, 612 Talks – Women’s Sessions, [box 35], ‘Women’s Sessions’, 8 May 1933, 1. Moore later became Talks Editor for NSW. 69 ibid; ‘business girls’ was a commonly-used phrase to refer to unmarried women working in pink-collar jobs for a salary: the use of ‘girl’ indicated their junior status rather than age– they became women when they stopped work or married. Business girls held luncheons, raised money for charity and sang in choirs; The Business Girls’ Half Hour was broadcast on the ABC after the war. 70 UWA Archives, Series 1787, File 840, Educational Broadcasting; there is no sign of these more socially- themed talks in the WA press coverage of women’s programmes, although it listed talks about child welfare. 71 Listener In, 28 March 1936, 18. 72 NAA: SP1558/2, 612; this followed the arrival of B.H. Molesworth as the ABC Federal Controller of Talks in 1937. The Victorian state manager was highly critical of Lynch, despite the praise she received from other women. The session was subject to a succession of reviews post-war. 141 sessions enabled freelance women journalists and writers to develop experience in broadcasting, as well as earn speaking fees although the rates appear to have been lower for the women’s sessions than for evening talks. The sessions also provided politically-committed women with a platform from which to reach their target audience.73

Women’s radio talks

Women in Australia had become more prominent as public speakers since 1900: they addressed meetings during the World War I conscription referenda campaigns and frequently spoke on issues ranging from education and social welfare to travel.74 While Gwen Varley pioneered radio talks about women’s sport, women made less headway in those fields already controlled by established institutions. Women were a minority of lecturers booked by the WEA and university extension boards; women did not present radio talks on religion, current affairs or music in the interwar years, other than in broadcasts to schools.75 Women speakers did make some inroads into political subject matter, territory usually occupied solely by men, sometimes as members of established political parties.76 On other occasions, opportunities came from women’s own, emerging, networks: for example, several accomplished women speakers on China and Japan gained their expertise through involvement with the YWCA or newly formed women’s international associations.77 Several women broadcast on behalf of the League of Nations Union, arguably helped by the fact that it had a 40% female membership from its foundation in Australia in 1921; Constance Duncan hosted a League of Nations’ Union ‘radio club’ on Melbourne’s 3LO until 1938.78

73 The issue of speaking fees for women’s sessions is difficult to ascertain. It is likely that women’s organisations provided speakers for no charge. Inglis notes Nettie Palmer receiving ‘about a guinea’ per daytime talk when university speakers were receiving 2 guineas for an evening talk; it is possible the evening talks were at least fifteen minutes in duration, while daytime talks were often only ten minutes long, Inglis, op. cit., 30. 74 Damousi, op. cit., 231. 75 Women musicians were promoted as broadcast performers from 1924 but most talks about music were given by men, e.g. Bernard Heinze, Dr Floyd, and Keith Barry. Composer Percy Grainger broadcast a small number of radio talks, but there is no evidence that women composers, such as Miriam Hyde or Margaret Sutherland, spoke despite broadcasts of their compositions. Nonetheless, music programmes sometimes attributed a woman director. Donna Halper notes this in early American radio, Halper, op. cit., 14. It is not within the scope of this study to analyse the full extent to which women participated in schools’ broadcasts. 76 For example, Nellie Davison spoke for the ALP in 1939 on 3KZ, Sunshine Advocate (Victoria), 18 August 1939, 8, ‘Vote Labor, Hear Mrs Nellie Davidson speak on 3KZ’; for additional examples of women speaking on behalf of political parties, see Fisher (2017), op. cit., 39. 77 Women specialists in Asian affairs included Janet Mitchell, Nora Collison, Eleanor Hinder and Constance Duncan. See Fisher (2018), op. cit. 78 Brown, op. cit, 84; Fisher (2018), op. cit., 6–7. 142

Women travel writers often appeared before the microphone so that ‘travel talks’ became a category of broadcast associated with men and women. However, women’s travel talks could often reinforce gender conventions. Melbourne-based Frances Fraser became a travel speaker and writer in the mid-1920s after holding the position of ‘Lady Superintendent’ at a girls’ boarding school.79 In 1934, she co-edited with Nettie Palmer the Centenary Gift Book to celebrate a century of women’s attainment in the state of Victoria; the book opens with a preface in which Fraser wrote that ‘women did more than cook and sweep; they milked the cows, dug for gold, sowed the corn and put their hand to the plough’.80 This spirit is apparent in Fraser’s approach to travel: she insisted on the need for independence, reportedly saying ‘the secret of successful travelling is to travel alone’.81 Between 1925 and 1931, she broadcast evening talks in which travel was a prism through which to view European literature and art, attracting considerable praise:

The widely increasing circle of Listeners who enjoy a “travellogue” may look forward with pleasure to Miss Frances Fraser’s talks on 3LO…During this jaunt round rural England, Listeners will be transported to the Middle Ages and the old world towns of Canterbury, York and Bath.82

Her reputation was confirmed in the course of praise for another speaker: ‘Miss McPhillimy has travelled far and seen much, and like Miss Frances Fraser in her travel talks over the air, has the art of bringing her hearers right into the atmosphere of the place’.83

Travel was a subject of keen interest to the Australian public, while, as noted in connection with Gladys Owen, it was also a mark of social distinction – Richard White estimates that in 1938 only a minority of Australians had travelled abroad and most of the population did not know

79 The Sun (Sydney), 23 September 1925, 12: this refers to the availability of tickets for ‘a series of literary and travel talks held under the auspices of the Dante Alighieri Society’; the school was PLC, where she had also been a student. 80 The book is considered an important text in inter-war feminism, see Deborah Jordan, ‘Palmer’s Present: Gender and the national community in 1934’, in Hecate, Vol. 29, No. 2, July 2003, 99–112. Many of the book’s contributors gave radio talks, including Georgia Rivers, Edna Walling, and Eveline Syme. Frances Fraser and Nettie Palmer, editors, Centenary Gift Book, Melbourne, Robertson and Mullens for The Women’s Centenary Council, 1934, Preface. 81 Brisbane Courier, 15 July 1932, 18. 82 Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners’ Advocate (NSW), 21 October 1925, 9, ‘Broadcasting: 2BL, English poets in Italy’; The Argus (Melbourne), 21 January 1927, 6, ‘The English Lakes’; The Argus (Melbourne), 6 March 1928, 12, ‘Trafalgar Square’; Listener In, 1 January 1930, 6, ‘Miss Frances Fraser, very well known to listeners will take you in fancy on Tuesday at 7.25pm’; News (Adelaide), 28 April 1931, 9, ‘The fascination of travel–the heart of the Empire’. 83 Geelong Advertiser, 22 November 1928, 8. 143 anyone who had done so, apart from war service or immigration.84 Women made up the majority of Australian interwar travellers to Europe and Britain, with Britain the destination for most women traveling overseas from Australia.85 An increasing number of radio travel talks by women described the charm of châteaux and tradition of churches; by contrast, men’s travel talks were more likely to venture to less-accessible places.86 In July 1930, the weekly Listener In magazine listed Doreen Berry’s ‘Inns and Taverns of England’ alongside talks by men that included an overland car journey from Calcutta, AIF ports of call (including Aden and Alexandria), and a one-off account of a trip to the summit of Mount Kosciusko.87 In Sydney in the first week of July 1933, there were six travel talks by men of which three dealt with Europe and three with Australia and the Pacific; women in the same week presented three talks, all based on European travels.88

There were exceptions: women activists Ruby Rich and Bessie Rischbieth gave evocative travel talks about places they visited in the course of attending international women’s meetings, Rich on Jerusalem and Rischbieth on New York (international women’s conferences will be discussed shortly).89 However, the persistent dominance of Britain and Europe meant that while travel talks could confer authority on women broadcasters, they also enmeshed them in nostalgia and the familiar: these talks consolidated listeners’ experiences gained from schoolbooks and childhood.90 The greater reference to the ‘Old World’ in women’s talks confirmed traditional hierarchies with Europe ‘the great measuring rod of civilisation’ and women the keepers of culture.91 Travel broadcasts by women opened some doors to public participation, but within a circumscribed space, confirming gender expectations.

84 Richard White, Australians 1938, edited by Bill Gammage and Peter Spearritt, Broadway, Fairfax, Syme & Weldon Associates, 1987, 436, 442. 85 White op. cit., 44; Anne Rees, ‘Stepping through the Silver Screen: Australian women encounter America 1930s–1950s’, Journeys, Vol. 17, Issue 2, December 2016, 56. 86 Aviation was a common theme of men’s travel talks, particularly with Frank Clune; for the links between media and travel, see Robert Dixon, Prosthetic Gods: travel, representation and colonial governance, St Lucia, University of Queensland Press in association with the API Network, 2001. 87 Listener In, 12 July 1930, 17; Listener In, 5 July 1930, 15; 12 July 1930, 15; 26 July 1930, 11. 88 Wireless Weekly, 7 July 1933, 6. 89 Rich, see NLA MS 7493, File 19; see also Fisher (2018) op. cit., ; Rischbieth, NLA MS2004, Papers and objects of Bessie Rischbieth/Series 2/File 8, ‘Above the Clouds’. 90 White, op cit., 6. 91 Ros Pesman, with David Walker and Richard White, editors, The Oxford book of Australian travel writing, Melbourne, Oxford University Press, 1996, xx. 144

Women’s talks: subjects and scheduling

Women’s talks became meaningful for listeners not simply from their content, but also as a consequence of their scheduling. The talks by Frances Fraser were broadcast in the evening; but from the early 1930s, most talks by women, irrespective of their subject matter, were broadcast in the designated daytime women’s sessions. Michele Hilmes observed a similar shift in American radio in which gender became a factor in scheduling over the course of the interwar period.92 In the developed commercial environment of American network radio, programmes could be readily ranked by their production costs and sponsorship; Hilmes argues that the association of daytime with programmes of lesser value seeped into the perception of the daytime audience itself as inferior to evening listenership.93 Kate Murphy observes that daytime talks aimed at women listeners were not a priority for the BBC in the 1930s, in contrast to the ‘prestigious evening talks.’94

The interwar Australian broadcast landscape had different contours from both Britain and America, given its less-networked commercial sector and nascent public broadcaster; however, there is evidence that scheduling in Australia had similar connotations. The ABC referred to the time of broadcast when discussing Gladys Owen’s 1933 report about its women’s sessions:

Programmes in the past have not given any thought to talks for the women who for a variety of reasons may not be able to listen during the day. Therefore, talks of real value to women will be given twice weekly at 6.15-6.30pm, and the speakers will be women whose opinions and knowledge demand attention.95

The ‘variety of reasons’ that would preclude day-time listening were not discussed, whether a reference to women working outside the home or those sufficiently wealthy to employ others to work for them in it. But there is a clear distinction between talks by women of ‘real value’ that warranted evening broadcast, from those of less value, suitable for women confined to the home during the day. Given the limited opportunities for women to work outside the home, these remarks suggest a class distinction: the examples given of women whose talks were suitable for evening placing were both well-to-do, educated speakers, feminist Linda Littlejohn and

92 Hilmes, (1997) op. cit., 151. 93 ibid. 94 Kate Murphy, (2014) ‘From Women’s Hour to Other Women’s Lives: BBC Talks for women and the women who made them 1923–1939, in Women and the Media: feminism and femininity in Britain, 1900 to the present, edited by Maggie Andrews and Sallie McNamara, New York, Routledge, 2014, 73. 95 NAA: C1869, 14. 145 psychologist Mildred Musico.96 The evening broadcast of women’s sport talks for an expected audience of business girls suggests the status that came with being economically active.

The correlation of gender with time of broadcast applied to most subjects: novelist Miles Franklin spoke on Australian literature in the morning and poet Banjo Paterson in the evening; Nettie Palmer reviewed books in the ABC morning women’s session and her husband Vance Palmer spoke on film and theatre later the same day.97 The inclusion of varied talks in the designated women’s session served to display the wide interests of women, as well as the ability of women to talk about these; but the exclusion of women’s voices from a time of day when they were likely to be heard by an audience of men as well as women limited their likelihood of shaping a public sphere less constrained by gender. Such scheduling also perpetuated the idea that there was a ‘women’s angle’ to matters such as travel and books.

The self-identification of women speakers as women is difficult to analyse conclusively given the shortage of surviving scripts. In 1933, Janet Mitchell began five talks about Manchuria with the greeting ‘Good evening, ladies and gentlemen’.98 Her gender was acknowledged in the first talk when she told of the advice she had received that she was unlikely to be kidnapped because the Chinese saw little value in the ransom for a woman.99 Women who presented evening talks later in the 1930s on the ABC include Eleanor Hinder, Constance Duncan, Nettie Palmer, and Evelyn Tildesley; the inaugural discussion for the ABC’s listening group scheme in August 1939 included a woman, Lucy Woodcock, addressing the issue of slum housing.100 Catherine Fisher has drawn attention to the evening time slot made available to Enid Lyons for a series of radio talks after the death in 1939 of her husband Prime Minister Joseph Lyons.101 Fisher argues that the scheduling of Enid Lyons’ talks in the evening, given her pronounced self-identification as the mother of eleven children, enabled a bridge between the realm of women’s broadcasting and the masculine space of evening transmission.102

96 ibid. 97 During the 1930s several books programmes by men were in the evening, e.g. the ‘Book of the Week’ by Rev. Bottomley, Daily Advertiser (Wagga), 13 February 1935, 4; Captain Peters, ‘Books Wise and Otherwise’, 6.15pm 3LO, P. D. Phillips was on air discussing books after 7 pm. 98 NAA: SP369/2, Mitchell, Janet–Manchuria–An Australian Travels in the War Zone, 1933. 99 ibid. 100 The Australian listening group scheme and its limited concessions to gender equity are discussed later in this thesis. 101 Fisher (2017), op. cit., 42. 102 ibid. 146

Conversely, women speakers could use their daytime transmission as an opportunity to address listeners as women with whom they wished to communicate. Several women who broadcast reports on international women’s conferences emphasised the solidarity of women at these events.103 Making a virtue out of a daytime placing is indicative of the determination of women speakers to use broadcasting as a campaign tool: Fisher’s analysis of scripts by Bessie Rischbieth and Ruby Rich shows their repeated calls to other women to participate in the international peace movement.104 By this means, radio alerted women to their opportunity for organised, political action on a global scale; this also challenged Great Britain as the sole touchstone of overseas contact.

There were other ways in which radio prompted a greater awareness of women in public life. In the mid-1930s, there was a blossoming of published commentary, written by women, about radio and women. This provided opportunities for reflection on women’s place in broadcasting, as well as discussion about radio’s provision for women listeners. Press commentary supplemented the participation that listener clubs provided and offers further insight into the thinking of women as they negotiated the impact on their lives of the broadcast medium.

Women’s radio commentary in print: Linda Littlejohn

The influence that the press exerted on overall perceptions of radio in Australia applied to its representation of women in relation to broadcasting. While the coverage of women’s sessions in many newspapers confirmed the traditional association of women with domestic concerns, the Australian Women’s Weekly and the Listener In magazines published radio columns during the mid-1930s that provided a counter to this view. Both had substantial circulations in NSW and Victoria respectively, the popularity of the Weekly quickly overtaking other women’s magazines.105 The Listener In was aimed at readers of both sexes and while its women’s pages may not have been read by men, their inclusion in the magazine would have been hard to avoid.

The Australian Women’s Weekly was launched by Frank Packer in June 1933 and its opening years featured radio in several respects. Its first front page included a column by Linda Littlejohn, who, as already noted, was a feminist broadcaster of considerable repute; her debut

103 Fisher (2018), op. cit., 7–8, 12. 104 ibid. 105 Several interstate editions of the Weekly commenced within a year of its launch, see Bridget Griffen- Foley (1999), The House of Packer: The Making of a Media Empire, St Leonards, Allen and Unwin, 1999, 36, 299 for circulation comparisons with other women’s magazines. 147 report in the magazine covered the proceedings of the annual conference of the Women Voters’ Federation held the previous week and included its call for equal pay for women and men as well as the right of married women to work.106 In the assessment of Bridget Griffen-Foley, the Weekly’s values were mixed, underpinned by a ‘conception of womanhood [that] was modestly progressive but ultimately confining’.107 This is well demonstrated by its coverage of careers for girls: on the one hand, it suggested widening horizons to include aviation, radio, farming and science while also affirming that ‘marriage continues in Australia to be the greatest career of all for women’.108 The magazine was linked to radio from the start when its launch was heralded by a specially-written radio serial. The Bamboo Bangle, advertised as ‘a special broadcast by the Australian “Women’s Weekly”’, was transmitted simultaneously on all six commercial radio stations in Sydney at 7.30pm in the ten days before the magazine went on sale in June 1933.109 The serial was billed as a ‘mystery thriller’, performed by actors and set in the home of the Weekly’s editor, George Warnecke.110

The magazine extended its connection to radio when it announced in 1934 a partnership with Sydney radio 2UW to undertake, so it proclaimed, ‘something entirely new in women’s radio sessions.’111 It would broadcast a daily service of ‘news and features of special interest to women’ under the editorial eye of Mrs Albert Littlejohn, described as ‘an old friend’ of the magazine’s readers.112 The Weekly recruited Littlejohn not just to organise its radio session, which was presented by a younger woman, Dorothea Vautier, but also to write a regular page about it. Linda Littlejohn was president of the feminist United Associations of Women (UAW) and had several years’ broadcasting experience behind her. Littlejohn was born into comfortable circumstances and attended the exclusive and non-denominational Ascham School for girls; she had married a businessman in 1907, had four children, and became active in the women’s movement.113 She visited Britain and the US on many occasions to speak about

106 Australian Women’s Weekly, Vol. 1, No. 1, 10 June 1933, 1, ‘Equal social rights for Sexes’. 107 Griffen-Foley (1999), op. cit., 30. 108 Quoted in Denis O’Brien, The Weekly, Ringwood, Victoria, Penguin Books, 1982, 21. The Weekly frequently advertised forthcoming radio talks including Enid Lyons’ talks in 1939, op. cit., 72. 109 O’Brien, op. cit., 22 110 ibid; Sydney Morning Herald, 31 May 1933, 6, ‘Broadcasting’. Diane Combe has noted the chaotic production of the ‘lurid, hair-raising script’ of The Bamboo Bangle, see Combe, ‘The Radio Serial Industry in Australia’, Department of History, Philosophy and Politics, Macquarie University, PhD thesis, 1992, 76– 77. 111 Australian Women’s’ Weekly, 24 February 1934, 2. 112 ibid. 113 Meredith Foley, ‘Littlejohn, Emma Linda Palmer (1883–1949)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/littlejohn-emma-linda-palmer-7208/text12473 published first in hardcopy 1986, accessed online 22 August 2016. 148 women’s rights; a woman of considerable charisma, she was also a journalist and broadcaster. In 1928, she spoke on women’s citizenship in Gwen Varley’s women’s session on 2BL; the following year, she broadcast the first of many acclaimed debates on feminism and other social issues with the former magazine editor, Charles Baeyertz.114 Littlejohn’s interests were broad: in 1932, she presented talks on 2UW on themes ranging from the compensations of middle age, the women of India, and ‘pacifism versus militarism’; in 1933, she spoke on the châteaux of France, ‘a new peace spirit’ and ‘on being afraid’.115

Every week, her column for the Weekly detailed the content of the new session on 2UW. The programme did not displace the station’s existing morning women’s session, which continued its recipe competition and attention to home décor. However, under Littlejohn’s direction, the new afternoon session broadcast talks on literature and debates on women’s rights; Littlejohn herself spoke on subjects ranging from travel in Italy to key feminist issues of the day. Her magazine column laid out the issue at the heart of the weekly radio debates and explained the crux of her talks about women – any reference to women’s charitable work was consigned to the last paragraph.116 Publication in the Weekly made a critical difference to the impact of the programme: as a daytime transmission on 2UW, it was only readily accessible to listeners in Sydney whereas the magazine was distributed round the state. Littlejohn raised issues like women’s employment to ask whether women should be employed in industry; she questioned social conventions with the conjecture ‘should women propose’ and turned attention onto radio itself by posing ‘what has broadcasting done for women’.117 The question ‘why do women marry?’ was debated by fellow UAW member Irene Greenwood and Jack Prentice, 2UW’s news commentator; the magazine turned the question round to ask ‘do men marry for a housekeeper, a flatterer or a companion?’ The same column noted that listeners’ letters would be read over the air and discussed.118 The page promoted the regular spot in which a lawyer answered questions about divorce, separation, maintenance and housekeeping money; discussions on a

114 Empire shopping week talks on 2FC, Sydney Morning Herald, 21 May 1928, 6, ‘Wireless’; talk on citizenship, Sydney Morning Herald, 13 December 1928, 5, ‘Broadcasting’. Joanna Woods in Facing the Music: Charles Baeyertz and the Triad, Dunedin, Otago University Press, 2008, 210. C N Baeyertz, born in Melbourne in 1865, died in Sydney in 1943, was editor of Triad literary magazine. He was well known as a raconteur and after-dinner speaker, and in the later 1930s coached ABC announcers. In 1930, Littlejohn and Baeyertz debated monthly topics such as ‘the economic independence of women is not conductive to matrimonial harmony’, ‘the business girl is better fitted to be a wife than the stay-at-home girl’ and ‘’human ideals have not kept pace with the discoveries of science’. 115 ‘Pacificism[sic] v Militarism’, Sydney Morning Herald, 24 March 1932, 5, ‘Broadcasting’; ‘On being afraid’, Sydney Morning Herald, 7 December 1933, 5, ‘Broadcasting’. 116 The Sun (Sydney), 8 November 1931, 24, ‘Australian Women take a Back Seat’. 117 Australian Women’s Weekly, 26 May 1934, 28; 19 May 1934, 28; 12 May 1934, 10. 118 Australian Women’s Weekly, 25 August 1934, 8. 149 range of subjects became opportunities to question their implications for women.119 The magazine coverage positioned radio as a place for the airing of progressive attitudes on gender.

Littlejohn left Australia at the end of 1934 to travel overseas. The Weekly’s radio session, still presented by Dorothea Vautier, moved from 2UW to 2GB. Vautier promptly reduced the number of talks, a decision explained as a response to listener wishes:

Radio is changing every week. Listeners are evolving continuously. The session that went down well a year ago might easily be a wash-out today. The modern radio artist has to be on the qui vive to sense these changes.120

While the Weekly’s session continued on 2GB for some years, it followed the trajectory of the magazine in the 1930s in shifting from feminist to feminine concerns.121 Littlejohn did not falter in her commitment to progressive forms of broadcasting: in early 1938, she was back in Australia to attend the Australian Institute of Political Science Summer School, at which she contrasted the ample rebroadcasting of the British royal family with the paucity of international news on Australian radio. In 1941, she presented news commentary on 2UE, which billed her as ‘one of the best-informed women in the world’.122 She spent the later war years in America during which time she married an American and returned to Australia shortly before dying from cancer in 1949.

Women’s radio commentary in the Listener In: Georgia Rivers

While Linda Littlejohn was developing the Australian Women’s Weekly radio session and its associated magazine page in Sydney, a distinctive way of writing about women and radio emerged in the Melbourne-based Listener In magazine. The Listener In had been launched by the Melbourne Herald group in January 1925 and like its Sydney counterpart, Wireless Weekly, the Listener In reported radio developments overseas and behind the scenes gossip from radio stations, alongside printed programme listings. On the occasions Wireless Weekly did include a women’s page, it often did not acknowledge the journalist who had compiled it; conversely, the

119 Australian Women’s Weekly, 18 August 1934, 29, a talk about archaeology promoted the work of women archaeologists; another on raising children questioned attitudes to bringing up daughters. 120 Australian Women’s Weekly, 7 September 1935, 29, ‘Radio is changing every week’. 121 Griffen-Foley (1999), op. cit., 37. 122 W.G.K. Duncan, editor, Australia’s Foreign Policy, Sydney, Angus and Robertson in conjunction with The Australian Institute of Political Science, 1938, 66; Cumberland Argus and Fruitgrowers’ Advocate (Parramatta, NSW), 3 April 1940, 8, ‘2UE Calling’. 150

Listener In made clear the involvement of the writer Georgia Rivers whose weekly column was called ‘Women at the Microphone’.

‘Georgia Rivers’ was a pen name for Marjorie Clarke, born in Melbourne in 1897.123 While little is known about her personal life, she published several novels and was part of Melbourne’s interwar literary network: she was a member of the committee campaigning for the admission of Egon Kisch to Australia in 1934 and attended the inaugural dinner for Melbourne PEN in 1939.124 Rivers broadcast a ‘personal advice’ session on radio 3LO briefly at the end of 1934, which arguably inspired the scenario for a play she wrote in which the central character, a woman radio presenter, contends with an overly enthusiastic woman listener from the country.125 Rivers also turned her hand to traditional women’s journalism, writing fashion reports for The Australasian Journal and other newspapers. However, her writing about women in connection with radio subtly challenged the ways in which many women broadcasters were portrayed.

From 1934 until 1938, Georgia Rivers previewed broadcast appearances by women musicians and talks presenters. It is illuminating to compare ‘Women at the Microphone’ with the coverage of women in The Radio Pictorial magazine: the latter was launched in 1935 and routinely commented on the physical appearance of young women broadcasters and the good- heartedness of older women on air.126 By contrast, Rivers’ column highlighted the training that women had received and their professionalism as artists and speakers. A sample from 1935 includes a report on Geraldine Plunkett who was to give three ‘beauty talks’ on 3LO: Plunkett had travelled overseas for further training, worked as a journalist and opened her own salon.127 The same column previewed Dr Anita Rosenberg, who held a Doctor of Law degree and was conducting German lessons on air; Rosenberg, Rivers reported, had previously prepared an exhibition in Berlin about German women ‘in the house, in the family, in the professions’.128 A

123 Marjorie Clark’s papers suggest that she used several pen names for different writing projects, possibly to keep her literary reputation separate from her journalism and other writing. One of her wartime projects was a fictionalised serial about the training and deployment of nurses, written under the name ‘Jill Curtin’. SLV Marjorie Clark papers, Box 2381/2. 124 The Age, 7 November 1934, 12; The Australasian, 21 January 1939, 40. 125 Weekly Times (Melbourne), 24 November 1934, 2; the manuscript of the play ‘Uncle’ is in the Marjorie Clark papers, SLV, Box 2381/2. 126 The Radio Pictorial, Vol.1, No 1, 1 July 1935, 21, ‘this lovely and intelligent face is Lillian Gay’, presenter of French for schools; 28, ‘personable young lass’ Dorothy Foster ‘who adorns the 3UZ microphone’; 26, ‘this charming picture of Doreen McKay, 2SM’, 42, ‘the Happiness club is the epitome of Mrs Stelzer’s personality’. 127 Listener In, 16 March 1935, 17. 128 ibid. 151 later column drew attention to a talk taking seriously a role often regarded as insignificant when art student Liseley Freedman spoke on ‘studio life, through the eyes of an artist’s model’.129

A report on Ballarat-born violinist Berthe Jorgensten became an opportunity to explain how the conductor Sir Hamilton Harty, who had earlier opposed women in orchestras, changed his mind after hearing the women players in the ABC orchestras.130 An account of composer Margaret Sutherland and her work as a mentor to music teachers included the comment:

Her marriage to Dr Albiston did not mean a choice of this-or-that, for she wisely believes that a mother need not, and should not, give up her work entirely for her children. If she knows how to plan her time, she can give them all the love and care they need without putting them under the obligation of her self-sacrifice. Even when the children were small, she kept her work simmering, never making a complete break with the other side of her life.131

For a little over three years, Rivers interviewed and wrote about different women every week, building up a picture of radio as a place for women who were educated, articulate, and independent. ‘Women at the Microphone’ was an eloquent endorsement of the legitimate place of women on air despite several pages in the Listener In covering more traditional women’s issues: ‘Radio Hints for Busy Women’ gave domestic advice dominated by recipes and tips on housework. The combination of Georgia Rivers’ column with ‘Radio Hints for Busy Women’ demonstrated women’s varied interests as well as indicating likely class divisions amongst the female audience: overseas training was a privilege few could contemplate.

Women’s radio service: ‘L’Oreille’

In March 1936, a third women’s page was introduced to the Listener In magazine: the ‘Women’s Radio Service conducted by ‘L’Oreille’ had a clear emphasis on participation and positioning women as united by gender.132 The use of a pseudonym was common with newspaper radio commentary, with regular writers including ‘Aerial’, ‘Mike’, ‘Ray Dio’ and ‘In the ether’: the

129 Listener In, 1 June 1935, 15. 130 Listener In, 9 February 1935, 18. 131 Listener In, 8 August 1936, 18. 132 L’Oreille’s column started on 28 March 1936, Listener In, 18; by April 1937, it had ceased discussion about radio and featured more domestic advice. 152 choice of ‘L’Oreille’, French for ‘the ear’, for the new page in the Listener In had connotations of travel and sophistication. Yet all women readers were invited to enter into a two-way engagement with ‘L’Oreille’ who made women’s listening the centre of attention.133 ‘L’Oreille’ was introduced as a columnist who would ‘put pertinent questions to the listener-in’; at the same time, the page represented a combination of interests with its illustrated ‘dress of the week’.134 The column raised issues such as the scheduling of women’s talks, women and serials, the popularity of women announcers, and broadcasting as a career for girls. ‘L’Oreille’ identified herself with working women in an article titled ‘Is the business girl catered for adequately?’135 A ‘business girl’, she explained, was a woman ‘who pursues the mundane task of earning her own living’; in regards to radio, ‘the business girl’s intelligence is decidedly underrated but, as I pointed out in my article last week, so is that of the average woman generally.’136

One article tackled the issue of women’s voices on air. This was a topic of continual debate throughout the interwar period although its origins can be viewed as part of a tradition extending back to classical Greece when the higher pitch of women’s voices was invoked as a ‘reason’ for their unsuitability to speak in public.137 ‘L’Oreille’ suggested that prejudice played a part in men’s objections to women as presenters of talks, hinting it could be due to envy:

If the woman, whose subject is of general interest, should annoy the men, then one can only surmise that her voice is really unpleasant, or her intelligence is a little too advanced to be pleasing to the male ear! I dislike that word jealousy and so I am endeavouring to put the matter as kindly as possible.138

She went on to ask on behalf of women ‘what of our annoyance and long-suffering acquiescence when we are forced to listen for hours on end to men’s voices which irritate us?’ At the foot of the article was a request from the Editor for men to respond: the following fortnight several

133 As an aside, one can note that ‘Oreille’ is an anagram of ‘Lorelei’, the Rhine maiden with the reputation of luring men to their death should they venture within earshot of her voice. 134 The identity of ‘L’Oreille’ is not clear: it is quite possible the page was written by Georgia Rivers herself as she also wrote for the magazine as Marjorie Clarke, e.g. Listener In, 5 September 1936, 11; it is also possible that the page was the work of a number of writers. 135 Listener In, 30 May 1936, 14. 136 ibid. 137 For classical attitudes, see Mary Beard, Women and Power: A Manifesto, London, Profile, 2017, 19; for earlier discussion about views on women’s voices and radio in Australia, see Potts, op. cit., 104-105. 138 Listener In, 25 April 1936, 19. 153 letters were printed in which doubts were expressed about women’s competence to speak on anything in a voice anyone could enjoy and discussion on the issue was concluded.139

‘L’Oreille’ heartily endorsed a series of women’s debates on 3DB, saying ‘they have proved without a doubt that the women who have taken part in these discussions, whether against the men or their own sex, are well equipped with facts and the ability to express them clearly and convincingly’; she called for more debating opportunities for girls, because ‘with more women taking a keener and more active part in world affairs each year, there is much scope for these radio discussions on matters of topical and general interest.’140 The columns do not show consistent force in calling out the gender imbalance of radio: L’Oreille might have been walking an editorial tightrope, there might in fact have been different writers for the page, while a third possibility was that L’Oreille enjoyed irony. After citing a reader’s letter proposing that men present the women’s sessions because of their greater authority, ‘L’Oreille’ commented on the fact that a woman had written the letter as ‘the unkindest cut of all’.141 She proceeded to justify women’s voices on-air for the pleasure men would gain from hearing ‘a woman’s impression of Europe, of gay boulevards, colourful shops, rhythmic dances and jolly beer gardens’, a reference to the many travel talks by women.142 The text concluded its case for the female voice in words that may have left some readers speculating as to her actual meaning:

Many a man has purred like a well-stroked pussy-cat as the sweet female voice subtly flattered him by emphasising the importance to women of retaining his noble affection.143

The coverage of women and radio in the Listener In lasted longer than Linda Littlejohn’s radio page with the Australian Women’s Weekly, but it was considerably reduced in 1937: the ‘Women’s Radio Service’ page shrank, ‘Women at the Microphone’ ceased and L’Oreille turned her attention to everyday cooking. In April, ‘Radio Hints for the Busy Woman’ became ‘Radio Hints for the Busy Housewife’. This curtailed discussion of women and radio. However,

139 Listener In, 9 May 1936, 13. 140 Listener In, 25 July 1937; it should be noted that 3DB was owned by the Herald group, the publisher of the Listener In – while 3DB received generous coverage, the output of other radio stations also featured, with the ABC stations covered by Georgia Rivers. 141 Listener In, 18 July 1936, 14, ‘L’Oreille’, ‘Views valiant and various’. 142 ibid. L’Oreille may have been thinking of the interwar travel writer and broadcaster Nina Murdoch, famous for her ‘unusually readable example of the ‘gushing’ style of Australian travel writing’, Pesman, op. cit., 130. 143 ibid. 154 discussion by women about their relationship with broadcasting was already written into the proceedings of many women’s groups and continued into the war years with public ramifications.

Women’s organisations and radio

While many women were active in radio as individuals, women also engaged with the medium as part of their membership of women’s organisations. The interest of women’s organisations in radio included both its usefulness as a tool for publicity and discussion of broadcasting policy. The purpose of this analysis is not to investigate in detail the content of broadcasts by specific women’s organisations; rather the focus is on the perception of radio as a means of presenting women’s ideas and women themselves to a wider public. Radio was taken up by women’s organisations across the political spectrum. It was not confined to discussions behind closed doors as women’s collective interest in radio was reported in major and local newspapers across the nation, and from the start, it demonstrated their global connections. In 1922, the year before the licensing of radio in Australia, the Conference of Queensland Country Women discussed developments in the United States before passing a resolution to urge government to take action to support broadcasting in Australia.144 In 1923, the Brisbane Courier reported the conservative Australian Women’s National League’s anticipation of broadcasting and in Western Australia in 1925, it was announced that the Women's Service Guild had ‘already formed a committee to acquaint themselves with the conditions appertaining to broadcasting and to watch wireless from an educational point of view.’145

Across the interwar years, many women’s organisations took to the airwaves: a range of women’s associations figured in the first chapter of this thesis. As noted earlier, the Country Women’s Association (CWA) used radio to reach women in rural areas; the association was a keen user of radio on many of the commercial stations that opened in regional towns across the 1930s. Bessie Rischbieth and Ruby Rich from the Australian Federation of Women Voters were also accomplished broadcasters and gave talks on behalf of their organisations as well as individual travel talks.146 Both gave radio reports on international women’s conferences they

144 The Telegraph (Brisbane), 19 August 1922, 8, ‘Wireless Broadcasting’; Warwick Daily News (Queensland), 15 September 1922, 2, ‘The Women’s Club’. 145 Brisbane Courier, 13 September 1923, 16, ‘Wireless Listening In’; Daily News (Perth, WA), 1 June 1925, 7, ‘Women and Wireless, What Western Australian Women Think’. 146 Courier Mail (Brisbane), 28 October 1936, 21, ‘Diplomacy the key position: Miss Ruby Rich’s advice to women voters’; Sydney Morning Herald, 1 September 1937, 8, 2GB listing for Rich; The Argus (Melbourne), 155 attended, increasing the association of radio with women’s shifting role in public life.147 These broadcasts represented to women listeners the gendered political community. One of the most zealous women’s organisations to use radio was the United Associations of Women (UAW), aided by the energy of one of its founding members, the redoubtable Linda Littlejohn.

The United Associations of Women (UAW) was established in Sydney in 1929 by the amalgamation of several existing women’s groups in order to campaign on a more political basis for, among other things, equal pay and job opportunities for women.148 Its founding President, Jessie Street, was shrewd in her use of the media, welcoming a film crew from Cinesound Review to shoot the training farm the UAW had established for unemployed women.149 The later undoing of the farm by sensational press coverage after the death of one of its women workers may have increased Street’s zeal in putting her the Association’s message more directly before the public, something radio made possible. Its archives reveal a prolonged interaction with radio; investigation of these papers shows the additional insight into radio’s significance that can be gained by looking beyond the records of radio stations and individual speakers.150 The involvement of Littlejohn with the UAW no doubt contributed to the attention it gave broadcasting. Before setting off for Europe in 1930, Littlejohn spoke about her intention to investigate radio programmes for women overseas:

I am exceedingly doubtful whether the special subjects selected for broadcasting to women in Australia are as helpfully entertaining as they might be. I have in mind a ‘woman’s hour’ devoted to ample informative explanations of the big questions of the day … All women do not require to know how to make kerosene tins into dust pans or wish for lengthy dissertations on a simple cookery recipe.151

In 1930, the UAW established a wireless committee and from that point, broadcasting was a regular part of the business of meetings.152 The committee arranged speakers for radio talks on a number of stations, a task at which it proved particularly effective: at one point the Association was broadcasting regularly on Sydney stations 2BL, 2GB and 2UW. In 1932, a

7 April 1938, 12, ‘Women’s Peace Conference’. The National Library of Australia’s collections of the papers of Rischbieth and Rich include scripts of many different kinds of talks. 147 This is discussed in detail by Fisher (2018), op. cit. 148 For the genesis of the UAW, Lake (1999), op. cit., 52. 149 Lenore Coltheart, editor, Jessie Street: a revised autobiography, Annandale, Federation Press, 2004, 91. 150 The full extent of the active interest by women’s associations in radio requires further research. 151 West Australian (Perth), 2 January 1931, 4. 152 UAW papers, MLMSS 2160 1 (6) Box 1; Hilary Weatherburn, ‘Australian Women’s Digest’ in Jessie Street: documents and essays, edited by Heather Radi, Broadway, Women’s Redress Press, 1990, 166 156 meeting proposed to write to the new station 2CH ‘drawing their attention to the fact that they had no women’s session’.153 Dorothy Jordan was the principal point of contact at 2GB; while she was described in 1931 as ‘quite friendly and anxious to give us what publicity she could’, it was suggested that the Association approach 2GB ‘with a view to us speaking at one of their sessions other than Mrs Jordan’s.’154 This indicates awareness of the significance of scheduling and reveals that the UAW was thinking carefully about the consequences of its talks.

It is unclear whether the Association’s airtime was purchased or conversely whether the women speaking received a fee. An ambiguous reference to funding appeared in the minutes of a meeting when it noted a donation of ten shillings ‘made through the Broadcasting Committee as it was for money received for broadcast talks.155 Meantime there was evidence that the broadcasts made an impact: Linda Littlejohn reported that a talk she had made on 2GB about the plight of unemployed dressmakers had resulted in letters to the station from other women affected by the loss of employment as well as an offer of emergency accommodation.156 It suggests that broadcasts specifically about women could motivate women listeners to public action. In 1941, the UAW listed ten experienced speakers amongst its members.157 Jeannine Baker has linked the later broadcasting career of Irene Greenwood to her earlier experience delivering talks for the UAW; Greenwood was one of the few women to broadcast a participative women’s session dealing with political issues post-war.158

Women and broadcasting policy

The interest of women’s organisations in radio was not limited to organising speakers and talks: several groups also took an active interest in broadcasting policy and their commentary became part of public debate. In 1931, the UAW discussed the need for a woman on the Australian Broadcasting Commission and submitted the names of women they considered suitable.159 The Australian Federation of University Women (AFUW) put broadcasting on the agenda of its annual conference of 1934.160 It was a small, select group; yet as many of its members were

153 UAW Minutes, 10 February 1932, MLMSS 2160 1 (6) Box 1. 154 UAW Minutes, 18 June 1931; Minutes, 10 February 1932, MLMSS 2160 1 (6) Box 1. 155 Minutes, 14 September 1933, Minutes of Council meetings, MLMSS 2160 1 (6) Box 1. 156 Minutes, 4 September 1930, MLMSS 2160 1 (6) Box 1. 157 Sydney Morning Herald, 11 April 1932, 6, Australian Women’s Weekly, 18 August 1934, 7; Jessie Street papers and listings; Jeannine Baker (2017), op. cit., 297. 158 Baker (2017) op. cit., 299–303. 159 UAW papers, ML Minutes of council meeting, 11 Nov 1931; see also Sydney Morning Herald, 7 November 1931, 7 ‘National Council of Women’. 160 Bulletin, Australian Federation of University Women, 1934 and conference report. 157 professional women, often principals of schools and leaders in other organisations, their ideas could circulate widely. In 1935, the AFUW called for more programmes for women who worked outside the home; the fact this specifies women who work outside the home, as opposed to having other daytime commitments, is significant.161 At the 1936 national conference of the Australian Federation of Women Voters, Ruby Rich appealed for ‘a more liberal programme over the air of women’s activities’, with more broadcast time for women’s interests.162 In 1936, three Australian women attended a conference in London convened by the BBC on women and broadcasting; these included Linda Littlejohn who urged broadcasts discussing equal pay and the employment of married women as well as noting in more general terms the role for radio as a means of learning ‘what was happening in the world’.163 The Australian National Council of Women met in the same year to discuss the resolutions of the International Council of Women urging, among other things, an increase in ‘the influence of women upon broadcasting, its administration, [and] drawing up of programmes;’ it also called for ‘more lectures on the women’s movement’.164 These developments were circulated in the press as well as internal newsletters and underscored radio as a site of contestation by women.

The Joint Parliamentary Committee into Broadcasting convened by Prime Minister Menzies in 1941 has been discussed already in this thesis; it was the occasion for an appeal by Professor Thomas Laby for more talks on science, as well as calls by others for less censorship of opinion. One of the issues before the committee was the composition of the Commission of the ABC and several speakers supported the statutory requirement for at least one woman member; other matters under discussion concerned programmes. Eleven women testified in person and engaged forcefully with radio conventions of the day to argue not just for greater, but also a different form of representation of women on air.165 Several criticised the domestic focus of women’s sessions, with one stating bluntly that ‘women should not be catered for on the ‘recipe for home cooking’ level’. 166 The Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) had undertaken a survey that was cited to support the call for more talks for women on citizenship.167 Ada Bromham and Mollie Eaton, representing the WCTU, spoke of ‘an urge among women for

161 Bulletin, Australian Federation of University Women, 1935. 162 West Australian (Perth), 15 September 1936, 18, ‘Problems of Today: The Woman’s Part: Conference Meets in Adelaide’. 163 West Australian (Perth), 27 April 1936, 16, ‘Women want to talk more’. Linda Littlejohn, Nora Collison and Dr Isa Younger Ross attended the conference. 164 Advertiser (Adelaide), 17 September 1936, 10. 165 Report, Joint Parliamentary Committee on Broadcasting 1942, Par 354. The report of the inquiry refers to many letters and suggestions received from women, although none of these has survived. 166 Joint Parliamentary Committee on Broadcasting, Minutes of Evidence 1942, 558. 167 Joint Parliamentary Committee on Broadcasting, Minutes of Evidence 1942, 559. 158 something more than they have been getting because almost all are of the opinion that there should be something more in the way of education for citizenship’; they also demonstrated an awareness of other countries when referring to the better provision of broadcasting for women in Europe.168 The idea that women’s voices were less suited to radio than men’s was roundly opposed; one woman asserted that women should be more on the radio and the commission of the ABC – ‘not as a favour but as their right as Australian citizens’.169

The issue of scheduling came up when Acting General Manager of the ABC, Thomas Bearup, responded to a complaint about few women broadcasting in the evening: he denied any discrimination against women speakers by explaining that it was the subjects for which speakers were required that led to more men than women.170 Admittedly few women were able to gain admittance to academia or the professions, but he added that women were used as speakers in the evening programmes ‘whenever the subject called for a woman speaker’.171 This confirmed a prejudice against women as authorities other than in those areas associated with the feminine. The philosophy of separate spheres for women and men was directly challenged by the testimony of May Couchman, the sole woman ABC commissioner. Couchman spoke in relation to her involvement with the ABC:

I emphasize the point that I do not consider myself as a representative only of women. I regard myself as a commissioner with a woman’s angle on all questions to come before the Board.172

With these words, Couchman identified as ‘a’ woman, but rejected being a mouthpiece for ‘the’ women’s view. Her words undermine the essentialist notion of women as defined by the maternal and her testimony marks a shift from the evidence presented by women fifteen years earlier at the Royal Commission on the Moving Picture Industry. In 1926, over forty women had spoken at this Royal Commission, many with the objective of securing a designated woman’s place on the proposed Commonwealth Film Censorship Board. Their argument rested on the identification of women as particularly able to protect vulnerable children; while their participation as witnesses can be viewed as claiming a voice in the public sphere for women, it

168 Joint Parliamentary Committee on Broadcasting, Minutes of Evidence 1942, 560. 169 Joint Parliamentary Committee on Broadcasting, Minutes of Evidence 1942, 140. 170 Joint Parliamentary Committee on Broadcasting, Minutes of Evidence 1942, 412. 171 Joint Parliamentary Committee on Broadcasting, Minutes of Evidence 1942, 413; Bearup also stated that most of the daytime talks were by women. 172 Joint Parliamentary Committee on Broadcasting, Minutes of Evidence 1942, 363. 159 is an expression of women’s maternal citizenship.173 By contrast, radio in 1941 enabled the articulation by women of their diverse interests and situations within citizenship per se. The resulting Australian Broadcasting Act of 1942 stipulated that the Commission of the ABC include at least one woman at a time when the appointment of women on boards and commissions was a key campaign objective for women’s organisations.174 This can be seen as a victory following the energizing effect of radio on women’s activism.

Conclusion

This chapter has surveyed different ways women were involved with radio between the wars; it has shown how broadcasting was deployed to contest the conventional understanding that women’s natural place was the domestic while also creating public space for domestic concerns. The findings of this chapter challenge previous scholarship that used the domestic focus of many women’s sessions to conclude that radio’s sole impact on women was to confirm their exclusion from public life. Women created professional roles for themselves both as daily broadcasters and occasional speakers; women print journalists publicised the extent of women’s broadcasting and probed the issues that arose with women’s use of the medium. The views of listeners were sought by on-air programmes and off-air commentators, establishing women’s relation to radio as a matter for women’s deliberation; women’s organisations ensured that the airwaves were not silent about women’s activism across a broad spectrum of concerns, alerting listeners to gendered politics. In 1926, the Royal Commission into the Motion Picture Industry was a stage for the articulation of women’s maternal citizenship; the 1941 Joint Parliamentary Committee on Broadcasting heard demands for women to be heard on air as citizens without such qualification. It confirmed radio as a space in which women had not only created a platform from which they could be heard but used it to develop a new modern identity.

Radio in this context can be seen as contributing to an alternate mode of thinking, rather than simply providing a new technology for the restatement of old conventions. In particular, radio was at the intersection of many women’s networks, enabling the circulation of ideas from diverse groups and identities. As a consequence, radio was the seedbed for the development of a strong counterpublic in which women debated ideas of difference, from the past and within the

173 Mary Tomsic, ‘Entertaining Children: the 1927 Royal Commission on the Motion Picture Industry as a site of women’s leadership’, in Diversity in Leadership: Australian women, past and present, edited by Joy Damousi, Kim Rubenstein, Mary Tomsic, ANU, Acton, ANU Press, 2014, 253–267. 174 Lake (1999), op. cit., 186. 160 present, and from which they challenged their exclusion from the male-dominated public sphere. The inroads into public life that women were able to make with radio were due to a political vision of gender equity alongside the resources arising from their level of organisation, overlapping networks, and professional links with the media.

The resources that women had at their disposal were significant, not only as many in leadership roles had time and opportunity to discuss their approach to broadcasting, but also as they were able to circulate responses to the discrimination they experienced. The options for Indigenous Australians were far more limited. Spoken-word radio was used largely to confirm the power relations of the majority white population over the minority black; this was achieved by talks about Aborigines as well as the exclusion of their voices on air. However, over the course of the interwar period, there were exceptions to this exclusion as radio was utilised for the public expression of resistance by Indigenous men and women. The next chapter of this thesis documents how a group who were denied a voice in many contexts used radio to be heard by a wider audience.

Chapter Five

Who’s singing, whose song? Indigenous space on early Australian radio

On 21 November 1948 the Queensland singer Harold Blair was the featured speaker on ABC radio’s Guest of Honour programme; within a year, the voice of Fanny Cochrane Smith was heard on ABC state radio in Hobart.1 Smith and Blair were Indigenous, both famous for their singing: Blair was known as ‘the aboriginal tenor’ after winning the popular Amateur Hour radio talent quest in 1945, while Fanny Cochrane Smith, whose voice had been recorded almost half a century earlier, was billed as ‘the last Tasmanian’.2 Excerpts of her recording were broadcast in 1949 during a radio interview with South Australian ethnologist Norman Tindale, underscoring the place of technology in scholarship relating to Tasmania’s Indigenous population. Harold Blair’s broadcast was different: the talk by Blair, possibly the first by an Indigenous speaker on a national radio network, came about because of his ability with elite Western music. He followed the usual format for the ‘Guest of Honour’ programme, reading from a prepared script. His talk was partly autobiography and partly a declaration of the right of Aborigines to education and citizenship: it was on this latter basis that it was widely reported across the country.3

The state-sanctioned control of Aborigines for much of the twentieth century in Australia was pervasive, affecting the rights of Aboriginal men and women to vote, to marry without permission, to travel freely and to manage their own money.4 The engagement of Aborigines with early Australian radio has not been thoroughly examined to date, but while their voices on air were scarce, they were not absent.5 In addition, Indigenous Australians were often the subject of radio talks. The purpose of this chapter is to examine these two categories of spoken- word broadcast as they pertained to Aborigines – speaking and being spoken about– in order to

1 Truth (Sydney), 21 November 1948, 7, ‘Harold Blair as ABC Guest of Honour’; The Mercury (Tasmania), 14 January 1949, 2, ‘Recordings of Aboriginal Songs Played’. 2 Farmer and Settler (Sydney), 2 June 1945, 13, ‘Sweet Voiced Aboriginals Thrilled Thousands’; Fanny Cochrane Smith was recorded in 1899 and 1903 by the Royal Society of Tasmania, see Martin Thomas, ‘The Rush to Record: transmitting the sound of Aboriginal culture’, Journal of Australian Studies, Vol. 31, Issue 90, 2007, 107–121. 3 Sydney Morning Herald, 22 November 1948, 4, ‘Racial Equality Appeal by Aboriginal’; Northern Standard (Darwin), 26 November 1948, 7, ‘New Deal for Aborigines’; Daily Mercury (Queensland), 22 November 1948, 1, ‘Harold Blair’s Eloquent Plea for Aborigines’. 4 http://museum.wa.gov.au/referendum-1967/aboriginal-rights, accessed online 27 November 2018; no Aboriginal person was entitled to unemployment or sickness benefit till 1960, see Alison Holland, ‘Saving the Aborigines: the White Woman’s Crusade. A Study of Gender, Race and the Australian Frontier, 1920s– 1960s’, PhD thesis, University of New South Wales, 1998, 282. 5 Bridget Griffen-Foley has noted that this is an area to be investigated, Griffen-Foley (2009), op.cit., viii. 162 evaluate their significance for the public sphere. This analysis will draw on observations that have figured in earlier chapters: the control by gatekeepers over who could speak, the availability of airtime on commercial radio to diverse interest groups, and the role of the press in their selective reporting of broadcasts; it also highlights the role of both committed individuals and organised groups in establishing radio as a space of public debate, and the potential of radio to politicise listeners. Radio reinforced the reproduction of majority normative attitudes to ethnicity in which non-whiteness was considered racially inferior: it also functioned as a space of resistance and affirmation. The cultural exchange between settler society and Aborigines to which radio gave rise directs particular attention to the place of the listener in determining the meaning of broadcast events.

This chapter will consider a range of broadcasts in which Indigeneity was represented and presented, including straight talks, commentaries and interviews. Radio talks and dramatised documentaries directed to rural listeners about the ‘destiny’ of the land for agriculture will not be included although these unquestionably contributed to the construction of Indigenous people as invisible in Australia’s future.6 The chapter begins with a brief survey of the representation of Aborigines in settler culture prior to the inception of radio; this will enable the introduction of the concepts of appropriation, authenticity and mimesis. It will then discuss the involvement of Aborigines with radio under the following headings: the broadcasting of corroborees; radio talks about Aborigines, largely by anthropologists; and broadcasting by Aborigines, often from organised activist groups. Archival sources include newspapers, internal ABC documents, and the papers of cultural warrior P. R. Stephensen, anthropologist Olive Pink, and the Association for the Protection of Native Races. In 1980, the art historian Bernard Smith discussed the significance of the interwar period for making black and white Australians aware of the crimes perpetrated upon the continent’s first inhabitants, a period he called ‘the locked cupboard of our history’.7 The documented traces of early Indigenous spoken-word broadcasting show a contribution to exposing the contents of that cupboard and the reconfiguring of the racialised public sphere.

6 The extensive body of programmes in which the land itself plays a central role warrants further examination, from 1925 airplane commentaries to regional histories produced in the 1930s. 7 Smith, op. cit., 10. 163

Settler representations of Aborigines

Visual imagery has played a major role in establishing settler attitudes to Aborigines from the colonial era into the twentieth century. Most representations of Aborigines in the context of early radio were white dominated and overtly racist: for instance, the new radio magazines frequently included cartoons and advertisements that juxtaposed the science of broadcasting with the perceived primitiveness of Indigenous culture. A 1933 advertisement in Wireless Weekly, the Sydney-based national weekly radio listings magazine, used an image of a naked Indigenous man peering at smoke signals to promote battery powered radios.8 ‘Spreading the news’, proclaimed the text. ‘What a contrast! Once this vast continent had no means of distant communication but the smoke signals of the aboriginals!’ Carolyn Birdsall has observed the widespread use of this trope, where ‘technological modernity drew on comparisons with people thought to be pre-modern or from the past.’9 The advertisement located Aborigines in a different time and place from that of their white contemporaries. Much of the subsequent broadcasting of corroborees and Aboriginal folk stories also limited contact between black and white to spectacle, particularly in terms of assumptions about who was listening.

Spectatorship has a dominant place in Australian representations of cross-cultural contact. In their widely-discussed study of nineteenth-century artworks depicting Aborigines conducting corroborees, Candice Bruce and Anita Calloway have noted how these images present Aborigines differently from colonial ethnography’s preference for static poses.10 Bruce and Calloway argue that corroborees ‘transformed [their participants] into magical creatures of the night, physically and sexually potent and seemingly untouched by the mighty hand of British colonialism’.11 Bruce and Calloway also drew attention to a feature of many mid-century corroboree paintings in which Aboriginal dancers were shown being observed by white onlookers.12 This acted as an ambiguous framing device: on the one hand it suggested that corroborees were staged for the benefit of white audiences whose control of the occasion neutralised their potency; on the other hand, they pointed to a fascination that corroborees had for settlers. The scenario also indicated a willingness by Aborigines to cultivate that interest, suggesting an Indigenous agency whose motives can in turn be interrogated. Bruce and

8 Wireless Weekly, 7 July 1933, 38. 9 Carolyn Birdsall, ‘Sound Aesthetics and the Global Imagination in German Media Culture around 1930’ in Sounds of Modern History, edited by D. Morat, Berghahn, 2014, 263. 10 Candice Bruce and Anita Calloway, ‘Dancing in the Dark: Black Corroboree or White Spectacle’, Australian Journal of Art, No. 9, 1991, 81. 11 ibid. 12 Bruce and Calloway, op. cit., 86. 164

Calloway include in their analysis a group of paintings depicting Europeans dancing as if at the command of an Indigenous audience as further evidence that public corroborees ‘dramatized black/white interaction’.13

Corroborees varied: some were secret unchanging rituals, while others displayed an elasticity that could incorporate elements from shared encounters such as the arrival of steam trains or English popular songs. By the end of the nineteenth century, corroborees were part of commercial cultural tourism.14 Stephen Muecke has highlighted Aboriginal agency, rather than passive compliance, in the public performances of corroborees in the early twentieth century, taking as an example the Hobart Carnival of 1910 for which twelve Ngarindjerri people were brought to Tasmania from South Australia.15 The occasion was not simply a performance by Aborigines summoned by the settler community for their entertainment; a practice had already emerged whereby these occasions included spoken addresses by Aboriginal performers in which they raised their social and economic predicament.16

Muecke notes a local newspaper’s account of an Aboriginal choir at the Congregational Church at Richmond, Tasmania:

The church was very uncomfortably packed, doubtless many attending from curiosity. The native party consisted of three females and nine males. Three of the members delivered very earnest addresses and were listened to very attentively throughout, and between the addresses part songs (sacred) were most credibly rendered by the native choir. The anthem was also well rendered; while the solo by a lady member was a revelation to many of those present.17

Muecke analyses this situation in terms of mimeticism, a literary theory developed from the idea of imitation.18 The choir’s performance is mimetic of the singing expected in a church, but the occasion is politicised by the use of the spoken word, as well as original lyrics, to raise issues of

13 Bruce and Calloway, op. cit., 95, 97. 14 Michael Parsons, ‘Ah, that I could convey a proper idea of this interesting wild play of the natives’: corroborees and the rise of Indigenous Australian cultural tourism’, Australian Aboriginal Studies, 2002/2, 21. 15 Stephen Muecke, Ancient and Modern: time, culture and Indigenous philosophy, UNSW Press, 2004, 30. 16 Muecke, op. cit., 32. 17 Muecke, op. cit., 33, citing Hobart Mercury, 3 March 1910, 2. 18 Muecke, op. cit., 32. 165 social justice; through the appropriation of Western music, the Aborigines could use their vocal performance tactically in pursuit of their own ends.19

The studies of Muecke, Bruce and Calloway suggest that while performances by Aborigines in front of a white audience could suggest Aborigines were being distanced from settlers’ space, these occasions should also be considered as more complex and negotiated encounters in which settlers could only enjoy the pure theatre of the past at the cost of a confrontation with the present. Bernard Smith added to the complexity of such encounters with his exposition of white guilt in his 1980 Boyer lecture, The Spectre of Truganini.20 In addition, Crystal McKinnon has observed that the mobility of Indigenous musicians in such choirs contributed to the circulation of knowledge and information that provided a basis for Indigenous resistance.21 These ideas will play a part in understanding how radio was used in relation to Aborigines from the 1920s.

Broadcasting corroborees: ‘weird chants on air’

The first broadcast of a corroboree was claimed by Radio 2BL in 1926.22 It took place in French’s Forest, a northern suburb of Sydney. One of the several newspapers covering the occasion noted:

Only two real aborigines were available for the stunt owing to the scarcity of the tribesmen nowadays, but “Bringa” (the authority on the aborigines who arranged the business) has a troup of boy scouts whom he has trained, and they are almost as effective as real blacks.23

The writer referred to the ‘stunt’ in the context of 1920s radio in which the broadcasting of ‘stunts’ was a popular feature that had included underwater and aerial broadcasts, occasions that excited considerable press coverage.24 ‘Bringa’, the organiser of the French’s Forest radio corroboree, was William Robertson.25 He presented many talks on 2BL from 1924 till 1932,

19 de Certeau, op.cit., 29–43; Crystal McKinnon, ‘Indigenous Music as a space of resistance’ in Making Settler Colonial Space: perspectives on race, place and identity, edited by Tracey Banivanua Mar and Penelope Edmonds, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2010, 257. 20 Smith, op. cit., 8. 21 McKinnon, op. cit., 266. 22 Northern Star (Lismore, NSW), 18 August 1926, 14, ‘Corroboree by Radio’. 23 ibid. 24 R. R. Walker (1973), op.cit.,11. 25 His talks were subsequently published, see W. Robertson, Cooee Talks, Angus and Robertson, Sydney 1928. Robertson’s origins are obscure; he is thought to have been born in Scotland and arrived in 166 telling stories of Aborigines in northern Queensland with whom he was reputed to have lived and learned their languages; by 1926, he appeared to have gained a following with one Sydney newspaper reporting ‘a good deal of inquiry’ into whether he was in fact Aborigine.26

The use of boy scouts for the first radio corroboree was not surprising as ‘corroborees’ became part of the calendar for boy scouts before World War I; the appropriation continued in the 1930s when a radio variety programme was called ‘The Sundowners’ Corroboree’.27 The folding of the corroboree into active settler culture can be understood as an endorsement of white proprietorship and entitlement; it was an acknowledgment of Indigenous culture on specific terms, in which the appearance of accommodation co-existed with harsh social control and the denial of political rights.

In 1926, there was no attempt to deceive the radio audience about the ethnicity of the 2BL corroboree performers. Yet boy scouts may well have been perceived as a poor substitute for ‘real aborigines’. Publicity for trips to Central Australia at the time boasted the chance to view an authentic corroboree; the much-publicised 1928 MacPherson automobile trip to Central Australia was equipped with radio transmitting gear and promised to capture ‘weird chants’.28 In June 1933, the Adelaide newspaper, Advertiser, claimed the first broadcast of ‘a wild blacks’ corroboree’ in South Australia.29 A newspaper in Western Australia made a similar claim in December that year with its radio columnist, Valve, reporting its ‘“howling” success’:

The singing being in original ‘Australian’, the radio audience could not grasp the purport of the recital, but one paterfamilias, who rejoiced in the name of Moses, provided the highlights… What amused “Valve” more than anything was 6WF's announcer jabbering

Australia round 1870, see obituary in Sydney Morning Herald, 29 November 1932, 8, ‘Bringa– Late William Robertson – An Appreciation, by T. B. Champion’. 26 Daily Telegraph (Sydney), 26 February 1926, 9, ‘Who’s Bringa?’. For listeners’ endorsements, see Australian Aborigines Advocate (Sydney), 31 December 1926, 3; 30 June 1927, 4. Robertson assisted with fund raising for a radio set for the Bombaderry Children’s Home. 27 For boy scout corroborees, see Daily Herald (Adelaide), 9 March 1912, 8, ‘The Chief Scout’; Northern Star (Lismore, NSW), 29 March 1920, 4, ‘Boy Scouts’ Rally’; Townsville Daily Bulletin (Queensland), 9 March 1929, 9, ‘Scout Notes: the WA Corroboree’; for Sundowners’ Corroboree, see Wireless Weekly, 7 July 1933, 58. 28 The Argus (Melbourne), 3 August 1927, 20, ‘Central Australian Tour’; Georgine Clarsen, ‘The 1928 MacRobertson Round Australia Expedition: Colonial Adventuring in the Twentieth Century’ in Expedition into empire: exploratory journeys and the making of the modern world, edited by Martin Thomas, New York, Routledge, 2014, 202. 29 Advertiser (Adelaide), 24 June 1933, 19, ‘First Broadcast of Corroboree’. 167

at Moses in pidgin English, “What fellow tribe you belong-a to?” and the aged abo's replies in fairly-well educated language.30

This report made a joke of the ‘howling’ success of the event while it also took a dig at the announcer: where, then, did it leave the Aboriginal speaker? Diane Collins has observed that nineteenth-century European explorers’ encounters with Aboriginal speech often resulted in the writing of gibberish and argued that this was a means of confirming the distance between each party.31 By this account, an Indigenous person who spoke good English challenged the ethnic hierarchy that was widely held to apply. ‘Valve’, the writer of the report, was not denying that Moses was an Aborigine, but equally made clear that he was not a wild one – his broadcast voice revealed he was somewhere in between. The joke was largely at the erroneous presumption of the white side of the encounter, with radio at the interface.

The question remains as to why ‘Valve’, the reporter, almost certainly white and writing for a largely white readership, should have included the remark. In his 1980 Boyer lectures for ABC radio, Bernard Smith speculated that, between the wars, guilt at the dispossession of Aborigines fuelled a moral compulsion amongst much of the white population; he proposed that this arose from consideration of the full implications of white occupation of the land.32 Judith Brett later developed Smith’s characterisation of white guilt as always present, if mostly repressed, in her analysis of political leader Robert Menzies’ position on race.33 Smith examined the origins and growth of moral conscience towards Aborigines in white Australia, identifying the interwar years as crucial for the products of the imagination to which it gave rise: key works are the novels Coonardoo by Katharine Susannah Pritchard and Capricornia by Xavier Herbert, published in 1929 and 1938 respectively, as well as paintings by Arthur Murch and shortly after, Josl Bergner and Russell Drysdale. For Smith, these ineluctably contributed to ‘the image of the Aborigine becoming a moral presence in Australian art.’34 Arguably the shift in perspective that allowed these works also influenced the thinking of others at the time, such as ‘Valve’ of Western Australia’s Sunday Times newspaper.

30 Sunday Times (Perth, WA), 24 December 1933, 11, ‘Broadcast Bouquets’. 31 Diane Collins, ‘Acoustic Journeys’ in Australian Historical Studies, Vol. 37, Issue 128, 2006, 11. 32 Smith, op. cit. 33 Judith Brett, Robert Menzies’ Forgotten People, Chippendale, Macmillan Australia, 1992, 171–172. 34 Smith, op. cit., 30–33. 168

Technology: bridge and division

Technology could be accorded two roles in reports of Indigenous encounters with radio: sometimes it was used to underscore cultural difference by juxtaposing modern science with ‘primitivism’; at other times, it pointed to Aboriginal agency in a modern world. Georgine Clarsen’s discussion of the 1928 MacRobertson expedition’s use of film in central Australia notes that Aborigines could add their own voice-overs to screenings.35 In a similar manner, radio could be an opportunity for establishing Aborigines’ connection to the contemporary world, as this newspaper report showed in 1927:

On the subject of aborigines, it may be mentioned, as a sign of the times, that at the Lismore Show this month three full-blooded aborigines each bought a multi-valve receiving set.36

Newspapers often reported fundraising drives to provide wireless receivers for Aboriginal settlements, presenting radio as a space open to Indigenous listeners.37 This is in stark contrast to the segregation of audiences at cinemas in regional townships where shared space involved actual physical closeness.38 Radio space was dispersed and the communities it created were compatible with geographical and bodily distance.

There are hints that Aborigines were not indifferent to the way in which they were represented. In 1934, 2SM producer John Pickard in Sydney sought Indigenous actors for a radio drama, an occasion that suggests parallels with former AIF members’ involvement in broadcasts of Anzac- themed dramas. The Pickard production was a serial about bushrangers that would include two episodes on the events surrounding the Governor brothers.39 Joe and Jimmy Governor, mixed race brothers, had murdered nine settlers, including three children and a baby, in the course of a rampage in northern NSW in 1900. Joe was killed during the subsequent chase; Jimmy was caught, found guilty and hanged. Later they were understood by the mainstream community as

35 Clarsen, op. cit., 202. 36Western Grazier (Wilcannia), 7 May 1927, 2, ‘Wireless’; a valve radio, let alone multivalve, was an expensive and sophisticated piece of equipment at the time. 37 Daily Standard (Brisbane), 19 July 1928, 8, ‘Motorists’ Trek Round Australia’; ‘Bringa’, the 2BL broadcaster was active in securing wireless sets for Aboriginal settlements, Armidale Chronicle, 30 April 1927, 3, ’Radio for Aboriginals’; Catholic Freeman’s Journal, June 13, 1940, 3, ‘Donations of portable wireless sets’. 38 Maria Nugent, ‘“Every right to be there”: Cinema spaces and racial politics in Baz Luhrmann’s Australia’, Australian Humanities Review, Issue 51, November 2011, 5 - 23. 39 Wireless Weekly, 18 May 1934, 14, 21. 169 having been victims of racism and dispossession; they had experienced continuous disputes over pay and relentless taunts about Jimmy’s marriage to a white woman. Arguably these aspects of their lives were known amongst Aborigines. Pickard approached the La Perouse Aboriginal community in southern Sydney for participants in his radio production; despite several of its members’ experience as film actors, they declined to participate.40

Reports of Aborigines speaking over the air were slowly growing; this is significant as it was a time when, as Joy Damousi has demonstrated, the public use of the voice conferred status on the speaker.41 A corroboree broadcast in Queensland in December 1932 included a commentary by the Queensland Chief Protector of Aborigines, as well as the voices of three Indigenous elders:

After the corroboree had been concluded Tommy Walters (King of the Cooktown tribe), Yabba Yabba (King of the South Burnett tribe) and ‘Jenny Lind’ (Queen of the Baramdah tribe) came to the microphone and without any evidence of ‘microphone fright’ broadcast a message of greeting to his Majesty the King of England.42

Many newspapers in Queensland covered the event, which was transmitted by shortwave to the rest of the world: this Brisbane report praised the Indigenous speakers and regional papers were likewise positive in their reports of the occasion.43

An interest in broadcasting ‘authentic’ Indigenous sound persisted till the end of the decade. In 1939, the South Australia press followed the expedition of Charles Madigan across the Simpson Desert. Madigan’s trip was written up as ground breaking. Newspapers across Australia reported that it was the first-time regular radio broadcasts would track an outback venture.44 As the expedition reached its most remote point, the News (Adelaide) wrote:

40 G. P. Walsh, 'Governor, Jimmy (1875–1901)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/governor-jimmy- 6439/text11017, published first in hardcopy 1983, accessed online 8 September 2015; Jimmy Governor’s story is the subject of the 1973 book by Thomas Keneally and 1978 film ‘The Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith’. 41 Damousi, op. cit., 216. 42 Telegraph (Brisbane), 19 December 1932, 1 ‘The World Listens! Native Corroborees, Interesting Broadcast’. 43 This is in contrast to the reaction of the Listener In magazine to the inclusion of a corroboree in Australia’s ‘World Concert’ broadcast through the IBU in 1938; several letters and columns deplored the broadcast of material that would present Australia to the world as ‘a black man’s country’, see Listener In, 19 March 1938, cover ‘World Concert Programme– Unworthy of Occasion’, and Listener In, April 2 1938, 3. 44 The Mail (Adelaide), 10 June 1939, 12, ‘Talks from Desert: Dr Madigan may make radio history’. The claim to be an historic first is contradicted by the MacRobertson automobile circuit in 1928, although radio ownership was barely 1 in 8 households in 1928 and almost universal by the end of the 1930s. 170

When Mr Madigan broadcasts from the heart of the Simpson Desert tomorrow night he will introduce to Australian listeners a new radio personality – Andy, a full-blooded Aboriginal…. The broadcast will be unique in Australian radio history, as it will be the first time a full-blooded aboriginal has spoken over the national network.45

Andy addressed the nation to wish everybody well – in English.46 While Andy’s surname was omitted, the detail of his ethnicity as a ‘full-blooded’ Aborigine was not. The repetition of this description suggests the ‘lure and fascination’ that Annette Hamilton proposes Aborigines held for the settler population at this time.47 ‘Full blood’ expressed an intriguing exoticism, while also maintaining a comfortable measure of remoteness; mixed race, or ‘half caste’, had negative connotations of proximity and loss of control. Throughout this period, Indigenous individuals were rarely written about without the qualification ‘full blood’ or ‘half caste’. The repetition of the terms reinforced the perceived right of white Australians to categorise Aborigines: white control over the discourse mirrored settler power over Aborigines in other contexts.48 The debate over what constituted ‘Aboriginal’ has been an enduring aspect of Australian race relations and figured in early radio broadcasts both implicitly and explicitly. Its explicit treatment in the 1930s could be heard in the increasing number of talks presented by anthropologists.

The voice of experts

In 1933, May Couchman, the sole woman commissioner of the newly-formed Australian Broadcasting Commission proposed a series of talks addressing the living conditions of Aborigines.49 Couchman’s active interest in politics and her allegiance to the British Empire have figured in earlier chapters of this thesis. She was well connected and energetic; as the president of a large women’s organisation, the Australian Women’s National League, she was

Newspaper coverage interstate of the Madigan expedition broadcasts included The Argus (Melbourne), 19 June 1939, 2, ‘Explorer Talks– Desert Broadcast’; Daily News (Sydney), 2 June 1939, 4 ‘Broadcast from the Desert’; Daily Advertiser (Wagga), 3 June 1939, 4, ‘Dr Madigan’s Party on the way, Broadcast over National Stations’; Daily Mercury (Mackay, Queensland), 27 May 1939, 4 ‘Broadcast from Desert’; Daily News (Perth, WA), 17 June 1939, 31, Your Radio today 5pm’. 45 News (Adelaide), 16 June 1939, 5. 46 Advertiser (Adelaide), 22 June 1939, 18. 47 Hamilton, op. cit., 118. 48 Patrick Wolfe on settler classification of Indigenous people, The Settler Complex: Recuperating Binarism in Colonial Studies, edited by Patrick Wolfe, Los Angeles, American Indian Studies Center, 2016, 2, 5–6. 49 Inglis, op. cit., 31. 171 likely to have been well informed about issues that involved women. While Couchman herself does not figure in records of women active in race debates, it was an issue in which women were particularly prominent.50 Marilyn Lake has argued for the significant role of feminists who campaigned in Australia and through networks overseas in increasing overall awareness of the situation of Aborigines.51

In 1933, Indigenous issues were brought starkly before the broader public. The year was marked as the centenary of the abolition of slavery in Britain and new humanitarian associations were formed across Australia.52 In June, a meeting in London of the British Commonwealth League was widely reported.53 Ruby Rich read aloud a letter by Mary Bennett, a West Australian campaigner for Aboriginal rights, in which she detailed the appalling sexual abuse of Aboriginal women by white men.54 Bennett’s words galvanized the League’s members, who passed a resolution calling on Australian women’s societies ‘to combine to direct their governments’ attention to conditions akin to slavery under which detribalized and half-castes lived.’55 In September 1933, Western Australia announced a Royal Commission into the treatment and living conditions of Aborigines, its terms of reference including wages and Government child protection practices.56 In the same month, many newspapers across the country reported that Melbourne-based Aboriginal activist William Cooper had launched a petition to King George V for Aboriginal representation in Federal parliament.57

50 Couchman is not mentioned in authoritative studies of white women’s activism in relation to indigenous issues, such as Uncommon ground: white women in aboriginal history, edited by Anna Cole, Victoria Haskins and Fiona Paisley, Canberra, Aboriginal Studies Press, 2005, nor in studies by historians Heather Goodall, Anna Haebich and Bain Attwood. Couchman was a student in Perth from 1913 to 1917 and likely had good contacts with WA women interested in public affairs, whether or not they were actively part of the campaign to raise awareness of the plight of Indigenous women. 51 Lake (1999), op. cit., 116; Aboriginal rights could be on the margins for some women who were otherwise active in feminist campaigning, see Lana Hall thesis, ‘Feminism in Flux: Indigenous Rights Activism and the Evolution of Feminism in New South Wales 1930-1960’, BA Hons thesis, University of Sydney, 2006, 45; and Anna Haebich, Broken Circles: fragmenting indigenous families 1800–2000, Fremantle, Fremantle Arts Centre Press, 2000, 338, on Bessie Rischbieth specifically. 52 Tigger Wise, The Self-Made Anthropologist: a life of A.P. Elkin, Sydney, George Allen & Unwin, 1985,121 53 The Age (Melbourne), 14 June 1933, 9, ‘Treatment of Aboriginals – Misstatements published in London’. 54 Fiona Paisley, Loving Protection? Australian Feminism and Aboriginal Women’s Rights 1919-1939, Carlton, Melbourne University Press, 2000, 114–115. 55 Daily News (Perth, WA), 17 June 1933, 18, ‘Natives are virtually slaves’; The Herald (Melbourne), 8 September 1933, 9, ‘Arnhem Expedition- Appeal to Women’. 56 The Age (Melbourne), 1 September 1933, 11, ‘Far West Aborigines, Allegations of Ill-treatment, Move for Royal Commission’, 8 September 1933, 9, ‘Maltreatment of Aborigines– A Royal Commission’; full report of commission, http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj- 52802043/view;jsessionid=udsko4j811vx1es1m9donrz7a accessed online 18 September 2015. 57 Bain Attwood and Andrew Markus, Thinking Black: William Cooper and Australian Aborigines' League Canberra, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, 2004, 7; News (Adelaide), 15 September 1933, 1, ’Natives to seek seat in Parliament, Petition to King’; The Herald (Melbourne),15 September 1933, 2, ‘M.H.R. for Natives? King to be Petitioned’. 172

The combined reports of violated women, international opprobrium and Cooper’s bold declaration may have been the impetus for Couchman’s proposal at the ABC commission meeting on 18 September 1933 for a series of radio talks about contemporary Aboriginal living conditions. The meeting’s minutes make no record of any discussion, making it difficult to pin down Couchman’s position as one of sympathy with the Indigenous cause or alternatively, a belief that matters were not so bad and needed redress.58 Either way it confirms that she saw radio as a vehicle for addressing the issue and, in this respect, she stands out from other commissioners of the time. In the event, her programme suggestion was quashed by then General Manager of the ABC, Major Conder, who observed that it was ‘a question of government policy and any allusion might result in controversy’.59 Conder had come to the ABC from a background in theatre; the principal ambition of the ABC chairman of the time, department store scion Charles Lloyd Jones, was the establishment of a national orchestra.60

The ABC was prepared to broadcast about Aborigines in a less controversial manner. In 1934, Professor Frederick Wood Jones of the University of Melbourne was commissioned to present a series of three talks entitled ‘Tasmania’s Vanished Race’.61 They were repeated in 1935, possibly to promote the publication of the book of the talks, which was favourably reviewed in the Hobart Mercury under the headline ‘Australia’s Vanishing [sic] Race’:

[As] Professor of Anatomy in the University of Melbourne, he is eminently qualified to handle his subject … The work is a scientific groundwork on which can be built a clear understanding of a race which is today one of the pointers on the road of human development, as indicating the distance travelled.62

58 There is no immediate suggestion in the papers of the AWNL that it concerned itself with Indigenous people; while many individuals and organisations expressed concern about the situation of Aborigines, others were confident that the government was making the best of a difficult situation. For instance, the writer Constance Mackness described her positive observations of Cherbourg settlement in Queensland, saying ‘it gave me a pardonable sense of pride in what our government is doing for these poor people’; see Sydney Morning Herald, 27 April 1934, 15. 59 Ken Inglis was later to remark, ‘dead Aborigines were less controversial’, see Inglis, op.cit., 31. 60 Ruth Thompson, ‘Jones, Charles Lloyd (1878–1958)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/jones -charles- glloyd-6869/text11901, published first in hardcopy 1983, accessed online 9 Sept 2015. 61 Inglis, op.cit., 31; Newcastle Sun (NSW), 27 June 1934, 4, ‘The Vanishing People- Authoritative Talk on Aborigines- National Programme’. 62 The Mercury (Hobart), 30 March 1935, 6, ‘The World of Books– Australian Vanishing Race’; the repeat broadcasts were February 26, March 6 and March 12, 1935. Tasmania’s Vanished Race, by Frederick Wood Jones, Australian Broadcasting Commission, 1935. Sydney Morning Herald, 26 January 1935, 13, ‘Lo! The Poor Aborigine’. 173

This comment is indicative of the ABC’s part in constructing white attitudes of the time, namely, that understanding Aborigines required scientific training and a philosophy of human development.63 It effectively excluded Aborigines themselves from the authority to speak on their own behalf. Edward Said, drawing on Foucault’s theory of discourse, developed a concept of the ‘textual universe’ to explain the operation of Orientalism; the characterisation by the west of the ‘oriental’ east as remote, unchanging, and unchangeable can be applied to depictions of Aboriginal culture as ancient and unvarying.64 Anthropologists took centre stage to speak with the authority of experts at a time when, as has been noted earlier, ‘experts’ were to the fore; they constructed knowledge about Aborigines as part of a modern ‘scientific’ discourse.65 While there are several listings showing the incidence of anthropologists’ talks on radio, there are few surviving scripts. The published version of Wood Jones’ series is an opportunity to consider the detail of one such example.66

In his broadcasts, Wood Jones objectified the Indigenous Tasmanians as scientific specimens: he discussed their skin colour, hair, facial features, skull and height measurement, all the while stressing the need for dispassionate observation by those trained in anthropology. He contrasted this approach with that of the French, of whom he said, ‘enthusiasm outran scientific accuracy’.67 He explained the exclusion of any consideration of Aborigines’ cultural or ceremonial life as due to the absence of surviving data; he regretted that the community was almost decimated before thorough testing could be completed, describing it as ‘humiliating’ that it occurred ‘during the very period that many would point to as being the golden age of British biological science.’68 In the third talk, he was unequivocal in condemning the nineteenth-century British who allowed Aborigines in Tasmania to die in such numbers, acknowledging the ‘barbarities practiced by the whites upon the native race’; he considered explanations for the actions that led to the Tasmanian genocide as a mistaken belief in God’s will, and concluded with an assurance that God’s word could be replaced with that of the trained anthropologist:

It may be that some of us can see more no more in the story of the last thirty years than a total lack by those in authority of any sort of understanding of the elements of

63 Patrick Wolfe, Settler Colonialism and the Transformation of Anthropology, London, Cassell, 1999, 3. 64 Edward Said, Orientalism New York, Penguin Books, 1995, 94. 65 Macintyre (2009), op. cit., 188; 189. 66 Frederick Wood Jones, Tasmania’s Vanished Race, Melbourne, Australian Broadcasting Commission, 1935. 67 Wood Jones, op. cit., 20–21 68 Wood Jones, op. cit., 22. 174

anthropology– in the absence of which no man should attempt to administer the affairs of an alien– and especially a backward race. And this dictum has perhaps some moral application when the present state of affairs in Australia is considered.69

The closing words of Wood Jones’ final talk show that the series was intended to be taken as prescriptive for the future as much as descriptive of the past: it also conferred a central role on anthropologists in that task. Throughout the 1930s, talks were broadcast by other anthropologists, from eminent professors such as Radcliffe-Brown in 1930 and field worker Donald Thomson in 1937; these were generally broadcast in the evening on national relay, a context that immediately conferred status on them.70

University of Sydney Professor of Anthropology A. P. Elkin took an interest in radio, often broadcasting as president of the Association for the Protection of Native Races. The Association was established in Sydney in 1911 out of concern for Pacific Islanders; in the 1920s, it turned its attention to Aborigines and campaigned on legal, economic and social fronts.71 Its surviving papers refer to radio broadcasts by various members.72 Elkin was an advisor to government later, when he advocated for a role for anthropologists ‘to guide administrators with insights that would assist in raising primitive races in the cultural scale.’73 These attitudes were cited later in radio broadcasts by Aborigines themselves in their protests against the paternalism of anthropologists. It is not clear whether their objections would have included the renegade anthropologist Olive Pink, whose talks on Sydney’s 2KY combined paternalism with some recognition of Indigenous agency.

Olive Pink on 2KY

Anthropologist Olive Pink’s views were articulated in a distinctive manner. She gave at least two talks on Sydney radio 2KY in 1938 and 1940. 2KY was licensed by the Trades and Labour Council and her talks were in all likelihood organised by Tom Wright, Secretary of the Sheetmetal Workers Union and Vice-President of the Labor Council in NSW; Wright was

69 Wood Jones, op. cit., 32. 70 Professor Radcliffe Brown, Northern Star (Lismore) 24 May 1930, 15, ‘University Extension Board Inaugural lecture’ (series of talks); Donald Thomson, Macleay Argus (NSW), 29 October 1937, 2, ‘I live with the Aborigines’ (series). 71 Daily Advertiser (Wagga), 26 August 1933, 8, ‘2FC Sydney’; evening talk by AP Elkin on ‘the Aboriginal question’. 72 Elkin papers, University of Sydney Archives, 130; Catriona Elder Dreams and nightmares of a white Australia: representing Aboriginal assimilation in the mid-twentieth century, Bern, Peter Lang, 2009, 55. 73 Macintyre, op. cit., 189. 175 instrumental in persuading the Communist Party and Labor Council to adopt a policy of Aboriginal ownership of tribal lands.74 Pink met Wright in 1938 and they were friends until her death in 1975. Olive Pink had been a student of Elkin and was employed by him in the early 1930s to research Aborigines in Central Australia. She had two important papers published in 1933 and 1936, but her relationship with Elkin and other senior anthropologists later turned sour.75 Undeterred, Pink relied on her own funds to continue living and working amongst Indigenous communities near Alice Springs. For many she was a marginal figure in anthropology, but her activism for Aboriginal rights commanded notice.76

Her first radio talk in September 1938 is a personal account of her experiences in the Northern Territory. Her script began in the manner of a travel talk, as she described in colourful terms the difficulties of transporting eggs on a camel. Scenic details gave way to the real subject of her broadcast – the political predicament of Aborigines and their participation in what she saw as an unequal exchange:

The so called giving [her underlining] of citizen rights and of education to Aborigines…[is] a callous, planned taking away of everything the 50,000 full bloods – the only Aborigines – hold dear’.77

For Pink, Indigenous culture was jeopardised by the actions of missionaries and government: she advocated Aboriginal reserves free of both.78 She gave a second talk in May 1940 on 2KY, in which her opening words set a task for listeners:

Good evening, fellow white Australians Will you pretend, for the ten minutes I have, that you are sitting near the little campfires of a lot of blackfellows, and in between our discussion asking them their own views… If you can [her underlining] imagine yourselves there, you will be more in the mood to think ‘with’, instead of just ‘for’ the Aborigines. And it is only by thinking with them that

74 Audrey Johnson, ‘Tom Wright and Olive M. Pink’, in The Olive Pink Society Bulletin, Vol. 6, No. 2, 1994, 4; John Shields, ‘Wright, Thomas (Tom), (1902–1981), Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/wright-thomas-tom- 15654/text26849, published first in hardcopy 2012, accessed online 14 May 2018. 75 Julie Marcus, The Indomitable Miss Pink: A Life in Anthropology Sydney: UNSW Press, 2002 76 The Olive Pink Society was formed in 1988. 77 Olive Pink Papers, MS 2368, A (c) (9) (ii), 1–12, AIATSIS. 78 ibid. 176

we shall ever have the sympathetic insight enough to obtain ‘givings’ for them that they do not, themselves, look on only as a FURTHER TAKING AWAY [her capitals].79

Pink presented her call to white listeners to ‘think’ themselves black as reasonable and necessary. She argued in her 1940 broadcast that Aboriginal women were particularly vulnerable and suggested that the attention of missionaries would be better directed to white men. She insisted that assimilation should be the choice of Aborigines and urged ‘sanctuaries’ located on appropriate tribal lands for specific groups. Her talk concluded in a language from the Central Desert:

Let us get justice and freedom of a real nature… May I say goodnight to you in the black’s (sic) own words as we leave their campfires NORJU MUZA WALALJA YABBAGULOZ.80

Pink’s use of an Indigenous language was a rare acknowledgment of the independent culture of Aborigines. She used the sonic space of radio, firstly to recognise the different publics that co- existed in Australia, and secondly, to propose that white Australians might listen to Aborigines – and that this might require accommodation by white listeners. It implicitly acknowledged the political nature of radio and the politicisation of listening. Furthermore, Pink was not alone in maintaining the significance of this in a cross-cultural context.

Aborigines at the microphone

The ABC’s interwar editorial attitudes limited opportunities for many potential speakers; earlier chapters have shown how women, scientists and those critical of government policy had restricted access to the microphone. This gatekeeping role was far less evident in the commercial sector and many interest groups were able to obtain radio airtime for a fee or as a favour. Some of those able to broadcast were campaigners for Indigenous rights. The Aborigines Uplift Society, a Victorian missionary organisation described by historian Heather Goodall as ‘unusually supportive of Aboriginal political activity’ used radio to spread word of their beliefs, as well as solicit funds, with talks broadcast in Melbourne and the Victorian regional town of Hamilton.81 Their broadcasts on Melbourne commercial radio 3UZ in 1940 were later printed.82

79 Transcript of talk, 1 May 1940, Olive Pink Papers MS 2368, D (17) (i), 1 AIATSIS. 80 Olive Pink Papers, AIATSIS, op. cit., 8. 81 Horsham Times (Victoria), 16 June 1939, 2 ‘Broadcast talk on Aborigines’; ‘Mr Gillespie Douglas conducts an Aboriginal Uplift Society session at 6.30pm’, The Argus, 3 May 1940, 2, ‘3UZ, Broadcasting Highlights’. 82 Morley, N. M., Australia’s Tragic Error, Aboriginal Uplift Society, 1940, 13. 177

In South Australia, Phyllis Duguid and Constance Ternery Cooke gave radio broadcasts about the work of the Aborigines’ Protection League in that state.83

The most documented use of radio to generate attention to Aborigines was by Australian writer and activist P. R. Stephensen. In 1936, Stephenson began broadcasting every Monday evening on Sydney radio station 2SM; businessman William Miles paid £10 for the slot.84 The airtime was used for the promotion of Stephensen’s campaign for an Australian culture that has been described as simultaneously anti-British, pro-fascist, pro-monarchical, pro-Aboriginal and anti- Semitic.85 Stephensen is often described as a maverick because of his shift in political allegiance from left to extreme right: he translated Lenin in the mid 1920s and supported National Socialism in 1940, for which he was interned. His interest in radio led to a lengthy collaboration with travel broadcaster Frank Clune whose lively talks are thought to owe as much to the pen of Stephensen as Clune’s own delivery.86 In the 1930s, Stephensen developed an enduring commitment to Aboriginal rights. This arose out of his opposition to Australia’s continuing membership of the British Empire and its cultural identification as British; he identified Australian cultural identity with the land itself, subscribing to a form of environmental determinism. He viewed Aborigines as the genuine Australians, with an unqualified claim to citizenship; despite his later political views, he is viewed now with some respect for his lasting friendships with Aborigines and their families.87

On-air and in-print he championed the cause of Aborigines, describing his first-hand observations of appalling living conditions in government-run settlements and promoting Indigenous demands for social and economic rights. In November 1937, he informed his 2SM listeners of the Aborigines’ Progressive Association (APA), a group recently formed by Aborigines with finance from Miles, with the explicit goal of obtaining full citizenship rights for all people of Indigenous descent:

83 Holland, op. cit., 282, 110. The Theosophy community in Australia supported Indigenous rights and possibly 2GB provided more airtime than is currently known. 84 Cunneen (1986), op. cit. 85 ibid.; Craig Munro (1990), ‘Stephensen, Percy Reginald (1901–1965)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/stephensen-percy-reginald-8645/text15115, published first in hardcopy 1990, accessed online 28 June 2015; Craig Munro (1984), Inky Stephensen: wild man of letters, St Lucia, University of Queensland Press, 1984, 177; Murray, op. cit., 145. 86 Munro (1984), op. cit., 39; see also Bridget Griffen-Foley (2011), 'Digging up the past: Frank Clune, Australian historian and multi-media personality', History Australia, Vol. 8, No. 1, 2011, 129 87 Heather Goodall, Invasion to Embassy: land in Aboriginal politics in New South Wales, 1770–1972, St Leonards, Allen & Unwin, 1996, 237–8. 178

The Aborigines are not asking for charity, and they are not asking for pity and, above all, they are not asking to be “scientifically” studied.88

With these words, Stephensen directly contested the anthropologists who had over several years talked, written and broadcast of their authority to determine Aboriginal matters. This had always taken place without the participation of Aborigines and the situation was slowly being resisted. As radio had contributed to build it up, so broadcasting had a part in the opposition.

The leadership of Aboriginal political groups was well aware of the importance of publicity, and the interwar years were peppered with speeches and petitions.89 In late 1937, William Cooper, co-founder of the Victorian Aborigines Advancement League (AAL), was joined by William Ferguson in NSW to name 26 January 1938 ‘the day of mourning’.90 This was a dramatic move, re-describing the sesquicentenary of British settlement of Australia for which many celebratory events were planned. The Aboriginal action was accompanied by a manifesto and culminated in a conference in Sydney. The sole criterion for attendance was to be of ‘Aboriginal descent’, dissolving the categories of full blood and mixed race; a hundred men and women from NSW and Victoria attended.91 The NSW leadership of the APA, Ferguson and Jack Patten, publicised the day in a succession of radio interviews with Stephensen from November 1937. The transcripts of most of the interviews have survived and warrant citing at length:

Stephensen: Good evening listeners. This evening I have a surprise for you, I have with me in the studio Mr Bill Ferguson, organising secretary of the Aborigines Progressive Association, who has come to Sydney from Dubbo, for the purpose of stirring up interest in the Aboriginal cause… let me introduce Mr Ferguson- Ferguson: Good evening everybody… this association has been formed by the Aborigines themselves, to draw attention to the fact that the Aborigines

88 P. R. Stephensen papers, SLNSW ML MSS 1284 44 (127). 89 Bain Attwood, Rights for Aborigines Allen & Unwin, 2003, 61; one petition dates from 1882, in Coranderrk, Vic, see Michael Rose, For the Record: 160 years of Aboriginal print journalism, St. Leonards, Allen & Unwin, 1996, xxviii. 90 Richard Broome, Fighting Hard: the Victorian Aborigines Advancement League, Canberra, Aboriginal Studies Press, 2015, 9; Heather Goodall (1996) refers to the day as ‘William Cooper’s brilliantly symbolic plan’, op. cit., 230. 91 Australian Abo Call, 1, 1 April 1938, 2. 179

and half castes of Australia are not receiving a square deal from the white people…we are merely asking for equal citizen rights… to be treated as normal, average members of this Australian community – full wages, the right to own property, and to education … Stephensen: The whole trouble is that we have all been taught to look upon the Aborigine as a backward race? Ferguson: Yes, but why are the Aborigines backwards? Can you honestly claim [we have had] the same education, the same opportunities?92

The following week, Jack Patten was interviewed and spoke forcefully:

We ask you white people whether your conscience is clear in regard to the treatment of the Australian blacks by the Australian whites during the period of 150 years history which you celebrate... Your policy of government “protection” so-called is killing us off just as surely as the pioneer policy of giving us poisoned damper and shooting us down like dingoes… We are made into objects of ridicule by comic cartoonists, who jeer at our misfortune… The caricatures of “Jacky-Jacky” have given Australians a false idea of the mentality of Aborigines.93

Patten appeared on several occasions, on one occasion to discuss a Select committee appointed by the NSW parliament to investigate the administration of the Aborigines Protection board. Stephensen continued in later weeks to push the case, also speaking directly to the radio audience:

Good evening listeners. During the past few weeks you have heard Aborigines broadcasting from this “Publicist” session. I believe as a matter of fact that it is the first time in the history of broadcasting in Australia that Aborigines have spoken over the radio on serious political topics. Many of you may have been surprised to hear them speaking what is called Good English; ... but why should you be surprised to hear them speaking in a dignified way? … Are we going to let things drift? … Honestly, listeners,

92 Transcript of Publicist talk, 2SM, 8 November 1937, SLNSW, PR Stephensen papers, ML MSS 1284 44. 93 Transcript of Publicist talk, 2SM, 15 November 1937, SLNSW, PR Stephensen papers ML MSS 1284 44 (127). 180

what is the policy of each one of you regarding Aborigines? Have you any policy? Are you satisfied with things as they are?94

The broadcasts were covered in some of the local newspapers. A letter to the high-circulation Sydney Morning Herald by one listener began ‘I listened keenly to the recent radio address of Mr J. Patten’; this correspondent asked that ‘the Press and the broadcasting stations give more scope in their programmes to the dissemination of information … on aboriginal lore and problems.’95 On 13 December, Stephensen referred directly to Aborigines amongst the listening audience:

I suppose you have heard the sensational news that the APA has proclaimed Australia Day, Wednesday 26th January next, as a “day of mourning” for Aborigines. I have with me a copy of the printed proclamation which they have issued. In fact, I have been asked to read this proclamation to you, as there are many Aborigines who listen-in to this session in NSW and other states, and they want to know the details that have been finally arranged. Will all my Aboriginal listeners please take careful note and pass the word around amongst their friends?96

These words characterised radio for its potential inclusiveness, its invisible signal unhindered and unstoppable. Moreover, Stephensen was using the medium to tell his audience that black business could exclude whites. Radio was being used to recognise Indigenous listeners in a way that was rarely encouraged in the wider community; it also opened up the possibilities for politicised listening that were developed by other speakers.

Pearl Gibbs on air

The NSW Aborigines Progressive Association benefited from the energy and commitment of Bill Ferguson and Jack Patten; however, it was also to suffer when they fell out in mid-1938. Amongst the large membership the Association had attracted at its foundation was Pearl Gibbs. Gibbs, born in La Perouse in Sydney and brought up in western NSW till the age of 16, was

94 Transcript of Publicist talk, 2SM, 29 November 1937, SLNSW, PR Stephensen papers, ML MSS 1284 44 (127). 95 Jean S. Bowden, letter to Sydney Morning Herald, 29 December 1938, 4, ’The Aborigines’ Problem’. 96 Transcript of Publicist talk, 2SM, 13 December 1937, SLNSW, P.R. Stephensen papers, ML MSS 1284 44 (127). 181 politicised as a young woman and joined the committee of the APA in 1937.97 She played a major role in Indigenous politics for many years, from assisting with the organisation of the 1938 Day of Mourning to earning a reputation as a powerful public speaker.98 In 1941, she spoke on Radios 2GB in Sydney and 2WL in Wollongong – the text of this talk has since been reproduced in many anthologies documenting the campaign by Aborigines for equal rights.99 The 2GB broadcast was organised by Michael Sawtell, an active supporter of Aboriginal rights and at this time a committed member of the Sydney Theosophical Society.100 Pearl Gibbs was an experienced speaker and her words to the microphone were compelling:

Good evening listeners. It is the first time in the history of Australia that an Aboriginal woman has broadcast an appeal for her people. I am more than happy to be that woman. My people have had 153 years of the white man’s and the white woman’s cruelty and injustice and unchristian treatment imposed upon us.101

Her talk exposed the harsh working conditions and pitiful pay of Aboriginal girls, the denial of welfare entitlements to Aborigines and pointed to the assistance Aborigines had given to the white development of Australia. She finished by again addressing the audience directly:

My friends … we Aborigines need help and encouragement, the same as you white people. We ask help, education, from your white government. Please remember, we don’t want your pity, but practical help. Do not let it be said of you that we have asked in vain.102

Gibbs’ use of the first person, speaking ‘as’ and ‘for’ Aborigines, was a potent feature of her talk. She was not responding to an interviewer, as was the case with the Stephensen broadcasts; she had the authority of a sole speaker. Her talk in 1941 was heard by many and its words, if not the sound of her voice, ensured that her ethnicity was communicated to the audience.103

97 Heather Goodall, 'Gibbs, Pearl Mary (Gambanyi) (1901–1983)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/gibbs- pearl-mary-gambanyi-12533/text22555, published first in hardcopy 2007, accessed online 27 May 2018 98 Goodall (1996), op. cit., 212–3; Sydney Morning Herald, 12 February 1938, 20, ‘Treatment of Aborigines: Mrs P. Gibbs’s Outburst’; Sydney Morning Herald, 22 April 1938, 14, ‘Judge’s remarks criticised’; Sydney Morning Herald, 4 August 1938, 12, ‘Social Diary of the Week’. 99 Kevin Gilbert, Because a White Man will never do it, Brisbane, Angus & Robertson 1973, 13–16. 100 As noted earlier, the Theosophical Society often shared amongst groups whom it supported the four broadcast sessions a week that it retained after the sale of radio station 2GB in 1936, Roe, op. cit., 371–3. 101 Gilbert, op. cit., 13. 102 ibid. 103 Goodall (2007), op. cit., notes that there were many listeners to the 1941 talk. 182

Writing out Indigenous speakers

Press reports of radio appearances by Aboriginal speakers between the wars did not always make clear the speaker’s ethnicity. This is well demonstrated with two press responses to a talk by Pastor Doug Nicholls, a former star footballer and treasurer of the Australian Aborigines League. In 1939, Nicholls spoke on 3SR, the commercial radio station in Shepparton, northern Victoria. The Melbourne Argus printed a letter from a listener:

Mr Nicholls, himself an Aborigine, put before listeners a wonderful case for the deliverance of the dark race from the wrongs placed upon them by our various legislatures. The present position is one of which Australians cannot feel proud. The electors and Parliamentarians should profit by the advice given by such men as Mr Nicholls.104

The same broadcast by Doug Nicholls was reported in the Shepparton News. The complete text is shown here:

Ex-footballer speaks at church Mr Doug Nicholls, the former Fitzroy League footballer, visited Shepparton yesterday and after broadcasting from 3SR, addressed the congregation at the evening service at the Church of Christ.105

The omission of any detail neutralized the political impact of the talk. This example demonstrates the power of the press choosing whether or not to alert its readership to the political nature of radio, in this instance the groundswell of Indigenous resistance between the wars. It also highlights the difficulty in determining the extent to which radio was used to spread a message that challenged mainstream attitudes towards Aborigines.

Aborigines could be written out of broadcasts in many ways, as the cultural appropriation of Indigenous motifs by white writers and composers paralleled the physical taking of land and resources. Spoken-word broadcasts of Aboriginal myths and legends figured frequently in listings throughout the 1930s, along with explicit references to Aborigines in music.106 In 1938,

104 H. Russell, letter to editor, The Argus (Melbourne), 21 December 1939, 2, ‘Aborigines Problem’. 105 Shepparton News (Victoria), 18 December 1939, 2, ‘Ex-footballer speaks at church’. 106 For example, West Australian (Perth), 10 April 1931, 18, ‘Broadcast Programmes’ listing of talk by H. Ward on ‘Aboriginal Myths and Legends’; Australian Women’s Weekly, 8 Sept 1934, 3, ‘Let’s Talk of 183 the ABC marked the opening of a radio station in Tasmania with the broadcast of a new operetta:

In “Bush Legend” an attempt has been made to capture in music the atmosphere of the Australian bush and at the same time, weave an idealized conception of the primitive aborigine as he was in ages past, long before his contact with the white race.107

Within this description is a reference, or possibly a preference, for the Aborigine of pre-contact days. It reinforced the idea that greater respect for Aborigines was possible when they were remote, whether confined to the past or geographically distant; it also underscored the reluctance of white Australians to deal with the people of mixed heritage in their urban midst. The composition ‘Bush Legend’, and others like it during the interwar years, referenced Aboriginality within a broader intellectual environment in which Aborigines were viewed as on the brink of extinction.108

However, several Indigenous choirs were broadcast during the 1930s and their performances of Western music could be used to draw attention to contemporary Aboriginal issues. This created a mediated form of the pre-World War I Tasmanian church performances discussed earlier; it also followed the use of musical performance in Aboriginal activism in the 1920s. John Maynard has argued that the early political organisations for Indigenous rights in Australia were informed by developments in the US, particularly their emphasis on publicity.109 Indigenous man Charlie Leon, a former vaudeville performer, used his theatrical experience at fundraising concerts for the Australian Aborigines Progressive Association between 1924 and 1927.110 William Ferguson, founder of the NSW Aborigines Progressive Association, stressed the need

Interesting People– Mrs C. Price-Conigrave, collector of Aboriginal songs’; 2FC Aboriginalia concert programme listing, Wireless Weekly 16 July 1937, 48. 107 Huon and Derwent Times (Franklin, Tasmania), 2 June 1938, 2. 108 Robin Holland, ‘The Impact of Doomed Race Assumptions in the Administration of Queensland’s Indigenous Population by the Chief protectors of Aboriginals from 1897 to 1942’, MA thesis, Queensland University of Technology, 2015, 1. Bernard Smith discussed the artwork of Margaret Preston, as well as the poetry of the Jindyworobaks, as establishing an aesthetic, rather than moral, presence for Aborigines, Smith op. cit., 32. 109 John Maynard, ‘‘In the interests of our people’: the influence of Garveyism on the rise of Australian Aboriginal political activism’ in Aboriginal History, Vol. 29, 2005, 1–22. 110 Heather Goodall and Allison Cadzow, Rivers and Resistance: Aboriginal people on Sydney's Georges River, Sydney, UNSW Press, 2009, 148. 184 for publicity, not only as a campaign tool , but also as ‘a defence against arbitrary bureaucratic action’.111

Awareness of the value of publicity is evident in the 1937 tour by the Cummeragunga Choir, many of whose performances were broadcast as the singers from the Cummeragunga Mission Station on the Murray River travelled the eastern states.112 The choir’s success was reported in detail by the Horsham Times in western Victoria. One article noted the ‘excellent diction’ of the Aboriginal leader, Pastor Atkinson; it also reported the performance of an encore called Give us a Chance, described as ‘obviously an original offering’.113 One can speculate that this referred directly to the situation of Aborigines in Australia, with the potential to raise awareness within the white community and solidarity among the Indigenous audience. The Australian Aborigines League gave a fundraising concert in Melbourne in 1937.114 The occasion was one of several events to mark the 102nd birthday of the founding of Melbourne, a significant civic event, and it was followed by a series of radio broadcasts.115 The concert, organised by Isaac Selby, included Indigenous songs and African-American spirituals; according to Bain Attwood, it was intended by activist leader William Cooper ‘to show pride in Aboriginality’.116

Crystal McKinnon has observed how an Indigenous public can politicise the space in which identified Indigenous musicians perform; she argues that their communal perception can affirm the place of a performance as Indigenous and transform an event into an act of resistance.117 By similar means, Aboriginal radio space could be generated by the perception of its political nature by Indigenous listeners. The autonomy of radio listeners in determining how a broadcast is meaningful has been discussed by New Zealand sound historian Peter Hoar and psycho- analyst Anne Karpf. Hoar cites Susan Douglas’ categories of radio listening to note of early radio broadcasts that ‘uniform sounds were not heard in the same way’.118 Anne Karpf has extended this by proposing the potential for alternate listening responses in pluralist societies, in which

111 David Horton, general editor, The Encyclopaedia of Aboriginal Australia: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history, society and culture, Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press for the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, 1994, 75. 112 Horsham Times (Victoria), 19 March 1937, 4, ‘Aboriginal choir to visit Horsham’, 9 April 1937, 4, ‘Aboriginal choir concert at Horsham’, to be broadcast in Bendigo. The spelling of ‘Cummeragunga’ varies, e.g. Goodall (1996), op. cit., ‘Cumeragunja’; Attwood (2003), ‘Cumeroogunga’; Richard Broome, Aboriginal Victorians: a history since 1800, Crows Nest, Allen & Unwin, 2005, ‘Cummeragunja’; Horsham Times (Victoria), 9 April 1937, 4, ‘Cummeragunga’. 113 Horsham Times (Victoria), 13 April 1937, 1, ‘Aboriginal Pastor in Pulpit– Mission choir in Good Form’. 114 Bain Attwood (2003), Rights for Aborigines, Crows Nest, Allen & Unwin, 2003, 72. 115 ibid. 116 Attwood (2003), op cit., 73. 117 McKinnon, op. cit., 259. 118 Hoar, op. cit., 122–3. 185 voices associated by the mainstream with comfort and safety can trigger reactions within a minority of apprehension and fear; conversely, derogatory broadcasts about minorities can inflame resistance.119 These observations suggest the possibility that broadcasts of singers identified as Aboriginal had the potential to politicise Indigenous listeners and contribute to emerging Indigenous engagement in the public sphere. It was in this context that Harold Blair came to public attention and later used radio to alert a broad audience to Aboriginal claims for citizenship.

Harold Blair, from Amateur Hour to Guest of Honour

Talent quests were a popular feature of radio in Australia in its early days, with ‘radio voice’ competitions for aspiring singers taking place from 1925.120 In the 1930s, several commercial radio proprietors visited America where they saw talent quests ‘on a grand scale’; on their return, they set about reproducing the events in Australia.121 R.R. Walker has written of a craze amongst Melbourne stations in 1935 when ‘everyone went wild about discovering new talent’.122 Radio contests launched that year included 3UZ’s ‘Golden Voice Quest’, 3AW’s ‘Amateur Hour’, 3DB’s ‘Amateur Party’, and 3KZ’s ‘P & A (Professional and Amateur) Parade’. Australia’s Amateur Hour, modelled on the American Major Bowes’ Amateur Hour and broadcast from 1940 till 1958, became one of the most successful; it travelled round Australia to regional towns and enabled the public to participate as performers and as judges.

In early 1945, a young Aboriginal man put himself forward when Amateur Hour visited Queensland. Harold Blair had not received any training as a singer and sang the Irish love ballad ‘Macushla’ that he had learned from listening to the radio.123 He was selected to appear in the programme in February 1945 and the number of votes he received broke the Queensland record for a single entrant.124 He was not the first Indigenous singer featured on the

119 Anne Karpf, ‘The sound of home? Some thoughts on how the radio voice anchors, contains and sometimes pierces’, The Radio Journal – International Studies in Broadcast and Audio Media, 11,1, 2013, 67. 120 The Herald (Melbourne), ‘Radio voice tests’, 12 March 1925, 19; Daily Standard (Queensland), ‘Radio voice contest’, 13 August 1926, 1; South Coast Times and Wollongong Argus (Wollongong), 28 September 1928, 20, ‘Radio Eisteddfod’; Border Watch (Mount Gambier, SA), 14 September 1929, 5, ‘Radio Vocal Championship’. 121 Griffen-Foley (2010–1), op. cit., 341. 122 R. R. Walker, op.cit., 54; Bridget Griffen-Foley, Henry Mayer lecture, 2010, ‘Voice of the People: Audience Participation in Australian Radio’, Media International Australia, No. 137, November 2010, 6. 123 Kenneth Harrison, Dark man, white world: a portrait of tenor Harold Blair, Cheltenham, Novalit Australia, 1975. 124 Alan T. Duncan, 'Blair, Harold (1924–1976)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/blair-harold- 186 programme: The Farmer and Settler newspaper referred to the ‘eight aboriginal singers’ who had by that point appeared.125 The number is impressive, but so too is the fact that the count was being kept; singing Aborigines, it would seem, were of particular interest to the mainstream public.126 For Indigenous radio listeners, Blair’s singing could be heard as a statement. Robert Bropho, a Swan River elder from Western Australia, was in Fremantle jail at the time of the transmission and later described the response of inmates:

When Harold’s voice came over the air, the Aboriginal people in the cell blocks were banging on the doors, shouting and screaming because here was an Aboriginal man on the radio, singing ... Harold, an Aboriginal man, was saying and singing out to the people that we, the Aboriginal people, can do things too.127

Robert Bropho’s account is an indication of the political power of listening.128 As a consequence of his radio appearance, Harold Blair was supported by the Queensland union movement to obtain tuition in classical singing and later a group of well-wishers organised further training in Melbourne and overseas. The ABC engaged him for concerts which proved hugely successful, although an excessive schedule damaged his voice and a punitive clause in the contract forbad him from singing professionally for three years after breaking it.129 Internal ABC correspondence reveals a query about the use of the descriptor ‘the Aboriginal tenor’, followed by assurance that it was standard practice.130 Blair saw himself as a representative of his people, instilling the same ethos in his family.131

Blair used his public profile to prosecute the case for improved conditions for Aborigines. The opportunity varied. In 1947, he was invited to be ABC radio’s ‘Personality of the Week’ prior to

9520/text16761, published first in hardcopy 1993, accessed online 6 July 2015. 125 Farmer and Settler (Sydney), 1 June 1945, 13, ‘Sweet voiced Aboriginals Thrilled Thousands’ 126 These years were also the height of Indigenous painter Albert Namatjira’s popularity. 127 Harold, documentary film; director: Steve Thomas; producers: John Moore, Marion Crooke; Flying Carpet Films, 1995. 128 Lacey (2013), op. cit., 8, 166 129 Kenneth Harrison, Dark man, white world: a portrait of tenor Harold Blair, Cheltenham, Novalit Australia, 1975, 112 130 NAA: ST1607/2, BLAIR HAROLD. 131 Blair’s daughter, Nerida Blair, reveals this in the documentary Harold, 1995, op. cit. The ‘professional’ identification as Aboriginal by Blair contrasts with the situation documented by David Goodman of those African American singers who entered US radio talent quests in the 1930s in the hope that radio would not discriminate on the basis of race, see David Goodman, ‘On Fire with Hope: African American Classical Musicians, Major Bowes’ Amateur Hour and the Hope for a Color-Blind Radio’, Journal of American Studies, 47 (2013), 475–494. In the documentary Harold, Professor Bruce Miller suggests that the use of the label ‘Aboriginal tenor’ designated Blair as a curiosity, and was arguably used as a publicity device; however, Blair would appear to have been fully committed to the visibility it gave Indigenous people. 187 appearing in the Messiah for the Commission. ‘Personality of the Week’ was an interview programme, with the exchange led by the interviewer. Blair was introduced as ‘the Aboriginal tenor’ but the transcript reveals no further reference to his race other than a passing reference to his singing in the choir of the mission church.132 However, the following year Blair was the week’s ‘Guest of Honour’, a programme that consisted of a scripted talk. In this broadcast, Blair spoke strongly about the need for all Indigenous people to have the education and opportunities of white Australians, in the arts and other fields:

Australia needs doctors, writers, architects, scientists– there is no reason at all why Aborigines should not be trained for such professions. They have the ability and the brains; too many are forced to live on the fringe of the white man’s world… They should have economic, political and social equality.133

This was not the first time Blair had spoken in public about equal rights– and he was later criticised for speaking out about Indigenous issues rather than talking exclusively about singing.134 The decision to use the broadcast opportunity brought about by his singing to raise political issues made it possible for the subject to be aired to a national radio audience. The talk was reported across Australia, particularly in terms of its demand for citizenship rights.135 In Darwin, it was portrayed as heralding genuine political change.136 Arguably the talk was a springboard for discussion amongst Aborigines, although it must be noted that Blair later became a controversial figure in Indigenous politics, with some critical that he was too accommodating of assimilation.137 At the time of the Guest of Honour broadcast, he worked for the Aborigines Advancement League founded by Doug Nicholls and it was Pearl Gibbs who organised his farewell party to America in 1949.138

132 NAA: MT395/1, 734, [Radio] talk script Personality of the week [Harold Blair] – W. H. Newnham – [Radio] 3LO – Sunday 7 December, 5:15-5:25 pm. 133 Harold Blair, ‘Guest of Honour’, 21 November 1948; the recording is held by ABC Sound Archives. 134 Harold, documentary film, 1995, op. cit. 135 Sydney Morning Herald, 22 November 1948, 4, ‘Racial equality appeal by Aboriginal’; Daily Mercury (Mackay, Qld), ‘Harold Blair’s Eloquent Plea for Aborigines’, 22 November 1948, 1. 136 Northern Standard (Darwin), 3 December 1948, 10, ‘Harold Blair’s Career: Politicians promised: trade unions acted’. 137 Blair’s role in Indigenous politics is complex, with later suggestions that he was indirectly involved with the adoption and fostering by whites of Indigenous children, see Robert Manne, Left right left: political essays 1977–2005, Melbourne, Black Inc., 2005, 289–291. 138 Newcastle Morning Herald, 19 January 1949, 1, ‘Aboriginal says Council sign is Discriminatory’: Blair objected to segregated women’s toilets in Murgon, Queensland; Duncan, op. cit. 188

Conclusion

This chapter set out to assess the impact on the public sphere of radio’s engagement with Aborigines by analysing broadcasting by, and about, Indigenous Australians. Such broadcasting was a complex weave in which the voices of Aborigines and whites confirmed conventions and contested prejudices: corroborees, activist talks, and Aboriginal singers could be heard alongside the addresses of anthropologists, welfare workers and those who peddled a view of Aborigines as irresponsible children.139 All these broadcasts imparted meanings about hierarchy and power not just from their literal content but also from the circumstances of their transmission, including the perceived authority of speakers, the transmitting radio station, the scheduling of broadcasts and promotion by the press.

The odds were against broadcasting by Aborigines on early radio in Australia and the fact that a narrative can be pieced together from the surviving fragments suggests that this is an area that would repay closer study.140 Indigenous singers on the airwaves affirmed their existence to black and white audiences, while Aboriginal activists turned the invisibility with which the modern world cloaked them into a sounding part in public life. Evidence shows that radio appearances were sought after and valued by Aborigines as an opportunity to express pride in Aboriginality; the politicisation of the listening audience was also a consequence. Radio can be seen as contributing to the inclusion of Indigenous rights in the public sphere, as a subject for discussion and as a state of being.

Against this, radio was also a vehicle for the perpetuation of attitudes that marginalised and excluded Aborigines from participation in civic life. The majority of broadcasts about Aborigines were by whites, maintaining an established order of racial superiority and reinforcing the notion that Aborigines needed expert, white, guidance to survive. Broadcasts by Indigenous speakers for the most part also assumed that listeners were white; the songs performed by successful Indigenous singers were those learned from radio, a process that could be seen as symbolising assimilation. Broadcasting for the most part confirmed that the public sphere was closed to Aborigines, despite the stirrings within the arts and social justice groups that Australia

139 Ernestine Hill, radio talk reprinted in ABC Weekly, 6 February 1943, 3, ‘Living for the Day’, also ABC Weekly, 31 August 1940, 44, ‘White Lubra sees Sacred Corroborees’. 140 Additional scrutiny is also required of cross-cultural themes in short stories and plays that were broadcast. 189 had an Indigenous present and future, as well as past. The tensions to which this gave rise informed the later campaigns for Indigenous representation in the media.141

The difficulty in determining more conclusively the impact of the Aboriginal presence on early radio is partly due to the lack of evidence of listener response to broadcasting. This chapter has noted analytical work by contemporary thinkers regarding the different meanings to which a single broadcast can give rise. The question of how listeners would engage politically with radio, particularly spoken-word broadcasts, became a key issue in the 1930s as reports grew of radio’s part in the rise of fascism in Europe by disseminating propaganda. The ABC’s Controller of Talks was convinced of the potential of radio to educate listeners in their civic role as opinion- formers; a commitment to the necessity for this underpinned his determination to establish a radio listening group scheme in Australia, an initiative that would consolidate radio’s part as an active auditory public sphere. The scheme’s rise and eventual fall are the focus of the next chapter.

141 Indigenous control over the broadcasting of material relating to Aborigines did not eventuate till the 1980s with the establishment of the Central Australian Aboriginal Media Association (CAAMA). 190

Chapter Six

Listeners bite back: radio listening groups & discussion

I think your series of talks will fill a long felt want in the community. Though at present unable to form a group, I would like to take part in one with others. Even so, I will follow the talks with interest (letter to ABC 15 July 1941)1

You asked me did I think it was worthwhile for us to persevere with the Listening group scheme. I have had some hours in which to consider my reply and I regret that it must be “No” (Listening group organiser, 1942)2

The strongest claim is that made for an extension of the listening group system… the Vice Chancellor of the University of Melbourne considers that ‘very big things will grow out of the listeners’ groups in both the country and metropolitan areas. Report, Joint Parliamentary Committee on Broadcasting’. (1942)3

The Listening Group Scheme run by the Australian Broadcasting Commission between 1939 and 1953 is something of an anomaly: support for it was divided and public participation qualified. Senior figures within the ABC maintained an opposition to the scheme throughout its existence and universities could be dilatory in their professed support for it. Yet for the ABC’s Controller of Talks, B.H. Molesworth, listening groups were central both to the ABC’s educative mission and its larger civic purpose. While Molesworth was the undoubted champion of the Australian listening groups, the scheme’s operation cannot be entirely attributed to him: like so much spoken-word output on early Australian radio, support outside radio stations played a key part – in this case, from government as well as non-government organisations and individuals. The scheme in Australia was a local example of a global phenomenon whose significance in civic broadcasting has been identified by David Goodman.4 Listening groups were at the centre of

1 NAA B6466/2, Miss Catherine Hyde, Canterbury, letter to ABC, 15 July 1941. 2 Memo, Gabriel Parry, Listening Group Organiser, to Thomas Bearup, Acting General Manager, 7 January 1942, NAA: SP1558/2, 657. 3 Minutes, Joint Parliamentary Inquiry into Broadcasting, 1942, Par. 311, 46. 4 David Goodman, ‘A Transnational History of Radio Listening Groups I: The United Kingdom and the United States’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television 2016, Vol. 36, No. 3, 436–465; and David Goodman, ‘A Transnational History of Radio Listening Groups II: Canada, Australia and the World’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television 2016, Vol. 36, No. 4, 627–648. 191 overlapping concerns about how broadcasting could engage with listeners to preserve democracy in the context of the rise of fascism in the 1930s. The purpose of this chapter is to chart the rise and fall of the Australian listening group scheme in order to determine its wider implications for the public sphere.

Listening groups were about more than collective listening – a crucial element was group discussion. Listening groups are thought to have originated in Britain in the 1920s when, so it is alleged, a small number of radio listeners spontaneously began the practice of listening together and talking over the material of a broadcast talk.5 Requests to the BBC for assistance resulted in organised support and specifically scheduled broadcasts, such that within three years there were over a thousand groups across Britain.6 Other countries followed suit; in his 1964 survey of listening groups round the world, American John Ohliger reported that similar schemes had developed in over thirty nations between the wars. These included many countries in Europe, such as Switzerland, Germany, and Sweden as well as the USSR, in Asia including Japan, and in north America, the United States and Canada.7 Broadcasts could be instructional for learning a language, acquiring new approaches to agriculture or understanding aspects of child development; they could also be geared to discussions of current affairs. UNICEF has adopted the scheme for use in the present day.8

Within this global spread, most schemes were tailored to local circumstances and while the BBC may have been the first to develop the practice, its introduction in Australia was not a matter of simply following where the British broadcaster led.9 The Australian scheme was unusual in that the ABC started it without an active external partner; it was shortly to run into difficulties from which it may not have recovered had it not been for the intervention of the government. This enabled it to flourish and be joined by a partner ‘forum’ programme of which ‘frank and free discussion’ was a defining feature. The role of government in this context contrasts with the restrictions it imposed on the ABC that were discussed in Chapter 1; the particularity of the

5 John Ohliger, Listening Groups: Mass Media in Adult Education, Center for the Study of Liberal Education for Adults, Boston University 1964, 7. 6 New ventures in Broadcasting, London, BBC, 1928. 7 Ohliger, op. cit., 38. 8 UNICEF report on listening groups, December 2009, accessed online 9 May 2018, https://www.unicef.org/evaldatabase/files/CRLGs__project_evaluation_report_16_Dec09.pdf. 9 Lesley Johnson describes listening groups simply as ‘a BBC innovation’, op. cit., 204, Stuart Macintyre writes that listening groups were ‘a device that the ABC took over from the BBC’, Macintyre (2015), op. cit., 74; Inglis has one sentence about the groups as a form of adult education, op. cit., 85. All these omit the ABC’s deliberations about whether and how to develop such a scheme in Australia, and characterise it as a form of adult education without specifying its objective, however illusory, to aid the forming of opinion in a democracy. 192 intervention is different, but not the continuity of government use of the broadcaster to promote its priorities. In the 1930s, the independence of Australian broadcasting against government censorship was a rallying cause; the 1940s response to government involvement was negotiated differently.

The 14-year operation of listening groups in Australia can be divided into four chronological periods which form the structure for this chapter: preparation, early years, government partnership, and final flowering. Between 1928 and 1939, the ideas and attitudes that underpinned the listening group operation in Australia spread, with a growth in discussion groups outside radio and concern about radio as a vehicle for propaganda. The second phase began in 1939 when the ABC advertised for a national ‘listening group organiser’ and publicity material educated listeners in their new responsibility in relation to radio; however, wartime conditions impeded initial growth and confidence waned. The third period was a timely wartime rescue: in 1942, the Curtin government established a Commonwealth Department of Post War Reconstruction whose embrace of discussion as a means of civic empowerment led to a mutually beneficial working partnership with the radio listening group scheme. The scheme entered its final phase in 1947 when the ABC issued a statement questioning its future on the grounds of cost: the Department of Post War Reconstruction closed in 1948 and despite the support of academics and a dwindling number of listener participants, the scheme folded in 1953.

In many respects, the relationship with radio proposed by listening groups found full expression with the arrival of digital media in the twenty-first century with contemporary radio’s invitation to ‘join the conversation’. Such developments are not purely linked to technology but stem from a perception of radio as a space for active engagement by listeners in which the broadcasters’ responsibility can legitimately extend beyond the production of the programme as broadcast. The Australian listening group scheme can be seen as embracing Brecht’s call for wireless to operate as two-way communication rather than one-way transmission; the development of discussion programmes increased the opportunity for listener representation, an objective of Walter Benjamin in his experiments with radio.10 Drawing on archival records from the ABC, external organisations and personal collections, this chapter will show how the early listening group operation in Australia was shaped by, and in turn contributed to, radio’s development as a shared space for speakers and listeners: the result was a public sphere enabled by broadcasting. Australian broadcasting’s concern with ‘the listening

10 Kang, op. cit., 65–99. 193 end’ established listening as a political act; it also contributed to the normative expectation that the public broadcaster should represent contested positions in its output, while its agenda of spoken-word content underpinned the plural identities of post-war Australians as national, regional and international citizens.

1928–39: Preparing the ground

In 1933 the Sydney Workers’ Education Association (WEA) asked the ABC to contribute a sum of money towards an ‘experiment’ in group listening. The Commission duly dispatched a cheque for £25.11 Radio listening groups had figured in the Australian press in 1928 when a BBC investigation of the educational possibilities of radio had been reported.12 The BBC committee, under the chairmanship of Sir Henry Hadow, recommended ‘classes and groups at the listening end’. 13 Some Australian newspapers reported on groups that resulted:

Prisoners at the English prison, Wormwood Scrubs, who are allowed the privilege of listening in to the broadcasting stations, have formed a discussion group in connection with broadcast talks. They listen to the talks, read up the subjects in the pamphlets and books which are recommended and afterwards hold discussions.14

The groups were not associated solely with education; other papers in Australia intimated that these would be an opportunity to hear controversial issues that were not at that time part of radio output.15

From 1930, newspapers in NSW reported that listening groups were being set up in conjunction with programmes organised by the University of Sydney Extension Board for broadcast on 2BL, part of the Australian Broadcasting Company.16 Similar reports emerged in other states,

11 NAA: SP1558/2 658, 115, 14 November 1933. 12 The Age (Melbourne), 28 December 1929, 14, ‘British Broadcasting Developments: Big Strides Forward in Britain- Adult education by wireless’; The Maitland Weekly (NSW), 1 December 1928, 11, ‘Radio for Schools Here and Abroad- Broadcasting Education’. 13 New Ventures in Broadcasting: A study in adult education, London, British Broadcasting Corporation, 1928; Briggs, op. cit., 203–6. 14 Richmond River Herald and Northern Districts Advertiser (Coraki, NSW), 6 July 1928, ‘Radio for Prisoners’. 15 Singleton Argus (NSW), 22 December 1928, 3 ‘Radio in the Home – Controversial Questions on the Air’. 16 Sydney Morning Herald, 28 November 1930, 6, ‘Wireless: Christmas and Radio: Improving Programmes’; Armidale Express (NSW), 25 February 1931, ‘League of Nations’. An Adult Education Committee set up by the ABC in Sydney in April 1933 endorsed the groups but ceased to meet after 1934 and played no further part in their development, see Sydney Morning Herald, 27 April 1933, 4, and NAA: SP1558/2 658. 194 suggesting listening groups were about to start in South Australia.17 During a visit to Brisbane in mid 1933, the ABC’s general manager, Major Conder, was asked his plans for them:

The Telegraph wanted to know for its readers whether the Commission intended doing anything in the direction of organising listening groups whereby people interested in a given subject could assemble to listen to a broadcast lecture, discuss it among themselves and frame questions for submission to the lecturer to be answered over the air on another occasion. Major Conder said that he felt that the true value of lectures would not be realised unless groups of people were encouraged to listen to them, but beyond that he could not be drawn.18

Adult educator and economic historian B.H. Molesworth, then at the University of Queensland and later the ABC’s Controller of Talks, may well have read this – he might even have had a hand in the posing of the question. The extent of these reports made it clear that the idea of listening groups was in circulation in Australia, contributing to the growing popularity of discussion groups between the wars as well as being evidence of the place of talks on radio.

Discussion groups in Australia

Both public speaking and debating were a key part of nineteenth-century political life in Britain and Australia, figuring in parliamentary proceedings, commissions, committees, and public inquiries. The education of Australia’s elite young men included speaking before an audience, in anticipation of their involvement in the professions.19 This persisted in the activity of exclusive dinner clubs for men, such as Melbourne’s Boobooks and Loquor Clubs, though their proceedings were not widely reported.20 By contrast, public meetings during the colonial years in Australia were socially inclusive and in the mid nineteenth century public opinion was understood ‘to be formed in discussion’.21 But by the end of the century, these occasions no longer represented society as a whole and meetings were losing their civility.22 The loss of

17 Advertiser (Adelaide),16 March 1931, 10, ‘Radio Party’. 18 The Telegraph (Brisbane), 17 June 1933, 21 ‘Radio Listeners– What Do They Want?’ 19 Damousi, op. cit., 63. 20 James Walter with Tod Moore, What were they thinking? the politics of ideas in Australia, Sydney, UNSW Press, 2010, 156. 21 David Goodman, ‘Public meetings and public speaking in colonial Australia’, in Australian Cultural History– Intellect and Emotion, 1997/98, No. 16, 107–126. 22 ibid. 195 civility reached violent hostility in the World War I conscription referendum rallies.23

The lack of public discussion in twentieth century Australia was highlighted as an obstacle for social reform at the Victorian Citizens' Education Fellowship conference in 1933. The speaker, Mr C. Tapley Tims, argued for ‘the creation of communicative spaces in which individuals could speak freely and equally.’24 The renewed acceptance of the social activity of discussion and the ensuing proliferation of discussion groups prepared the ground in Australia for the later radio listening group scheme. Much of this was due to the Workers Education Association (WEA). The WEA began in Britain in 1903 as a bridge between university extension and trades unions.25 Its pedagogic model was discussion in tutorial classes, in which ‘tutors and students can meet as friends’.26 The Association was launched in Australia in 1913 when University of Melbourne ophthalmologist James Barrett funded a visit by the organisation’s founder, Albert Mansbridge; Australian branches were established in every state, and from 1914 the WEA ran study circles for groups wishing to discuss issues raised by the war.27 These were favourably reported, one Tasmanian newspaper noting ‘an hour was devoted to discussion, and this portion of the function was of a very interesting character’.28 Discussion became a feature of its post-war talks which alerted a wider public to its existence, evident in an Adelaide report that ‘the Workers’ Educational Association is devoting March to public lectures. At the end of each lecture, questions are invited and discussion permitted.’29

An enthusiasm for discussion groups spread to other organisations and over the interwar years, large numbers came into existence.30 As with the dining clubs, these cannot be seen as hosting fully open discussions as membership could be a requirement and discussions were often run by leaders from the parent group.31 Established churches and youth organisations ran discussion groups in the late 1920s; they were also popular with campaigners for social

23 Damousi, op.cit., 200. 24 Katharine Pace, The Best Brains: Expertise at work in a Liberal Public Sphere, Melbourne, 1926–1939, PhD thesis, School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, University of Melbourne, 2011, 60. Tapley Tims was later acting organiser of the ABC’s listening groups. 25 Derek Whitelock, The Great Tradition: a history of adult education in Australia. St. Lucia, University of Queensland Press, 1974, 38–39. 26 Whitelock, op. cit., 40. 27 Whitelock, op. cit., 175, 183; this is the same James Barrett discussed briefly in Chapter 2 of this thesis for his support of radio and universities. 28 Examiner (Launceston, Tasmania), 24 July 1918, 3, ‘WEA’. 29 The Mail (Adelaide), 15 March 1919, 6, ‘WEA Public Lectures’. 30 The Capricornian (Rockhampton), 13 January 1917, 14, ‘Local and general news’. 31 Katharine Pace found that power hierarchies were maintained in the organisation of many discussion groups in the 1930s, particularly for Aborigines participating, see Pace, op. cit. 196 justice.32 The sheer quantity of press reporting of discussion groups is evidence that they were part of popular discourse by the later 1930s; in 1938, the modish Table Talk magazine could invoke the idea in a swipe at the Government, ‘surely a capable Prime Minister could control the round table discussions of 15 men without having recourse to a “discussion group” within his Cabinet?’33

The popularity of group discussion could explain why the ABC proceeded with its listening group scheme without having an arrangement with any outside organisation to assist in running them.34 Radio listening groups in America were usually organised by voluntary associations outside broadcasting stations.35 The BBC’s 1928 ‘New Ventures’ report had urged caution in proceeding without appropriate support: while the BBC report was full of respect for the scheme as a means of enhancing the listeners’ experience, throughout the life of the scheme it identified parties other than itself who could or ought to undertake the requisite organisation and support.36 Indeed in 1934 the BBC made public its intention to transfer ‘its financial and administrative responsibility in respect of all listening end work to some body or bodies’.37 The ABC, by contrast, was just starting.

Early ABC interest in listening groups

In January 1934, the WEA’s ‘experiment’ in radio listening groups took place at its annual summer school: it investigated training for group leaders and assessed material as the basis for discussion.38 Tutor-in-charge Lloyd Ross wrote a thorough and favourable report which was immediately endorsed by David Stewart, General Secretary of the Sydney WEA and a key figure in Australian adult education.39 Stewart wrote to ALP branches in NSW of the ‘infinite’ benefit to be had from a broadcast talk if it was followed by discussion with friends; it should be noted that this suggests a meeting of like-minded people, rather than an encounter with different

32 Discussion groups were run by YMCA and YWCA and were associated with social activities, see The Argus, 19 July 1934, 6, ‘Girl Guides Victorian Conference’; The Argus (Melbourne), 14 May 1927, 35, ‘Education fellowship, consideration of social problems’. 33 Table Talk (Melbourne), 17 November 1938, 5, ‘Tabletalk of the week- this will make good table talk’. 34 NAA: SP1558/2, 657 [Box 39], 7 January 1942. 35 Goodman (2016–1), op. cit., 452. 36 Briggs, op. cit., 207. 37 ibid. 38 The Australian Highway, 10 February 1934, 30, ‘Listening-in School’. 39 Derek Whitelock describes Stewart at this time as ‘the most dominant figure in Australian adult education’, Derek Whitelock, The Great Tradition: a history of adult education in Australia, St. Lucia, University of Queensland Press, 1974, 178. 197 views which was part of the stated purpose of the later ABC scheme.40 No action was taken by the ABC in relation to the WEA experiment or Ross’ report, perhaps not surprising as the ABC’s General Manager until 1935, Major Conder, was not supportive of radio talks in general.41 But in July 1934, William Cleary was appointed chairman of the ABC; Cleary believed that education was a key responsibility for the ABC.42 When Conder resigned from the Commission in 1935, Cleary promoted Charles Moses as General Manager; it is not clear how fully Moses shared Cleary’s commitment to an educational purpose for the ABC, but he did not oppose Cleary in this regard. In 1935, a National Talks Advisory Committee was established with a representative from each state, all of whom until the mid-1940s were university academics and many experienced in university-organised adult education.43 When Cleary was alerted to the WEA’s sense of neglect regarding its listening group experiment, he acted. A stream of letters poured out from the Commission’s head office to every tertiary institution in Australia asking about their interest in a listening group scheme: they responded unanimously in favour.44

Support for listening groups was boosted by a succession of first-hand reports to the ABC by university educators. In Western Australia, UWA education professor Robert Cameron had been invited by the Carnegie Corporation in 1933 to visit America and Europe to observe new practices in education, both in schools and for adults; as a member of the ABC’s West Australian Advisory committee, he was asked to look at developments in broadcasting. He reported favourably on listening groups, particularly on the European continent, highlighting those used for teaching languages and agriculture, as well as others concerned with cultural matters incorporating visits to art galleries; in all cases, he noted that programmes were made as ‘attractive’ as possible.45 Despite his positive reports on listening groups for language learning, the ABC does not appear to have considered listening groups for its language broadcasts – it conducted elementary language tuition in French, German, Italian and Japanese for several years in the 1930s.46 Nor is it evident that the ABC seriously considered listening groups for

40 NAA SP1558/1 658 Box 39. 41 Inglis, op. cit., 41. 42 Inglis, op. cit., 43. 43 Inglis, op. cit., 60, 114. 44 NAA SP1558/2, 658. 45 West Australian (Perth), 13 March 1934, 17 ‘Education by Radio, Developments in Europe’. In 1934, Cameron started a discussion group in Perth ‘linking town and gown’, see G. C. Bolton and Mike Butcher, 'Cameron, Robert George (1886–1960)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/cameron-robert-george- 12835/text23169, published first in hardcopy 2005, accessed online 14 May 2018. In 1934, University of Melbourne economist Dr Gordon Wood also prepared a report for the ABC on aspects of broadcasting in US and GB, including education, but made no reference to listening groups, see Bearup papers, National Library of Australia, MS 7290, Box 9, Folder 52. 46 See ABC Annual Reports, 1937–1939. 198 rural listeners when programmes to present agricultural education were discussed during the war.47

In 1934, B.H. Molesworth had also received Carnegie funding to visit the United States and Britain to observe their arrangements for adult education. He particularly admired the spirit of experimentation he observed in America. He was too early for the major development of listening groups in the United States, but his published report included an enthusiastic description of ‘Forum education’ in which an exchange took place in front of an audience who continue the discussion themselves in small groups.48 Molesworth attributed social, as well as individual consequences to Forum education:

The more Forums [folk] have, the more tolerant and broad-minded they are likely to become. Then they will make better citizens who are more likely to maintain and improve the machinery of a democratic society.49

In Britain, he looked closely at the operation of the BBC radio listening groups, for which he commended the British training of group leaders and particularly the practice of ‘bringing to the microphone a listening group leader to offer his [sic] criticism and the point of view of listeners’.50 Molesworth was confident that the scheme had potential for Australia.51

In 1936, the South Australian member of the National Talks Advisory Committee, Professor Jerry Portus received a financial contribution from the ABC to undertake a number of tasks on its behalf during a trip to Britain; he too reported on adult education at the BBC.52 Portus noted that as regards listening groups, ‘opinion was sharply divided within and without the BBC’; he nevertheless concluded that the scheme had a place in Australia.53 Portus also influenced the adoption of a scheme by recommending in 1937 that B.H. Molesworth be appointed Federal Controller of Talks.54 Meantime, the Victorian state division of the ABC independently began a

47 The National Talks Advisory Committee was aware of the Canadian Radio Farm Forum listening group scheme, Minutes of National Talks Advisory Committee 1944, February and August, NAA: SP613/1, 2/4/5 PART I. 48 Molesworth, B. H. (1935), Adult education in America and England Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1935, 27–28; also B. H. Molesworth (1936), ‘Adult Education’ in Educating A Democracy, edited by W. G. K. Duncan, Sydney, in conjunction with the Australian Institute of Political Science, 1936, 110–115. 49 Molesworth, B. H. (1935), op. cit., 29. 50 Molesworth, B. H. (1935), op. cit., 61. 51 Molesworth, B. H. (1935), op. cit., 62. 52 NAA: SP1558/2, 602 Portus report 53 ibid. 54 Inglis, op. cit., 57. 199

‘discussion group’ operation; press reports indicate it was aimed primarily at workplaces, and by implication, men, ‘to make lunch hours more profitable for employees of big firms and industries enabling them to absorb the views of first-class speakers and students of world affairs’.55 There is insufficient evidence currently available to ascertain the extent of this venture and its listener participation.

Throughout 1938, ‘listening groups’ figured on the agendas of ABC committee and commission meetings.56 Molesworth prepared a list of duties in anticipation of appointing an officer to set up the scheme until a full meeting of the Commission near the end of the year decided to defer the whole process. It was clear that the scheme as it stood lacked sufficient support to proceed and indicates that ABC management was not of one mind as regards its priorities and policy.57 However, Portus’ report on the BBC had identified listener research as an area the ABC should take seriously.58 By early 1939, the listening group organiser’s job description was revised such that its responsibilities were to organise listening groups and to get the views of listeners on any programme output. The position in this form was accepted by the Commission and advertised nationally.59 In the middle of 1939, Gabriel Parry became the first Australian radio listening groups organiser.

Teething troubles

The first national ABC listening group series went to air on Monday 28 August 1939, an inauspicious date for the launch of the venture given the declaration of war exactly a week later.60 The first years of the scheme were something of a battle, testing the reserves of its first organiser, Belgium-born Gabriel Parry. He had arrived in Western Australia in 1923 as a young naval cadet; an accident required him to spend six months in hospital in Fremantle, during which time he and his Australian nurse married.61 He subsequently graduated with first-class honours in English at the University of Western Australia where he edited the student magazine

55 Listener In, 25 July 1936, 13, ‘Discussion group broadcasts– Catching on in Melbourne’. 56 Molesworth, memo to General Manager, 10 June 1938, NAA: B4542/2 57 It can be observed that Cleary, who presumably had a major say in the appointment of ABC senior management, appointed strong-minded individuals who often differed with each other. 58 NAA: SP1558/2, 602 Portus report. 59 Advertising a vacant ABC post was in itself new practice, possibly in response to the demand by the ABC’s newly-formed Staff Association, see Inglis, op. cit., 73. 60 Prime Minister Menzies’ announcement of Australia’s involvement in World War 2 took place at 9.15pm, Monday 3 September by radio broadcast on every ABC and commercial station. 61 Parry was born Gabriel Parhaut in 1903 and changed his name to Parry in 1928. In the 1923 accident, he lost an arm. He won the Arthur Lovekin Prize for Journalism in Western Australia in 1935, NAA: A367 C47640. 200

Black Swan in 1936.62 Throughout the 1930s, he worked as a journalist for the West Australian newspaper and taught literature for the WEA. Journalist and author Norman Bartlett later remembered the splash he had made in Perth with his ‘exuberant Gallic cosmopolitanism’.63

Throughout the early years of the scheme, most of the programmes for listening groups were in keeping with the existing talks output; publicity emphasised the opportunity to speak as well as listen, rather than the content.64 The first listening group series had the title ‘Burning Questions’. It encompassed twelve weekly 20-minute talks on social services, refugees, and foreign policy, broadcast on the national network at 8.30 on Monday evenings.65 Lucy Woodcock, a stalwart with the teachers’ union who had taught in inner city primary schools during the Depression, gave the inaugural talk on ‘Slum Clearance and its Problems’. She was not a regular broadcaster and the choice of a woman to launch the project suggests it wished to be – or be seen as – progressive; publicity for the scheme was notably inclusive of women, within conventional limits.66 The following week N. H. Dick, secretary of the Housing Council of New South Wales, spoke on housing reform; he was a regular broadcaster who had argued that the defence of Australia was imperilled by the population’s lack of physical fitness due to slum conditions.67 The series concluded on the third Monday with a discussion between the two entitled ‘What should we do first?’ No scripts or listener responses to the first series have survived, but an introductory leaflet is revealing for how participants were encouraged to understand their part in it.

62 Aust. Lit website: http://www.austlit.edu.au/austlit/page/A89864, accessed 16. February 2015. 63 Norman Bartlett, ‘he flickered like a flame above the warm embers of our earnest endeavours’, from ‘Perth in the Turbulent Thirties’, Westerly, No. 4, December 1977, 67. 64 Discussions were broadcast regularly on Sunday and Wednesday evenings, and controversial matters figured in a range of other programmes. For example, programme listings in the Maitland Daily Mercury, 30 September 1939, 6 show discussions and talks on democracy, ‘can it survive?’, at other times of the week. Listening was not always prominent in listening group activity, as scripts were frequently send out ahead of broadcasts. 65 Slum Clearance & its problems (3 weeks); Defence v social services (3); Australia and the Refugees (5), and a discussion on 13 November on Australian foreign policy. 66 Bruce Mitchell, 'Woodcock, Lucy Godiva (1889–1968)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/woodcock-lucy- godiva-9172/text16197, published first in hardcopy 1990, accessed online 3 May 2017. 67 Sydney Morning Herald, 30 January 1939, 1. 201

‘Let’s discuss it’

The ABC publicised the scheme with a leaflet entitled ‘Let’s discuss it’.68 The sketch on its cover showed three men and three women seated around a lounge room radio. The scene captured both the homeliness and formality of the occasion: a tray of teacups and biscuits waited in the foreground, while a man sat at a desk poised to take notes. ‘Don’t forget the fun and the opportunity for civilized social intercourse!’ called the leaflet, as it announced that the scheme was a new ABC service to enable listeners to express what they thought or felt about what they heard over the air. The text promoted participation, saying groups should number between 4 and 20 as ‘everyone should have a chance to say something during the discussion’; an example given of the composition of a sixteen-member group envisaged the crossing of class boundaries when it listed ‘a doctor, a lawyer, 5 workers, 2 shopkeepers, a clergyman, 5 housewives, and one typist.’69 The leaflet seemed determined to put everyone at their ease, as it recommended keeping the fire on, setting the radio volume comfortably and sharing costs for tea – as well as urging that participants take turns to do the washing-up, a further nod to gender equity not usual at the time.70

A key element of listening group organisation in whichever country it occurred was the group leader. The leader’s task was to act as a chair during discussion and afterwards ‘to give a summing up, a concensus (sic) of opinion’.71 The 1939 Australian leaflet suggested of a leader, ‘he (sic) should be neither over-hearty nor too formal’ and ‘able to restrain over-talkative members or draw out the shy and bashful ones’. Personal qualities were key, rather than professional or academic qualifications, in contrast to Britain where group leaders were recommended as being the best educated in the community while in North America, leaders could be professional field officers appointed to the role.72 The Australian listening groups were expected to choose a leader from amongst participants, or, it was sometimes suggested, to take

68 NAA: SP1558/2, 659 [Box 39]. One of the advertisers in the leaflet is the Rural Bank of NSW who were active users of broadcasting. 69 NAA: SP1558/2, 659 [Box 39]. 70 Parry contributed to the prejudice against women’s voices on air when he was reported saying ‘their voices, 75 times out of 100, let them down’, Goulburn Evening Penny Post, 7 February 1940, 2, ‘Talk! Talk! Talk!’ 71 The spelling ‘consensus’ was well established; it is probable that Gabriel Parry was the writer of this text and he made several spelling mistakes while working as listening group organiser: writing ‘Frank’ as the first name of FDR caused particular grief, see NAA: SP1558/2 657 [Box 39]. 72 Goodman (2016–1), op. cit., 446 (Britain); Ohliger, op. cit., 41 (Canada). 202 turns in doing the job; no training for group leaders was offered, although this was possibly due to inadequate resources.73

In each national listening group operation, the leader’s task of writing up the discussion was related to the overall purpose of the scheme. Objectives varied: collective decision-making was a greater element of the scheme adopted in Canada while individual achievement was sometimes more central in Britain where listening groups could be viewed as a stepping stone to enrolment in adult education courses.74 In Australia, the post-discussion job of the leader was to summarise the views of the group with no expectation of reaching unanimous agreement. In its first years, the Australian scheme dealt with both political and non-political issues, taking up themes concerned with, say, refugees and foreign policy, as well as reading habits and interior design. At times, the organisation of talks appears closer to disorganisation, with some themes developed in series which ran for weeks, others as single broadcasts.

Molesworth was quite clear about his objectives with the scheme. He considered that the chief purpose of the Australian scheme was ‘stimulating thought’, based on his understanding of the British listening groups he had seen in 1934; the 1939 introductory leaflet elaborates that purpose, acknowledging that it could take some management.75 The leaflet’s text recognised that feelings may run hot, saying ‘short of stand-up fights and the smashing of crockery, it is good to have sincere argument, even if this gets a bit warm now and then.’76 It justified this as a form of self-education:

The real purpose of discussion is that in argument, in the interchange of ideas with others, though your knowledge may not grow very much, you are pretty sure to learn how to relate what you know in a clearer and more systematic way. Talk fixes ideas, also it clears out wrong or badly understood ideas.77

Discussion is presented as an activity for heart and mind. The leaflet allowed that disagreement might persist; in saying that ‘at times, it is wise to agree to differ’, it shows it is open to difference and that consensus is not conformity.78 This openness to different views figured in newspaper reports of the scheme which suggested pre-reading was ‘not intended to force a

73 NAA B6466/2, letter to groups from Victorian state manager, Melbourne, 10 July 1941. 74 Goodman (2016–1), op. cit., 444, citing Hadow Report. 75 Molesworth, op. cit., 62. 76 NAA: SP1558/2, 659 [Box 39], Leaflet, ‘Let’s discuss it’, 1939. 77 ibid. 78 NAA: SP1558/2, 659 [Box 39] Leaflet ‘Let’s discuss it’ 1939. 203 preconceived idea on the listener, but to present him [sic] with facts which he can weigh for himself and relate to the statements made by our speakers.’79 The publicity for the launch of the scheme underscored the expression of differing views as appropriate for broadcasting and promoted the inclusion of broadcast discussions in each series to which the audience could listen.80 Yet while it proclaimed the importance of hearing different views, the pool from which participating speakers were drawn was small; in the main it consisted of academics and senior figures from business and industry, limiting the opportunity for listeners to encounter ideas from outside the mainstream. The press, meantime, welcomed the invitation the scheme extended to listeners to be involved.

Group participation

Parry travelled extensively to inspire the public to form listening groups, a task in which the regional press assisted. In September 1939 he was near Maitland in NSW:

Mr Gabriel Parry, organiser of listening groups for the Australian Broadcasting Commission advised that he hopes, as a result of his visit, to see six groups formed in Maitland, six in Cessnock and three at Kurri. These are exclusive of some 15 formed in the Newcastle district.81

According to the Sydney Morning Herald in January 1940, Parry was engaged in a successful campaign:

… in the course of the three organising tours so far undertaken he has already covered 3,500 miles. The results of these visits are shown on a map in his office – blue flags indicate the places visited and red flags the centres at which groups have been formed.82

In August 1940, figures were analysed for 500 individuals out of an estimated 750 total participants. These included 94 manual workers, 86 students, 72 teachers, 71 housewives, 61 business men, 18 farmers, 4 artists, 2 musicians, 1 tailor, 10 clergymen and 11 engineers, with

79 Sydney Morning Herald, 24 April 1940, 6, ‘Broadcasting- Talks Problems- Listening Groups’. 80 ABC Annual Report, year ending June 1940, 9. It is notable that throughout the scheme’s operation, the ABC’s official reference to listening groups is under the heading ‘Talks’; there is another section titled ‘Education' in which a passing reference is made to adult education without any detail; it may suggest an unwillingness to be seen too formally engaged in education for adults. Asa Briggs notes that BBC did not use publicly the phrase ‘adult education’ between 1929 and 1939, see Briggs, op. cit., 210. 81 Maitland Daily Mercury (NSW), 30 September 1939, 6, ‘Fifteen Formed: Listening Groups: ABC scheme’ 82 Sydney Morning Herald, 24 January 1940, 10, ‘Broadcasting: Listening groups: Interest increases’. 204 slightly more groups in rural areas.83 This is a broad spread, though without further information, it is difficult to ascertain the evenness of active participation within groups along gender or class lines; Goodman notes the evidence from Britain that working-class members might sit silently while middle class speakers dominated discussion.84

Generating and maintaining interest in group work was hard work. Several months after the first listening group series took to air, a formal arrangement was agreed with Sydney University whereby the ABC agreed to contribute £250 annually towards a peripatetic tutor who would assist in the setting up of groups.85 In January 1941, a similar arrangement was agreed with Melbourne University, resulting in the appointment of a Victorian listening group organiser, Anna Berry, a University of Melbourne graduate in French and German.86 She entered into the work with gusto, travelling, talking and writing letters; many positive responses, as in this letter from a listener, underscored the regard in which discussion was held:

I have read the booklet carefully and am very impressed with the whole idea of listening groups …and particularly with the fact that discussion of the matters presented occupies such a central place in the scheme …in order to get the best out of democracy some serious effort must be made to induce people to think more widely.87

Victorian participants were keen correspondents.88 However, the war presented difficulties as the following letter from the Victorian regional town of Warragul shows:

Dear Madam, I am afraid I have a disappointment for you. My group of 15 members thoroughly enjoy listening to talks advised by (the) ABC but cannot now meet regularly for discussion owing to extreme overwork and overtime by nearly all members… The only chance to get members’ opinion on talks and books is when they call for library books fortnightly

83 NAA: SP1558/2, 657 [BOX 39] 160. 84 Goodman (2016–1), op. cit., 447. 85 NAA: SP1558/2, 657 [BOX 39]. 86 NAA: SP1558/2, 657 [BOX 39]; also NAA B6466/2; Badger, University of Melbourne Extension board, letter to Molesworth explaining the appointment of a woman, 19 June 1941, NAA: SP1558/2. 657 [Box 39], ‘We felt it unwise to appoint a man of military age to this position at the present time, and the applicants who were not of military age were deemed to be unsuitable.’ Gabriel Parry was of military age but presumably not eligible for service due to the earlier loss of an arm. 87 A. R. Hutchinson, letter 15 November 1941, NAA B6466/2; report of visit to regional Victoria, Benalla Ensign (Victoria), 5 September 1941, 4. 88 NAA B2111 OPR1. 205

at my shop… I am very sorry to have to pour cold water on the efforts of the ABC and organisers of the listening groups but overwork is knocking us over and some of us are not so young. As I write I am weary and half asleep.89

Anna Berry continued to contact factories and unions; she presented participation in listening groups as a duty in war time, as in this letter to the Victorian Teachers’ Union in November 1941:

In the midst of a confused and troubled world the community looks to teachers and those engaged in educational work to give them a lead. In its scheme for encouraging group discussion on talks of general interest, the ABC hopes that teachers will play a leading part in fostering such Listening Groups... the ABC feels there are certain dangers in merely passive listening.90

Anna Berry had taught in a German girls’ school during the 1930s; it is possible that she was aware of the use of radio for propaganda purposes by the Nazi government under whom radio listening could be mandatory at this time.91

The ABC’s listening groups were asked to send in questions they would like to ask the on-air speaker. There was no prescribed form for responses, with some groups sending lengthy letters and others a few sentences. This opportunity was well publicised by the press:

The aim is to give listeners the means to express their views about what they hear over the air. In this way there will be established a return traffic to the ABC, and what is regarded as even more important, intelligent listening and discussion will be encouraged.92

Reports like this reinforced radio’s association with discussion. In his 1941 survey of national opinion formation and the media, anthropologist A.P. Elkin considered it appropriate to ask radio listeners whether they discussed what they had heard over the air, reporting that a

89 Frederick Rush, letter to ABC, 18 November 1941, NAA B6466/2. 90 NAA MP508/2, 17 November 1941. 91 Lacey (1996), op. cit., 102–3. 92 Sydney Morning Herald, 23 August 1939, 9, ‘Broadcasting– Forming Groups of Listeners– ABC’s new plan’ 206 majority did in fact do so in relation to news commentaries.93 The Australian radio listening groups were a catalyst for active engagement by listeners, inviting comparison with American listening groups which David Goodman sees as forming ‘a newly permeable public sphere’.94 The ABC operation aspired to a similarly Habermasian ideal, by depicting a public of varied backgrounds meeting to discuss matters of civic significance, their status irrelevant in the context of the group.95 In practice, it was probable that many groups were more, rather than less, homogeneous, being friends meeting in a private house or employees from a common workplace and the repeated reference to the leader as a man implies the absence of gender equity. Nonetheless this contrasts with non-radio discussion groups written up by newspapers in the 1930s, which were usually allied to a formal organisation.96 ABC publicity for groups throughout the scheme’s operation refers to participants as ‘citizens’, rather than ‘Australians’ or ‘men’, let alone subjects of king or empire: good citizenship, by implication, was a consequence of speaking with, and listening to, other citizens.

Broadcasting discussions

In addition to promoting discussion by listeners within groups, the listening groups scheme renewed the ABC’s commitment to discussion on air. The discussion format did not present itself ready formed to broadcasters between the wars: it was a programme form that evolved out of the two concerns firstly, that spoken-word programmes were not engaging listeners and secondly, a commitment to present both sides of a controversial issue. In 1935, the ABC announced that it would thenceforth broadcast fewer talks:

[T]he straight-out talk is definitely a thing of the past. Every subject will be dealt with in a conversational manner, and in many instances the speaker will be interrupted with queries from a questioner representing the man-in-the-street.97

The ambition of this statement was more than a little over reaching as ‘straight-out talks’ continued for years, making national celebrities of speakers like William Dakin and Walter Murdoch. But the shortcomings of straight talks were revealed by Molesworth in 1942 when he

93 A. P. Elkin, Our Opinions and the National Effort, Sydney, printed by the Australasian Medical Publishing Company, 1941, 51. 94 Goodman (2011), op. cit., 183. 95 Habermas, op. cit., 24. 96 It might have been a concern to distance its listening groups from these that caused the 1941 ABC listening group leaflet to specify that group membership involved ‘no obligation’. 97 Sunday Mail (Brisbane), 20 October 1935, 11, ‘More “discussion” on National Talks’. 207 compared his situation to the past:

At one time it was thought that in arranging talks for inclusion in a broadcast programme little more was required than to telephone X, Y, and Z and invite each to broadcast a talk on a certain subject at a certain time. Such methods usually produced talks which for most listeners were unattractive and difficult to listen to.98

In an endeavour to create spoken-word broadcasts that stimulated thought, Molesworth was open to new approaches although Parry later acknowledged that sometimes these were not successful.99

Molesworth had carefully observed the BBC’s preparations for on-air discussions during his visit to Britain in 1934. The procedure required participants to conduct an initial exchange in the presence of a stenographer who ‘recorded’ their words in a text that could be revised before it became the basis of a script for broadcast.100 One Brisbane newspaper elaborated the ‘specialised technique’ that radio discussion involved; it quoted liberally from Molesworth’s Carnegie report on adult education to point out the requirements of such a session:

[It] needs to be very fully rehearsed and carefully prepared… and to be spontaneous, include all necessary points, keep to schedule time and allow no chance for floundering.101

There was also a fear that ‘unless the voices are obviously different, the talk is confusing to the listener’.102 It is important to note this wariness as it illuminates the determined nature of Molesworth’s commitment to discussion as a key format in the ABC’s listening group programmes. Throughout the war years, radio discussions were produced along the lines established by the BBC, with careful casting, rehearsal, script writing and further rehearsal.103 Despite the production cost, they remained central to listening group programmes.104

98 NAA: SP613/1, 2/4/5/PART 1, Molesworth, memo to Acting General Manager, 24 September 1942. 99 Gabriel Parry, ABC Weekly, 13 March 1943, ‘Other People’s Letters- Burning Questions’. 100 Molesworth (1935), op. cit., 60. 101 Sunday Mail (Brisbane), 20 October 1935, 11 ‘More “discussion” on National Talks’ 102 Molesworth (1935), op. cit., 60. 103 NAA: SP613/1, 2/4/5 Part 1, Barcode 3186828, Molesworth, memo to General Manager, 13 October 1942. 104 Molesworth continually pointed out the poor prospects for the quality of programmes when resources were reduced, see Inglis, op. cit., 114. 208

ABC wartime cuts

While listening group participation slowly increased in NSW and Victoria, an office dispute was brewing between listening group officers Parry and Berry.105 They disagreed about the text of leaflets and the size of record cards, with Berry complaining about scripts of programmes not reaching groups in time.106 This suggests that ‘listening’ was not accorded great significance, with reading the text an acceptable substitute.107 Berry resigned in early 1942 due to illness and some months later the formal association of the Universities of Melbourne and Sydney with the ABC ceased: later correspondence reveals that the officers whom the ABC co-funded were, to the ABC’s chagrin, more involved with extension teaching than setting up radio listening groups.108 In 1941, the government had reduced the ABC’s proportion of the listener licence fee with immediate consequences for Molesworth’s department:

The Commission regrets that owing to reduced revenue, it has been forced to discontinue the use of more attractive methods of presentation [of talks] such as discussion, debates and dramatisations.109

The listening group programmes were among those affected and the general organisation of the scheme appears to have become wayward around this time. A series entitled What is your opinion was an opportunity for public participation, in which listeners were asked to send their replies to a number of increasingly wordy questions, from ‘Should medical services be nationalized?’ to ‘Does the decline in institutional religion and in religious observance indicate that the influence of Christianity is declining in the national life and in the lives of individuals?’110 The response was exceedingly poor to the point that Parry as listening group organiser lost his enthusiasm for continuing. In January 1942 he wrote to the ABC’s Acting General Manager:

105 NAA: B6466; UMA Extension board. 106 NAA: B6466, 2, Berry, letter to Parry, 1 November 1941. 107 NAA: B6466, 2A. 108 NAA: SP1558/2, 657 [Box 39]; Anna Berry’s resignation, UOM archive, Extension board Meeting Minutes, 27 February 1942; NAA: SP1558/2, 659 [Box 39]. 109 ABC Annual Report, June 1941, 10–11. 110 NAA: B6466/2. 209

Dear Mr Bearup,

Since noon yesterday when you asked me did I think it was worthwhile for us to persevere with the Listening group scheme, I have had some hours in which to consider my reply and I regret that it must be “No”.111

Parry listed many reasons for his conclusion: the lack of assistance at the start of the scheme, the war and the instability it was causing, and the failure of Army Education to co-operate; for good measure, he added the absence of any well-established discussion tradition in Australia, as well as the poor take-up for the current What is your opinion series. Parry’s assessment suggested the scheme should fold, particularly as a consequence of the war; as it turned out, it was the war that saved it.

Post-war reconstruction to the rescue

Robert Menzies was Australian prime minister when war began in August 1939; he resigned in 1941, with Arthur Fadden briefly prime minister until an election that year, following which John Curtin became prime minister of a minority Labor government. Curtin later won a landslide election in August 1943. Prior to the election in 1941, Menzies convened a Joint Parliamentary Committee on Broadcasting which, as has been noted in earlier chapters of this thesis, heard from a large number of witnesses. Amongst the many academics to appear before it, University of Melbourne Vice-Chancellor Professor Jack Medley singled out the ABC listening groups for commendation.112 When the Committee issued its report in March 1942, it addressed the subject of listening groups explicitly:

311. Listening groups – Witnesses have advocated the broadcasting of debates and additional educational broadcasts, but the strongest claim is that made for an extension of the listening group system… It may be noted that the Vice Chancellor of the University of Melbourne considers that “very big things will grow out of the listeners’ groups in both the country and metropolitan areas and will really give life to adult education”.113

At this same time, other external support was forthcoming: the NSW Labor Party had been amongst the earliest to evince interest in the scheme in 1934; in January 1942, the NSW

111 NAA: SP1558/2, 657 [Box 39]. 112 Joint Parliamentary Committee on Broadcasting, Minutes of testimony, 22 July 1941, 82–85. 113 Report of the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Broadcasting, 23 March 1942, 46. 210

Attorney General wrote to the Federal Minister for the Army urging that listening groups be encouraged in military camps.114 While not on the scale Parry would have liked, a number of listening groups came to be established among the military.115

Discussion and audience participation were featured in one of the first programmes broadcast on the ABC with which the wartime Department of Information (DOI) was involved. The DOI, which figured briefly in the first chapter of this thesis, was created in September 1939 with two areas of responsibility: it coordinated wartime censorship and undertook the production of material to boost morale and assist recruitment.116 The impact of its censorship activity is considered as having made little difference to radio stations which had become thoroughly familiar with censorship over the 1930s; but discontent developed between the department and broadcasters in relation to its ‘expressive role’.117 The first fruit of this was a half-hour Sunday evening programme launched in March 1940 called ‘All about the War’; the initial editor was William Macmahon Ball, just beginning a secondment from the University of Melbourne to the DOI with responsibility for local and international broadcasting.118 As shown earlier in this thesis, Ball had been a persistent campaigner throughout the 1930s against censorship and the restriction of information in Australia. ‘All about the War’ bears his imprint: the programme was introduced to the public as an opportunity to pose questions on any aspect of the war for a ‘discussion between a representative of the public and a spokesman of the Department of Information’.119 However, Ball played little part in later domestic programmes as his main interest at the DOI was running Australia’s shortwave radio service.120

In May 1940, newspaper magnate Keith Murdoch was appointed Director General of Information at the DOI with specific duties to increase public morale and the understanding of Australia’s part in the war in Europe.121 He envisaged a greater role for radio and ordered the

114 NAA: MP508/1 / 89/715/8 / RE LISTENING GROUPS AND ABC RADIO TALKS [Box 152]. 115 NAA: SP1558/2, 659 [Box 39); ‘A Correspondent’ (anonymous), ‘Army Education in Australia’, The Australian Quarterly, 1942, Vol. 14, No. 2, 46. 116 Edward Vickery, ‘Telling Australia’s Story to the World: The Department of Information 1939–1950’, PhD thesis, Australian National University, 2003, 87–97, 106–17. 117 John Hilvert, Blue Pencil Warriors: Censorship and Propaganda in World War II, St Lucia, University of Queensland Press, 1984, 85. 118 Vickery, op. cit., 24. Ball’s secondment to the DOI came after he wrote directly to Menzies pressing his case for such a post on the basis of his understanding of ‘organising, analysing and publicising information’, Kobayashi, op. cit., 60–61. 119 Telegraph (Brisbane), 2 March 1940, 6, ‘All about the War – Department of Information’s New Radio Session’. 120 Hilvert, op. cit.,135, 139. In this post, Ball ran into opposition for his willingness to report negative as well as positive stories about Australia. 121 Hilvert, op. cit., 53–76. 211 simultaneous broadcast over every ABC and commercial radio station of a daily news bulletin and a weekly Sunday session.122 The Sunday programme, called the ‘All Australia’ session, was intended to ‘direct attention to the spiritual and ethical aspects of the present conflict’.123 Neither the ABC nor the commercial sector was happy with these arrangements; their objections were muted, unlike the press who did not hesitate to criticise the programme when opportunity arose.124 The requirement for national broadcasting was eased in October; however, the ABC continued to broadcast Sunday night talks related to wartime morale by a variety of speakers, including Enid Lyons and Noel Coward, until in 1941 the talks became more focused on the post-war future.125 Meantime, Murdoch’s heavy-handed dealings with the press – later described as his ‘greatest professional error’ – had encountered forceful opposition and he left the DOI in late 1940.126

In mid-1941, the ABC relaunched the Sunday night session with a more purposeful tone under the editorship of Kenneth Henderson, a former journalist and ordained Anglican.127 From August till September 1941, Tomorrow’s World – Tasks for Free Men was broadcast every Sunday evening on all national ABC stations.128 Some of the publicity referred to it as ‘the Department of Information’s series’; other articles called it a considered attempt by the ABC to realise a duty it ascribed to itself of enabling the nation to ‘think aloud’.129 The series shared the objective of the listening groups with echoes of Ball’s approach to information broadcasting: it announced from the start its vigorous determination to engage listeners actively. This reinforced radio as a site for civic engagement at a time of heightened national concern.

122 Hilvert, op. cit., 57–58; Vickery, op. cit., 219. 123 ABC Annual Report, June 1941, 10. 124 Vickery, op. cit., 219–220; 222; Daily Telegraph 22 July 1940, 5, ‘Broadcast Fade Out’. 125 Thomas, op. cit., 94, gives its purpose to ‘stimulate industrial production’; re speakers, see Kilmore Free Press, 5 December 1940, 1, ‘Forward Broadcasts for Noel Coward’ and Enid Lyons, Griffen-Foley (2017), op. cit., 151. Vickery refers to the session as the ‘All-Station Session’, op.cit., 92; 1941 included a series by Vice Chancellor of the University of Melbourne, Professor J. G. Medley, ‘Ought we think about the future?’, The Argus, 8 March 1941, 2, ‘Broadcasting’, and the headmaster of Canberra Grammar School speaking on the need for democracy, Canberra Times (ACT), 15 April 1941, 2, ‘New World Order’. 126 Hilvert, op. cit., 63. 127 Inglis, op. cit., 175. 128 Victorian listening group organiser, Anna Berry, shortly after starting with the ABC had suggested a series on the post-war world. Anna Berry, letter to Gabriel Parry, 11 July 1941, NAA B6466/2. 129 DOI involvement: Newcastle Sun, 23 August 1941, 4 ‘Special broadcasts by the ABC- the ABC will start a new series of special talks arranged by the Department of information’; Northern Star (Lismore), 30 August 1941, 1, ‘Dept of Information Broadcast’; Barrier Daily Truth (Broken Hill, NSW), 22 August 1941, 5, ‘Tomorrow’s World- Talks for Free Men’; Daily Mercury (Mackay), 14 August 1941, 3, ‘Tomorrow’s World’. The phrase ‘enabling the nation to think aloud’ as the ABC’s purpose was contained in a letter from Thomas Bearup on behalf of the Commission to prospective participants in Tomorrow’s World, 23 July 1941, NAA: SP1558/2 658; Henderson later used the phrase in his testimony on 13 January 1942 to the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Broadcasting, Minutes, 443. 212

Henderson’s series was not part of the listening group scheme, which continued with its Monday evening talks and discussions, but publicity for Tomorrow’s World was included in the leaflet for the listening groups series at the time.130 The text did not mince its words:

Unless you are willing to put more mental sweat into public affairs than you have ever done before, you are not going to deserve a better world after the war, nor are you going to be helpful in getting it.131

This identified listening with a political and moral purpose, to which the public was summoned:

Listeners will be able to perceive agreements and differences. You won’t be offered tabloid solutions, it is intended that you should get matter to bite on.132

For Tomorrow’s World, Henderson liaised with many individuals and bodies from Dr Evatt (then Director of Reconstruction Research), industrialist Sir Herbert Gepp, the Australian Council of Trade Unions, the Australian Association of Scientific Workers (as noted earlier in this thesis) and the Victorian Housing Commission.133 The series was presented as a means of providing public access to the views of experts.134 Interest in the subject of reconstruction was gaining momentum, such that by the middle of 1942 there was, as Stephen Holt writes, ‘a growing band of administrators, economists, planners, politicians and other public figures who were striving to usher in a more rational and humane post-war social order.’135 Henderson’s performance with Tomorrow’s World elicited some concern in the ABC Talks department; minutes of the National Talks Advisory Committee show disquiet about his insistence on writing and presenting all the programmes himself despite his lack of experience with broadcasting.136

130 The listening group series in the second half of 1941 were: Total War, 10 weeks on the wartime economy from 21 July–22 September; Psychology for Everyman, 29 September–15 December 1941. NAA: A9816, 1943/765 PART 1. 131 Leaflet, Psychology for Everyman, September 1941, NAA SP1558/2 657 [Box 39]. 132 NAA SP1558/2 658 [Box 39] p. 153; the expression ‘to bite on’ could be taken from the listening group listing, ‘the listener bites back’ in March 1940. For discussion on the ethics of listening, see Lacey (2013), op. cit., 182–199. 133 NAA SP1558/2 658 [Box 39], 144–153; Tomorrow’s World began weekly broadcasts on 21 August 1941 and was still being scheduled on some stations in the first few months of 1942. 134 For the respect to experts as a feature of the times, see Macintyre (2009), op. cit., 188. 135 Stephen Holt, A Veritable Dynamo: Lloyd Ross and Australian labour 1901–1987, St Lucia, Queensland, University of Queensland Press, 1996. 136 Henderson had been a senior journalist with the West Australian newspaper and admitted his inexperience in broadcasting in 1941, NAA SP1558/2 658 [Box 39]; NAA: SP613/1, 2/4/5 Part 1, Molesworth, memo to Bearup, 30 January 1942. Henderson later became head of religious programmes at the ABC and was much admired in this post. 213

When the Department of Post-War Reconstruction was established in December 1942, its partner within the ABC was the listening group scheme, to whom it brought renewed purpose.

After the war, then what

In early 1943, the listening group scheme launched the series After the war, then what. It was a bold invitation to discuss post-war reconstruction. The ABC Weekly, the in-house magazine, which had till then barely reported listening group programmes, gave the series major billing:

The ABC has planned a series of talks and discussions which will give both the expert’s and the man in the street’s opinion on post-war problems. The talks will be given on Thursdays beginning on February 11th by experts on social questions, each of whom has made a special study of a particular post-war problem. Each Monday, different groups of threes, including manual and professional workers and university students, will discuss the same subject as the speaker on the previous Thursday night, but will express the views of the ‘man on the street’.137

With its combination of experts alongside other working people, the new series was ambitious in its scope and later series reverted to one programme a week. After the war, then what ran for ten weeks, covering the economy, production, parliament, young people, even leisure, concluding in April 1943 with a session entitled What do you think of it when a listening group itself reviewed the series.138 A leaflet provided synopses of the positions of each speaker, starting with Professor Portus who called for change at the end of the war, saying ‘inequality of income, recurring unemployment and depressions leading to social disunity and much needless suffering must be abolished.139 The full text of his talk was printed in the ABC Weekly a fortnight after the broadcast, making it accessible to a larger audience.

A new leaflet on how to form and run a listening group was issued. The 1939 cover image was removed and additional text strengthened the case for being involved in discussion, saying ‘informal discussion is the first step towards learning to speak in public’ and ‘a person who takes part in anything is more active, physically and mentally, than the one who looks on’.140 Listening was singled out as beneficial, with the remark ‘discussion makes one more

137 ABC Weekly, Vol. 5, No 6, 6 February 1943, 21. 138 NAA: A9816, 1943/765 PART 1. 139 ibid. 140 ibid. 214 broadminded and tolerant’; these were sentiments Molesworth had noted in relation to Forum education he had seen in America in 1934.141 The text reinforced the association of the ABC with discussion and its listenership as those amenable to engagement with ideas, familiar as well as foreign.

After the War, then what urged the public to form listening groups, the press obliging with weekly details of the subjects under discussion. It was well received, as more groups registered than at any previous time, particularly in country NSW:

The Mothers’ Auxiliary, which meets on Wednesday afternoons at 3 o’clock, has joined the A.B.C. Discussion Group “After the war – then what?”. The first discussion will be next Wednesday.142

On Thursday last an ABC Listening Group was formed at the School of Arts. The course decided on was “After the War, Then What?”. The topic for the night was “Economy, Dead or Alive”. Officers were elected… A very stimulating debate followed.143

The discussion groups suggested by the ABC After the War- then what? could not be improved on... Certainly such discussion will lead more surely to a decent world than arguing about that extra tit-bit of butter.144

This success was cited in the announcement of a second series entitled After the War, then what- will victory bring peace to the Pacific. Both series concluded with a session of listening group responses.145 When in June 1943 Gabriel Parry reported on the state of listening groups, rather than calling for the cessation of the scheme, as he had done in January 1941, he argued that they stay. The number of groups had increased from 71 to 343, of which 156 were in capital cities and 187 in country towns. He asked for more publicity in the pages of the ABC Weekly and for more ‘scatters’ on air, as well as for additional office space and equipment to handle the 300 letters a month coming in.146 It is possible that it was not simply the pressing nature of the subject that drew the public to the scheme as there was also reason to think that the outcome of discussions could have a tangible result. In this respect, the wartime phase of the ABC listening

141 ibid. 142 Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners’ Advocate, 12 February 1943, 4, ‘Y.W.C.A. Notes’. 143 Muswellbrook Chronicle (NSW), 2 March 1943, 1 ‘After the War, then What?’ 144 Northern Star (Lismore, NSW), 6 April 1943, 3, ‘To the Editor – Adult Education’. 145 Newcastle Sun (NSW), 7 April 1943, 3, ‘The Pacific After the War: New ABC Discussions.’ 146 NAA: A9816 1943/765 PART 1, 201. 215 group operation resembled aspects of the Radio Farm Forum in Canada, regarded as the world’s most successful radio listening group venture in terms of the number of people who participated and its longevity.147 The ABC’s National Talks Advisory Committee was aware of the Canadian scheme, but there is no indication that it consciously decided to emulate it, arguably as it simply did not have the resources; but as circumstances evolved, it ended up in a similar position.148

The Canadian scheme was targeted at rural communities and ran from 1941 to 1965, resulting in a peak of 30,000 participants in 1950.149 Field officers helped with the running of groups and discussion was often focused on a local problem that needed resolution; feedback from groups contributed to community action.150 In explaining why the Canadian venture succeeded, Ohliger lists sharp focus, good planning, the sense of shared community, and confidence amongst participants that they were themselves listened to.151 While the Australian listening group scheme did not enjoy the same level of material support, the years during which the ABC acted in partnership with the Department of Post War Reconstruction aimed to instil a similar confidence in participants that they were being heeded. This derived from the approach to reconstruction adopted by the departmental head, H.C. ‘Nugget’ Coombs, which paralleled closely the philosophy behind listening groups. The department and the listening group scheme together reinforced radio as a site for public participation, which, as this thesis is arguing, developed continuously over the interwar period across a number of fronts. In the context of post-war reconstruction, it was aided by the work of Lloyd Ross, previously of the WEA where he had been among the first in Australia to look systematically at the operation of listening groups. This time his influence was far greater.

Department of Post-war Reconstruction & listening groups

The Department of Post-war Reconstruction was created in December 1942. Its objective was to prepare for an economy ‘still predominantly one of private ownership and enterprise, but with an increasing responsibility of the Government for the allocation of resources.’152 The extent of that responsibility was itself a matter for debate during the war, culminating in a referendum in

147 Goodman (2016–2), op.cit., 631. 148 Minutes of National Talks Advisory Committee 1944, February and August, NAA: SP613/1, 2/4/5 PART I. 149 Ohliger, op. cit., 42. 150 Goodman (2016–2), op.cit., 635. 151 Ohliger, op. cit., 39. 152 Holt, op.cit., 94, Coombs, 1944, AIPS summer school. 216

1944 in which the public were asked to approve constitutional change so that the government’s wartime planning powers be extended over the first five years of post-war peace; the referendum was not carried.153 Coombs appointed Lloyd Ross as the Department’s Director of Publicity in September 1943, a crucial post given the Department’s ‘determined attempts to stimulate popular participation’ in reconstruction.154 ‘Discussion’ was used to fuel this interest and the Department worked with the ABC’s listening group scheme, as well as setting up its own network of discussion groups.

The partnership was stressed when Coombs was introduced to the public on radio:

The Director General of the Ministry of Post-war Reconstruction has repeatedly stated that there must be a two-way flow of ideas between his department and the public… so that each may assist the other in planning.155

At a conference for officers of the Department in December 1944, Coombs pointed out the need for broad-based community discussion in order that the public have a role in ministerial decision making:

We have taken the view right through that these problems will be better dealt with, more intelligently solved, the wider the discussion there is beforehand. If there is to be wide discussion for the guidance of Ministers, then that discussion, too, must be informed, and we have seen our prime function of the public relations division on its informative side of giving people the raw materials on which they can consider the post- war problems and on which they can make up their minds so that they can influence the Ministers in their political judgments.156

Coombs stressed the genuine inclusiveness of the reconstruction project:

There is, of course, the other function of the public relations division which is equally important, and that is to give people a sense of participation in this work, to make them feel that it is their job, that they [his underlining] are reconstructing the country, not we;

153 For a comprehensive discussion of the Department of Post-War Reconstruction, see Macintyre (2015), op. cit. 154 Macintyre (2015), op. cit., 14. 155 Tim Rowse, Nugget Coombs: a reforming life, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2002, 107. 156 NAA A9816 1944/543, H. C. Coombs, December 1944. 217

and the point I want to emphasise there is that we do not want merely to create that impression. We are trying to make that a fact.157

In this, he had full support from Ross, whom Stephen Holt describes as ‘a tireless exponent of the creed of post-war reconstruction’.158

In July 1944 Ross set up the Association of Reconstruction Discussion Groups, despatching officers round the country to assist in their formation:

To inaugurate the movement in Tasmania, Miss D. Haslam of Sydney, public relations officer Ministry of Post War Reconstruction is visiting the State… The department hopes that groups will be formed among all sections of the community.159

A pamphlet was distributed nationally to explain the department’s role as facilitator to the public, describing post-war reconstruction as a ‘people’s movement’ in which the Department would ‘raise a few issues – then step aside and let you do the thinking and talking.’ 160 As word spread, groups set up under their own steam:

At a public meeting held in the card room of the School of Arts a discussion group was formed. It was decided to call this one the Rockhampton No. 1 Post War Reconstruction Discussion Group… “The purpose of the group is to discuss any problem that concerns us as citizens of Australia and to make our views thereon know to our public representatives,” says Mr J. P. Harding (Hon Sec).161

The Department’s discussion groups ran in parallel to the ABC’s listening groups, whose agenda now consisted of issues identified by the Department. After the war, then what was followed by successive radio series addressing post-war housing, social services, education, women, community centres, and the referenda in 1944 and 1946.162 Ross was involved behind the scenes in the production of listening group programmes.163 The closeness of the relationship

157 ibid. 158 Holt, op. cit., 96. 159 Advocate (Burnie, Tasmania), 8 August 1944, 6, ‘Reconstruction discussion groups’. 160 Departmental advice cited in ‘Reconstruction discussion groups’, Riverine Herald (Echuca, Victoria and Moama, NSW), 5 August 1944, 4. 161 Morning Bulletin (Rockhampton, Queensland), 2 August 1944, 4, ‘Discussion Group Formed’; Townsville Daily Bulletin (Queensland), 12 July 1945, 7, ‘Chamber of Commerce’. 162 Rowse, op. cit., 102. 163 Rowse, op. cit., 88. 218 was not something the ABC necessarily publicised, as Ross wrote in 1946, ‘shame the ABC wouldn’t mention us; it’s their policy. But we will handle the letters.’164 This was a clue to the Commission’s complex stance in relation to the Department, a negotiable position at the heart of public service broadcasting.

Government involvement with the ABC

As discussed in the first chapter of this thesis, the ABC had spent much of the 1930s in the shadow of government intervention by means of censorship; it now faced part of the 1940s with another form of control in the context of war. Dr Gordon Wood, one of the academics who had earlier prepared a report on overseas broadcasting for the ABC, had remarked in 1934 on government direction of programmes as ‘the censorship problem but in a more insidious form’.165 In 1941, Acting ABC General Manager, Thomas Bearup, wrote to the DOI about the separation of the Commission’s activities from the Department’s:

We appreciate the fact that you are required by certain Government departments and instrumentalities to carry out propaganda for them. So are we and at all times we are very happy to cooperate with you in what we feel is effective broadcasting material… As far as the Commission’s listeners are concerned it is important that we do not represent ourselves to our listeners merely as an obvious Government propaganda organisation rather than a radio organisation whose programmes and talks are worth the hearing, for their entertainment value alone.166

The meaning of this is ambiguous: Bearup was endorsing the ABC as a vehicle for government messages, but it is unclear whether he wished to conceal this association from the public or whether he was concerned to impress upon the DOI that any such programmes need to be appealing if the audience was going to attend to them. It is possible that, in the circumstances, he held both objectives.

164 NAA A9816 1944/543. 165 Dr G. L. Wood, ‘The Programme Problem’ by, February 1935, NLA Bearup papers, MS7290, Box 7, Folder 58. Wood continued, with some interruptions, to serve on the National Talks Advisory Committee as well as to broadcast talks. 166 Cited in Vickery, op. cit., 107; NAA SP112/1/1, 430/5/2, Department of Information: Publicity Sessionette Arrangements on behalf of the Advertising Division, Bearup to Williams, DOI, on behalf of the Commissioners, 16 September 1941. 219

Molesworth, as Controller of Talks, was well aware of the operation of listening group schemes elsewhere and the degree of cooperation broadcasters entered into with outside bodies in order to run them – the scheme in Canada was generously supported by government agencies. The exact nature of his view of the ABC’s association with the Department of Post War Reconstruction is difficult to determine, whether it was the ABC doing the government’s bidding or alternatively an ideal opportunity for the ABC to stimulate thinking in its audience. In his history of the ABC, Ken Inglis opted for the latter to conclude that Molesworth accepted the wartime relationship with a government department as inevitable and did so cheerfully because of the benefits to Talks within the ABC’s output.167 Pragmatism has been a frequent refrain in the history of radio, and the listening group scheme certainly benefitted from its connection with the Department of Post War Reconstruction: the number of groups continued to rise, from 60 to 300 in 1943, while in 1944 it boasted a total of 488, of which 45 were in the Services. In previous years most groups were in NSW, but now they became active in all states.168 Nor do these figures include any for the Association of Post War Reconstruction Discussion Groups who were also using the ABC material.169 The success of the scheme, given its commitment to civic engagement in a democracy, may have underpinned a statement in the ABC’s Annual Report of June 1944 in which the Commission spoke of its responsibility to ‘steer by its lights’.170 Ken Inglis regards this as ‘the first general affirmation by the Commissioners of their rights as custodians of a statutory authority’, and attributes the statement to the on-going debates about an independent news service.171 It is possible, however, that the listening group scheme, with its emphasis the Commission’s responsibility to listeners as engaged citizens, was behind it too. Added to this, in mid-1944 the ABC launched a discussion programme for which Molesworth had been agitating before the war started.

Nation’s Forum of the Air

The ABC’s Nation’s Forum of the Air was the live broadcast of a debate that took place in front of an audience who could ask questions of speakers. It harked back to the American ‘Forum education’ Molesworth had so admired in 1934, in which the members of a panel discussion were subjected to questions from an audience. American liberals between the wars looked to using radio in the interests of democracy; in the 1930s, this coincided with concern by American

167 Inglis, op. cit., 84. 168 ABC Annual Report 1943, 9; ABC Annual Report 1944, 12. 169 ABC Annual Report 1945, 12; in 1945, it reported that 12,000 booklets of the Back to Mufti series of talks were published and distributed, the majority to men and women in the Services. 170 ABC Annual Report 1944, 3–4. 171 Inglis, op. cit., 122 220 commercial networks to demonstrate their civic credentials. In 1935, the League for Political Education launched a programme nationally through NBC called America’s Town Meeting of the Air (ATMA).172 After the clanging of a town-crier’s handbell, a panel of speakers would address a topic, usually of political or social significance, followed by audience questions. The whole event was broadcast live across the country where local groups were organised for listeners to continue the discussion in homes and workplaces. ATMA was a runaway success from the moment it started.173 In 1938, Australian feminist Linda Littlejohn was a panellist in an edition addressing the question ‘How Should the Democracies deal with the Dictatorships?’174 In 1939, Molesworth had such a programme in mind for Australia.175 The ABC National Talks Advisory Committee meeting in September that year acknowledged that wartime censorship conditions prevented its proceeding; but Molesworth persisted over the following years in raising it with the committee and including it in recommendations to the Commission.176 It is likely that the idea was in circulation outside the ABC: as noted earlier in this thesis, physicist Professor Laby raised the prospect of an Australian version of ATMA at the Joint Parliamentary Inquiry into Broadcasting in 1941.177 In 1944, with discussion of post-war reconstruction dominating the air, the ABC approved Molesworth’s wish.

Nation’s Forum of the Air was broadcast fortnightly on Wednesday evenings from August 1944 for some twenty years.178 It was the first time the ABC had opened its microphones to the public to such a degree. Its first editor was William Macmahon Ball, who had recently resigned from the DOI rather than accept the imposition of censorship.179 As noted earlier, Ball had been calling for some years for more openness in radio’s presentation of information and opinion; during his time with shortwave broadcasting at the DOI, he developed an approach ‘that

172 David Goodman, ‘Programming in the Public Interest: America’s Town Meeting of the Air’, in NBC: America’s Network, edited by Michele Hilmes, Berkeley, University of California Press, 2007, 44–60. 173 Goodman (2007), op. cit., 49. 174 Linda Littlejohn, America’s Town Meeting of the Air, 8 December 1938, ‘how should the democracies deal with the dictatorships?’, audio available at http://xroads.virginia.edu/~1930s/Radio/TownMeeting/12_08_1938_TownMeetingR.mov 175 B. H. Molesworth, letter to Douglas Clark, Citizen’s Forum, Canada, 3 February 1948. Thanks to David Goodman for this reference. 176 NAA: SP1474/1, TALKS SESSIONS AND ORGANISATION – GENERAL, Minutes of National Talks Advisory Committee, 19 September 1939; Minutes of National Talks Advisory Committee, 16 February 1940, NAA: SP613/1, 2/4/5 PART I. 177 Joint Parliamentary Inquiry into Broadcasting, Minutes of evidence, 115 – 119. 178 See Inglis, op. cit., 238, for the changes in name of the session in later years; note too that it was not always fortnightly, with interruptions for holiday periods while from 1946 to 1948, it was broadcast weekly for part of the year. Until 1950, there were about 25 editions per year, the number declining thenceforth. 179 Kobayashi, op. cit., 64–66. 221 provided truth by controversy’.180 In Hilvert’s view, Ball was committed to training listeners ‘in critical interpretation of foreign news’.181 Ball wrote that the purpose of Nation’s Forum of the Air was to provide a ‘new opportunity for the discussion of great national issues’:

The Commission recognises that if these sessions are to be pungent and real, they must be conducted in an atmosphere of frankness and freedom. No restrictions of any kind are imposed upon the speakers except those elementary restrictions necessary in wartime in the interests of security.182

The published transcript of the first programme indicated that discussion amongst panel and audience continued after the broadcast ceased; it was followed by an invitation to the public to attend the next such occasion or, ‘if unable to attend, why not form a Listening group with your friends?’183 The transcripts were available for purchase at threepence apiece: these show formal initial statements by participating speakers, but also noted audience responses such as cheering, laughter or applause as well as questions.184 The second broadcast of the forum succeeded in attracting widespread attention: it addressed population, a thorny issue for some decades in Australia amid concerns of inadequate family size and the declining white birth rate in the country. The debate pitted a family planner, Dr Norman Haire, against Dame Enid Lyons, widow of former Prime Minister Joseph Lyons, herself an elected member of parliament and mother of eleven children.185 Despite the programme being raised in parliament and the objections of some powerful conservative women’s organisations, the ABC executive held firm and continued the programme, perhaps encouraged by the majority correspondence which approved the broadcast.186 As well as Lyons, feminist Jessie Street was a speaker in this edition of the programme. However, the participation of women in Nation’s Forum of the Air overall was slight: while women constituted approximately one in ten panellists, they were never the majority of a panel nor was a woman ever the chair. The range of issues under discussion was broad, including taxation, soil erosion, Sunday opening, cricket, trade, trade unionism, atomic testing and the public role of women.

180 Hilvert, op. cit., 135. 181 Hilvert, op. cit., 38. 182 Nations Forum of the Air, Vol, 1, No, 1 preface, Australian Broadcasting Commission, 2 August 1944. 183 Nation’s Forum of the Air, Vol. 1, No.1, 19. 184 For example, Nation’s Forum of the Air, Vol. 1, No. 3 shows interjections, 12, 16–17. 185 Inglis, op. cit., 116. 186 Inglis, op. cit., 116–117. 222

A bounce for listening groups

The listening group scheme stood to benefit from its promotion in the published transcripts of Nation’s Forum: internal ABC records indicate many requests for the booklets and Lloyd Ross ordered bulk quantities for distribution to his discussion groups, at one stage five thousand copies.187 The transcripts’ continued publication was secured post-war when in 1946 the department took over its printing, with its name on the cover. Meanwhile, publicity leaflets for the listening group series promoted Nation’s Forum of the Air. Both programmes underscored the place of discussion in a democracy in times of peace, while they also contributed to a normative conception of radio as a site for the expression of difference: radio emerged as a space for all views, those of the public as well as experts, within a frame in which all were equally liable to questioning.

In 1947, Gabriel Parry, the initial organiser of Australian listening groups made a study trip to Britain. He arrived just as the BBC ceased its listening group scheme, citing financial reasons and its priority in programme making. Parry wrote a report in which he compared the BBC’s ‘more aloof’ relationship with ‘the warm, personal, immediate approach that we assiduously cultivated in Australia – and with excellent results’.188 He was critical of what he called ‘the BBC’s poor publicity, indigestible reading lists and remote subject matter’, and concluded:

By giving up on its listening group scheme, the BBC doesn’t necessarily prove that this method is unsuitable for radio; it merely proves its inability to present programmes and an educational organisation efficient enough to attract an audience.189

Parry calculated that, in relation to population, the ABC scheme had achieved a significantly better participation rate than the BBC’s, and recommended the ABC look to the Swedish and Canadian schemes in the future. He went on to state his belief in the scheme:

My faith in listening groups is not in the least shaken by the BBC decision. What is really the object of getting people together in discussion groups? It is, it seems to me, to give them the opportunity to talk together and act together in a way that promotes their individual welfare and the welfare of the community. Contact with others within a small

187 NAA: B2111 OPR1, Victoria manager, memo to Controller of Programmes, 7 November 1945: 1,100 requests for Nation’s Forum booklet (more than for ‘Domus’, the DIY speaker). 188 NAA: SP724/1, 13/1/4, Listening groups. 189 ibid. 223

group clears up ideas, awakens energy, stimulates people to act who would otherwise do nothing by themselves.190

These are the ideals with which the scheme was publicly launched in 1939, in terms of civic values; they were ideals fundamental to the WEA whose influence in the ABC had continued throughout the war years due to the chairmanship of Cleary and Director of Talks Molesworth. The on-going influence of university members of the National Talks Advisory Committee, particularly Professor Portus, and later Lloyd Ross at the Department of Post-War Reconstruction, bolstered the legitimacy of the scheme as part of a broadcaster’s work. They believed in education as an enabler of citizenship and understood radio listening groups to be an effective means to achieve that end. Together these made their operation within the ABC fully justified. The cost implications were a matter to be resolved, not a reason for giving up.

Circumstances changed post-war. In 1945 Cleary resigned as ABC Chairman and Richard Boyer was appointed his successor. Boyer was the son of a minister and graduate of the University of Sydney; he joined the Methodist ministry in 1914 but, dispirited by World War I, bought a property in Queensland where he became involved in rural politics.191 The success of his farm enabled him to travel to Europe in the 1930s and in 1940 he moved to Sydney ‘seeking opportunities for public service’.192 That year Boyer was made a commissioner of the ABC and honorary director of the American division of the Australian DOI, an appointment that put him in a position to become familiar with American broadcasting. Boyer spoke on the role broadcasting could take in a democracy and was very well disposed to Talks output. But listening group activity was a case apart, extending the broadcaster’s role beyond the making and transmission of programmes. While the scheme had been portrayed at the start as an opportunity to obtain the views of listeners, audience research had since become an accepted part of broadcasting operations.193 The scheme’s registered enrolments were never large and there was manifest opposition to it within senior management at the ABC. The reorganisation of the Commission by its chair William Cleary in 1935 had created the post of Federal Controller of Programmes, a position with considerable power over scheduling and programme policy. Cleary’s appointee was Dr Keith Barry, a medical doctor and writer on classical music, who

190 ibid. 191 G. C. Bolton, ‘Boyer, Sir Richard James Fildes (1891–1961)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre for Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/boyer- sir-richard-james-fildes-9562/text16845, published first in hardcopy 1993, accessed online 16 February 2015. 192 ibid. 193 Inglis, op. cit., 117. 224 viewed music as the pre-eminent purpose of broadcasting and argued that talks should be no more than ten minutes in duration.194 Differences between Molesworth and Barry continued until Molesworth’s retirement in 1955, with Molesworth later describing Barry as ‘a wily bird’.195

In 1946, Barry pointed to the ABC children’s programme, the Argonauts, whose radio club had a membership of 30,000 and no additional organiser cost; listening group figures by his estimation had been as low as 700.196 Buoyed by a peak in participation in 1947, Molesworth proposed that additional funds be made available for more local group organisers. Barry responded by querying the whole case for the scheme, in both financial and programme terms.197 The Commission met while Gabriel Parry was overseas, and the recommendation by ABC Chairman Boyer spelled the end:

It is only recently that I have become aware of the high cost of these listening group broadcasts compared with the slight reaction to them after many years of trial. In the circumstances, I feel obliged to recommend that the Commission give serious consideration to eliminating this series from our programmes and devoting the money thus saved to the general improvement of our talks.198

Slow death and final flowering

By the ABC’s account, its listening group scheme folded because it was outside the normal activity of making and transmitting programmes. The scheme did not cease entirely until 1953 and throughout its final six years the ABC approached a number of outside bodies to take on the running of it.199 The Commonwealth Office of Education declined, as did state organisations. In 1951, a fee to individual groups was introduced and immediately the number of registrations dropped.200 In writing to a West Australian MP about the charge, General Manager Charles Moses acknowledged ‘we are anxious to preserve those services which are designed to help in raising cultural standards’; but he referred to a review of the ABC that stated of listening groups, ‘cost was high, audience low, however useful they are to stimulate thought and increase

194 Inglis, op. cit., 60; Molesworth, Transcript, Oral History Interview, ABC Sound Archives, 8. 195 Molesworth, Transcript, Oral History Interview, ABC Sound Archives, 18. 196 NAA: SP724/1. 197 ibid. 198 ibid. 199 NAA: SP1558/2, 659 [Box 39]. 200 ibid. 225 knowledge.’201 Molesworth continued to seek assistance, but without success.202 There were a few letters to the press speaking up for the scheme, but hardly a public outcry.203

Throughout the remaining years, groups continued to receive readings, bibliographies, suggested questions and transcripts. In keeping with changes elsewhere with Talks output, the broadcast programmes were a mix of straight talks, interviews, discussions, and documentaries recorded on location. Molesworth later described the enormous difference recording made:

The portable recorder enabled us to develop what had been for a long time one of my keenest aims – that was to get documentary material and documentary programmes recognised as a necessary item in the National programme.204

The post-war broadcasts of discussions in programmes for listening groups were more likely to be spontaneous than scripted. Listener responses were circulated to other groups, and speakers often wrote lengthy replies to individuals.205 Celebrity speakers included philosopher Bertrand Russell and anthropologist Margaret Mead in 1951; in 1949, groups were urged to write in quickly after a series on UNESCO so that the Australian delegation could include their comments at a forthcoming meeting in Paris.

The ABC Annual Reports were silent about the attempts to offload the scheme and continued to report on its progress. Attention turned from group numbers to the national significance of programme content as the Monday night sessions designed for discussion by listening groups dealt with issues of topical significance such as The Future of Federalism and Assimilating New Australians.206 In 1952, there were series on Can the World Produce enough Food for Everyone? and What are the Dangers of Our Mass Means of Communication?207 Broadcasts were now organised into seasons which took in a number of sub-series. Macmahon Ball was a frequent participant, particularly with series that included attention to Australia’s regional proximity to Asia and positioned its listeners within the Asian region as well as the international

201 ibid; Moses was referring to the Fitzgerald Inquiry 1948. 202 ibid. 203 The Mercury (Hobart), 17 February 1949, 3, ‘Letter to the editor: ABC Report’; Sydney Morning Herald, 11 February 1949, 2, ‘Letters to the editor: ABC Activities’. 204 Molesworth, Transcript, Oral History Interview, ABC Sound Archives, 15. 205 Many listener letters and replies have survived from Macmahon Ball’s series, see Macmahon Ball Papers, NLA MS 7851. 206 ABC Annual Report June 1951, 11. 207 ibid. 226 community.208 Successive series explored a spectrum of themes, many of which figured in occasional talks; the ‘curating’ for listening group discussion positioned the interests of the listener across heart and hearth, regional and international relations. Finally, in its Annual Report of June 1953, the ABC referred simply to ‘the Monday evening discussion programme’; listeners could continue to discuss amongst themselves, but there was no explicit invitation or urging them to do so. The listening group scheme was over.

Conclusion

The Australian listening group scheme was initially referred to as an ‘experiment’ and, despite its 14-year run, its cessation might suggest that it failed.209 The actual number of people who formed groups to listen together and discuss the material in the ABC listening group programmes was small, although it is not possible to gauge how many more people noted that the activity was an option available to them. The scheme affirmed citizenship within Australian identity and highlighted its collective character by underscoring discussion as a way of enacting citizenship. The Australian listening groups’ freedom from direction was distinctive in contrast to schemes elsewhere in the world and presented group discussion as an everyday matter for which training or qualification was not necessary. Given its publicity through different print media, it is reasonable to conclude that a sizeable number of people became aware of the groups and the utilisation of radio in the interests of democracy and the public sphere.

The end of formal organised contact amongst listeners did not necessarily mean that democratic empowerment was no longer an objective of spoken-word broadcasting, but simply that the means of achieving it had changed. Nation’s Forum of the Air realised an ambition for broadcasting that Molesworth shared with William Macmahon Ball whose philosophy of radio required the opportunity for listeners to hear all sides of a story; Nation’s Forum continued until 1964 when it was succeeded by programmes in which questioning remained central.210 Both the listening group scheme and the panel show contributed to constructing an agenda of issues that defined civic responsibility in post-war Australia.

While the listening group scheme was supported by many educators and public intellectuals committed to the WEA precept of discussion, the scheme and its partner programme, Nation’s

208 Kobayashi details the later rift between Ball and the ABC, op. cit., 165–183. 209 The Argus (Melbourne), 22 February 1939, 2, ‘Experiment by ABC’. 210 Inglis, op. cit., 238. 227

Forum, were assisted by a cooperative partnership between the Federal Government and the ABC. There was no secret about this, but the attempts made to lessen its appearance to the public suggest there was concern within the ABC about the closeness of this relationship. The government’s restrictive censorship of broadcasters in the 1930s had resulted in organised opposition by individuals and groups outside radio stations and it was largely this action which contributed to change; but the government’s ‘expressive’ involvement in the 1940s was less obvious and posed different questions about the relationship between government and broadcasters. On the one hand, it suggested a Commission still obliged to do the government’s bidding, while on the other it could be seen as marking a determination by the public broadcaster to assert its own responsibilities to the Australian public when the opportunity presented itself. The listening group scheme was consistently put before the public as a moral responsibility for citizens; arguably the scheme served to consolidate that ethos as part of the ABC’s understanding of its role in Australian civic life. 228

Conclusion

Interwar radio in Australia buzzed with voices – women talking sport, men telling stories, politicians, anthropologists, Aborigines, and peace activists; they were a compelling testament to Hannah Arendt’s conviction that people desire to have their voices heard in public.1 This thesis began by asking what the consequences were in Australia of this urge to be heard publicly by means of radio; it sought to determine the impact of spoken-word radio on the public sphere between the wars. This conclusion is the opportunity to draw together the findings presented throughout the thesis concerning who spoke, under what circumstances, and the response they elicited– this last category is crucial as the public sphere is, and was, a place of active engagement. While a particular set of interests has been the focus of each chapter, these are not watertight compartments and issues foregrounded in one chapter frequently recur elsewhere. This is also a chance to consider matters arising from the project that call for further investigation.

The research for this thesis covered broadcasting in the commercial and public sectors of Australian radio, as talks were a significant part of the output of both. The project considered the role of government and the operation of broadcasting institutions; it examined the opportunities and obstacles that groups and individuals encountered when seeking access to airtime; and it sought evidence of listener engagement. The thesis began by identifying power as central to the continuing negotiations between government regulators, broadcasting stations, radio speakers and the listening public. From these, questions about representation, authority, gender, race, national identity and transnational connectivity emerged. Many of these issues have figured in the historical development of radio around the world, but their interplay in any one set of circumstances is distinctive.

Radio was presented to Australians from the start in terms of its potential– it was something to be revealed. Broadcasting was realised as a work in progress, straddling commercialism, culture and communication. Interwar radio in Australia has sometimes been portrayed as either a capitulation to commercial forces or as a sole provider in a cultural desert.2 This thesis has complicated this depiction by examining the increasing numbers of speakers who engaged in public life at the microphone. It has shown that radio energised many organisations between

1 Hannah Arendt, Crises of the Republic, 1972, 232, cited by Richard J. Bernstein, Why Read Hannah Arendt Now, Cambridge, Polity, 2018, 115. 2 Johnson, op. cit., 205; Inglis, op cit., 77. 229 the wars, enabling the articulation of views from across the political spectrum. In some instances, these were contested positions; in some circumstances, radio contributed to momentum for change. This suggests that interwar radio is a rich resource for detecting those individuals and organisations resolved to influence public thinking; it should be mined for its content, taking account of those factors identified in this thesis that affected the understanding of listeners, including scheduling, format, frequency, voice, promotion and commentary.

Most studies of radio in Australia have looked at its use by institutions and politicians, both groups with considerable power; this study has revealed a greater level of public participation than depicted previously. The government’s lack of vision in the early 1920s enabled individuals and organisations to institute practices and cultivate expectations that contributed to the development of radio as a means of communication as well as entertainment: women’s groups were frequent broadcasters, empire-loyalists observed commemorations on air, and, despite little assistance, supporters of early Indigenous rights’ movements were heard. The dual commercial-public system enabled those outside, as well as inside, party politics to broadcast on civic issues, particularly on commercial radio. The sheer number of independent radio stations in Australia and the autonomy of state branches of the ABC for much of the 1930s created a laissez-faire situation in which those keen to speak frequently found an opportunity to do so. For much of the time, this was not a result of deliberate programming policy, but due to the persistence of those external to radio who set up camp inside. Nonetheless, airtime was often the consequence of political allegiance and effective networking; alongside the access gained by some groups, it must be acknowledged that many others were denied the chance to reach a listening audience. Records are incomplete, particularly in regional areas, and further investigation is required to understand better the situation outside the capital cities.

Radio was part of a communications landscape in which newspapers and other publications were used for public discussion of broadcasting and the shaping of listener subjectivity. Early radio was established as a place of opinion; commentary on its output became widespread through specialist and general print outlets. Groups who became involved with radio as broadcasters, or aspired to be such, became conversant with the formats and styles of broadcasting most likely to reach their desired audience in the manner most favourable to their purpose. There is evidence that external groups, as well as those internal to radio, became familiar with broadcasting practices elsewhere in the world and considered their options accordingly as they sought the public ear.

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The response of listeners to spoken-word radio drew on elements from the private and public experience to which it gave rise: evidence shows that listeners could be moved by programmes to the point of writing to broadcasters; there are indications that listening would trigger the act of imagination required for listeners to perceive themselves differently within a specific community. Radio could– and did– politicise listeners and transform their future listening. For women, radio could also provide an opportunity for new interpersonal relations outside the home; for some listeners, radio facilitated discussion on public affairs through participation in a listening group. While these do not confirm the impact of radio on listeners more broadly – and it is unclear what that would consist in – they confirm early radio’s part in generating the active engagement that constitutes a public sphere.

Limitations

The meaning of a radio broadcast derives from more than its literal content: voice, delivery, familiarity, and promotion are just some of the factors that contribute to the meaning of the broadcast as transmitted. Not all broadcasts were equal: the repeated restrictions around women’s broadcasting through scheduling and subject matter contributed to women’s exclusion from much of public life and this thesis does not contest the conclusions of earlier studies on this score. However, it does challenge the inference that this occurred without substantial resistance: women from across the political spectrum engaged with radio, from the organisation of Empire Day programmes to the address by Aboriginal woman Pearl Gibbs in 1941. Radio was used by some women as a bridge between the public and private spheres, creating an opportunity to confirm women’s place in the home within the paradigm of maternal citizenship; other women sought to broadcast feminist programmes that challenged this. The tension between these positions was developed in commentary by women about broadcasting for women. Radio was presented as an opportunity for women to reflect on their representation in the public sphere; it interpellated women as citizens who could define their place within it.

This thesis has noted the significance of race in early broadcasting: Indigenous speakers were largely, although not completely, excluded from interwar radio; mainstream acceptance of the White Australia immigration policy was reinforced through radio’s support for the British Empire. However, the occasional broadcasts of Aborigines challenged the widely-held assumption of their imminent extinction to assert to settler and Indigenous Australians their shared future. These programmes were few in number, and the fact that they are well remembered attests to their significance in mobilising support.

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By the 1930s, the ABC became the principal outlet for radio talks. Its close connection with the universities brought the voices of academics into the lives and homes of listeners across the country. Several academics approached radio work in a quasi-professional manner, creating a porous boundary between broadcasting and the life of a public intellectual across a range of philosophical positions and disciplines. However, the gatekeeping power of the ABC enabled it to exercise editorial preferences: this favoured social scientists over physical scientists, while within the science community itself, there were indications that opinion was divided over the merits of public communication, particularly by radio. These choices influenced public access to information on which policy might be determined.

‘We need to talk’

The broader question of who had authority to speak on-air, or to determine what could be said, was a persistent theme in this thesis. While scientists, women and Aborigines attempted to speak on matters generally the preserve of professional white men, the issue was put forcibly before the public in the battles over broadcast censorship. This is distinct from criticism of individual speakers, which could be robust; objections by the public to an individual’s right to broadcast were rare. It was a different matter with the Commonwealth Government, which intervened many times during the 1930s to block talks perceived as critical of its policy. This gave rise to concerted opposition in the later 1930s, with banned speakers seeking out publicity in the name of democracy and newspapers obliging them with coverage.

Objections to censorship of individual speakers were couched in terms of freedom of speech and the lack of transparency of government. Out of these arguments, William Macmahon Ball called for impartial news broadcasts from the public broadcaster in order that the public be informed – that listeners be in a position to know as much as government on matters pertaining to policy. The question of how broadcasting could serve the public in a democracy was uppermost in the mind of the ABC’s Controller of Talks, B.H. Molesworth; his solution was to extend the activity of a broadcasting station beyond programme-making, in order to facilitate discussion amongst listeners. Spoken-word radio between the wars was central to discussion of how a democracy might function in a modern world of information. While much subsequent analysis has centred on the provision of news, rather than the presentation of opinion, the reflections of Macmahon Ball on the relationship between speaker and listener in this context call for new attention.

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The widespread engagement with radio brought broadcasting itself onto the agenda for public debate. As well as Macmahon Ball and Molesworth, the names of Linda Littlejohn, Thomas Laby, William Dakin, George Taylor and Emil Voigt can be added as advocates for spoken-word broadcasting. Their leadership in presenting radio as an instrument of civic life confirmed communication with fellow citizens as a matter of public, rather than purely partisan, significance. In this way, radio became more than a space in which social policy could be discussed– radio also became itself part of a public agenda. In the vacuum left by government inaction, Taylor pushed for a Royal Commission into Wireless that took place in 1927; hundreds of submissions were received by the Joint Parliamentary Committee into Broadcasting in 1941. Testimonies by witnesses were widely reported, underscoring public involvement in decisions about how the common good of broadcasting would be formally constructed. While this public was mainly from the middle class, they were not of one mind: their voices confirmed radio as a shared space in which disparate interests might meet. The opportunity for mutual encounter that characterised early radio developed because many individuals and organisations made it so, in their capacity as listeners and speakers.

‘We have to listen’

The public participation that surrounded radio in the 1930s suggests parallels with twenty-first century engagement between the media and the public, where social media, the internet and mobile apps have replaced letters and listening groups. There is also evidence that the concern of the past with radio and democracy has returned in the contemporary world, in anxiety over the proliferation of quasi-propaganda ‘fake news’ outlets, the uncertain future of public service broadcasting and the ‘niche’ or ‘silo’ consumption of media. This thesis has shown how Australian radio was not accepted passively between the wars; not only did many interest groups seek to use the medium as broadcasters, alongside those with whom they disagreed, but others interrogated the ways in which broadcasting could better serve the public in a democracy. The solutions that were devised included regulation, legislation, government accountability, government assistance, a considered understanding of the listeners’ role, and new approaches to programme making; and significantly, many of these proposals were raised at major public inquiries. The answers adopted in the past generally belong to the past; but the questions raised can have a longer life. As similar issues recur today about the way in which broadcasting can best serve the public, a subject for further inquiry arising from this thesis is to investigate systematically the approaches taken in radio’s first decades in the light of modern conditions. To the extent that opportunities for public discussion about the media are not 233 provided in the present, the contemporary public can look to the interwar years to reclaim the purposeful engagement with communication that characterised broadcasting’s first generation.

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Minerva Access is the Institutional Repository of The University of Melbourne

Author/s: Bowen, Jennifer

Title: A clamour of voices: negotiations of power and purpose in Australian spoken-word radio from 1924 to 1942

Date: 2018

Persistent Link: http://hdl.handle.net/11343/221607

File Description: Complete thesis

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