With Fond Regards PRIVATE LIVES THROUGH LETTERS Edited and Introduced by ELIZABETH RIDDELL ith Fond Regards W holds many- secrets. Some are exposed, others remain inviolate. The letters which comprise this intimate book allow us passage into a private world, a world of love letters in locked drawers and postmarks from afar. Edited by noted writer Elizabeth Riddell, and drawn exclusively from the National Library's Manuscript collection, With Fond Regards includes letters from famous, as well as ordinary, Australians. Some letters are sad, others inspiring, many are humorous—but all provide a unique and intimate insight into Australia's past. WITH FOND REGARDS PRIVATE LIVES THROUGH LETTERS Edited and Introduced by Elizabeth Riddell Compiled by Yvonne Cramer National Library of Australia Canberra 1995 Published by the National Library of Australia Canberra ACT 2600 © National Library of Australia 1995 Every reasonable endeavour has been made to contact relevant copyright holders. Where this has not proved possible, the copyright holders are invited to contact the publishers. National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry With fond regards: private lives through letters. ISBN 0 642 10656 8. 1. Australian letters. 2. Australia—Social conditions—1788-1900. 3. Australia—Social conditions—20th century. 4. Australia—Social life and customs—1788-1900. 5. Australia—Social life and customs— 20th century. I. Riddell, Elizabeth. II. Cramer, Yvonne. III. National Library of Australia. A826.008 Designer: Andrew Rankine Editor: Susan Shortridge Editorial Assistant: Annabel Pengilley Printed by Goanna Print, Canberra INTRODUCTION vii SIR JOSEPH BANKS 2 JOHN GRANT 10 MARGARET CATCHPOLE 22 QUEEN POMARE 26 SIR GRANVILLE RYRIE 28 RUBY MADDEN 38 PETER GRANT WATSON 58 ROSA CAMPBELL PRAED 7° CAPTAIN FERDINAND HENRY WRIGHT 74 TOM COLE 78 IRVINE DOUGLAS 84 DAME ENID LYONS 88 VANCE AND NETTIE PALMER 94 PATRICK WHITE 102 HAY INTERNMENT CAMP 106 ANDREW TAYLOR 112 THOMAS SHAPCOTT 124 ALAN MARSHALL & FRANK HUELIN 128 CONTENTS V hat is a letter? A message, that's all, no more serious than the bark of a dog in the night when somebody unfamiliar walks down the street. Or as serious as the Winsult that starts a war. The message will be a challenge, or a plea, or a threat, or an invitation, or condolences on an untimely death; it will contain reconciliation or it will pull down a blind or close a door. It will ask what went wrong, and is it possible to try again? Or there will be the offer of an absolutely free holiday in the Barrier Reef or the Maldive Islands. It may report the death of a family cat or that Darren (for that will be his increasingly popular name) has won first prize for landscape painting in Year Ten. One could divagate endlessly on the subject of letters. But what concerns many of us this year of 1995 is that there may soon be no more letters, and as letters cease to punctuate our lives, so will a large piece of history slip away. To put it at its simplest, there will be certain bits INTRODUCTION vii of machinery (push buttons), certain whispery noises transmitted along invisible wires, taking the place of letters. The telephone and the fax have already presaged the death of letters. More elaborate systems are rapidly coming into place, as politicians like to say. As each brilliant piece of technology sparkles away offscreen, get ready for the funeral of the letter. Always remembering, of course, that in the beginning was the word and the word was not something bouncing on a galaxy, but a series of related marks set down on bits of paper. All this wild speculation, mixed with sober affirmation, should not overlook the fact that the same extraordinary and almost incomprehensible techniques probably spin off into the very same techniques that preserve the letters in a readable, reasonable state in the National Library. The Library has been collecting personal, that is both public and private, papers for almost 90 years and now has the largest collection in Australia. The opening of the first file must have been a euphoric occasion. The magnitude of the task of coping with the mass of paper accumulated in the years since settlement would not have been envisaged any more than the fact that the material might eventually dry up. It was in fact the start of something great. A large amount of this store of paper is made up of letters. The range is wide. Some of the writers are, or were, of national importance for one reason or another, other writers belong to that valuable group, 'accidental historians'. It is a comfortable phrase that takes in almost everybody. You can start with politicians, diplomats, religious leaders, commercial figures, merchant princes, lawyers, doctors, sportsmen, educationists, poets, artists, graziers, actors, journalists and so on, the so on covering men and women who happened to be in a particular place at a particular time. It is their letters, diaries and documents covering domestic experience that provide a valuable record of events that affected the population, such as a gold rush, periodical depressions, droughts, a coalmining strike or a shipping strike, the first stirrings of conservation. While in any collection categorised as 'papers' there is bound to be a large component of public, that is commercial, legal etc., documents, it is the variety of letters which is especially viii INTRODUCTION valued by historians and biographers. Anybody who works in these fields will understand this, having had experience of a shy family which promises to tell all and then tells not much at all for fear of bruising sensitive feelings. It is the thought of exposing hitherto secret personal relationships that unnerves members of families, clubs, professional or amateur societies, corporations. Possibility of fractured folklore is what keeps the letters in a locked drawer. What wounds can be opened with the discovery of a postcard from Port Hedland signed 'love from Joe' when Joe was supposed to be taking his annual leave exploring McMurdo Sound? The strategy to be employed acquiring the precious bits of paper is complicated and could be assisted by a bit of low cunning. The Library buys where it can, and where it can afford, at auctions and in Australia and Europe and from antiquarian book dealers everywhere, but most of the items in the collection come from individuals who created and assembled the papers, and from their heirs. These individuals may initiate proceedings, but more often it is the Library that makes the first move. Understandably, as the Library says, people can be hesitant about putting private lives up for scrutiny in a public place, and goodwill on both sides is important. Negotiations often take a long time, extending over several decades, and may then come to nothing. The Library's case is that papers are far less likely to be dispersed or destroyed if placed in its archives. Donors have the right to close access, or they may restrict access for a reasonable period, on the understanding that ultimately the papers will be available to all genuine researchers. On a personal note, however public-spirited one may be on the subject of preservation of letters, there is no avoiding the 'voyeur' factor. There would hardly be the number of books of celebrity letters on publishing programs if there was not a devoted reading public. 'It's like reading a good novel,' people say, poring over the marketing schedule of a farmer's wife somewhere west of Narrabri. Other people's letters are addictive, though often lacking useful information. They have the trivial charm of the clandestine. INTRODUCTION ix Peering sideways on the bus seat as a neighbour unfolds a letter hot from the postman's (or postgirl's) bag, the voyeur may see only that Aunt Mary should not be invited to Vera's wedding because she always makes trouble. What sort of trouble? No details follow. Does Aunt Mary customarily get drunk at weddings or complain about the number of toasters on view? Anyway, something to think about for the rest of the journey. The letters in this little book are full of mysteries, or at least of unanswered questions. What, for instance, is the name of 'the one good sweet shop in Sydney' mentioned by Peter Grant Watson's mother when she suggests that his adored Ida should join him in Australia and take on some business where the genteel touch is needed? Did hapless John Grant ever find the bits of his property he was searching for—his cape, the buckles for his britches and his mismatched boots? Elizabeth Riddell X INTRODUCTION Sir Joseph Banks, whom one might irreverently think, of as the original Banksia man, a child's embodiment of the bush, came to Australia with Captain James Cook. It would be a mistake to suppose that he was only interested in, and informed on, matters of plant and animal life. In 1773, when Banks was in Holland, Count Bentinck. asked him to recount some aspect of his travels which Lines from Joseph Banks' original letter to Count Bentinck might amuse the Prince of Orange. He From the Manuscript collection wrote an 18-page letter headed 'Thoughts Artist unknown A View in Othaite, c.1820 Rex Nan Kivell Collection on the manners of the women of From the Pictorial collection Otaheite' 2 SIR JOSEPH BANKS he regard and attention paid by us Europeans to the fair sex is certainly one of the chief reasons why our women so far exceed those of climates more T favourable to the produce of the human species in beauty as well as those elegant qualifications of the mind, which blending themselves in our manner make the commerce between the sexes so much more delightful to us than to the inhabitants of Africa or America in whose breasts I do not find the refinements of love to hold the least place.