Lucy Woodcock's Transnational Life
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Teacher for Justice LUCY WOODCOCK'S TRANSNATIONAL LIFE Teacher for Justice LUCY WOODCOCK'S TRANSNATIONAL LIFE HEATHER GOODALL, HELEN RANDERSON AND DEVLEENA GHOSH This book is dedicated to all the teachers who, every day, go above and beyond the call of duty for their students Published by ANU Press The Australian National University Acton ACT 2601, Australia Email: [email protected] Available to download for free at press.anu.edu.au ISBN (print): 9781760463045 ISBN (online): 9781760463052 WorldCat (print): 1112676750 WorldCat (online): 1112676628 DOI: 10.22459/TJ.2019 This title is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial- NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). The full licence terms are available at creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode Cover design and layout by ANU Press This edition © 2019 ANU Press Contents Illustrations . ix Abbreviations . xiii Acknowledgements . xv Learning – Unions and the World: 1910s and 1920s 1 . Introduction: A Transnational Life . 3 2 . Unions . 17 Scars: 1930s 3 . Hunger . 41 4 . Love . 59 5 . Unity and Betrayal . 89 6 . Refugees and Hope . 107 7 . What Sort of Australia? 1938 . 127 Expanding Visions: 1939–1946 8 . Women and War . 145 9 . Recognising Race: Decolonisation . 167 Crossing Borders: 1945–1960s 10 . Red Scare . 195 11 . Into Asia . 223 12 . Peace and Prejudice . 241 13 . Uniting Women . 259 14 . Bringing the World Back Home . 283 Legacy 15 . Young in Hope . 305 Bibliography . 317 Author Biographies . .. 335 Index . 337 Illustrations Figure 2.1: Lucy in her early days of teaching ...................34 Figure 3.1: This Newcastle Sun photo showed the soup kitchens for the children of locked-out and striking miners ...........44 Figure 3.2: Erskineville was a working-class industrial suburb that had been badly affected by the Depression .............54 Figure 4.1: Class 2C, 1947, in which Beverley Bates (née Langley) is front row (marked with cross) and Virginia Watton is in the second row, just behind and to Beverley’s right ..............64 Figure 4.2: Elsie Rivett c. 1926, co-founder of the Erskineville Children’s Club and Library and long-time Peace activist ......70 Figure 4.3: The Children’s Club and Library on Rochford St, Erskineville, which Lucy helped to establish and of which she was a co-director .................................72 Figure 4.4: Children at the Children’s Library, including Beverley’s friend Virginia Watton in the middle .....................73 Figure 4.5: Beverley Bates from the Pix story about the Children’s Library. .74 Figure 4.6: Beverley Bates (centre) shared her memories of Lucy and Erskineville in an interview for this project .............80 Figure 5.1: Lucy c. 1930s, at the height of her union organising ....100 Figure 5.2: Lucy Woodcock as caricatured (affectionately) in the Teachers Federation journal Education in January 1939 ......103 Figure 6.1: Photograph of Lotte Fink (on left) and Lucy, talking and smoking, in Lotte’s back yard in Sydney in the 1930s ....125 ix TEACHER FOR JUSTICE Figure 7.1: Lucy Woodcock on the executive of the Teachers Federation with her allies in the campaign for the role of education in a vision of Australia’s democratic future ........133 Figure 7.2: ‘Sees New Vistas for Education’. Sketch of Lucy for article in Smith’s Weekly about her election to the University of Sydney Senate ...................................140 Figure 9.1: The shops in front of Lucy’s flat in upper 215A George Street where she spent most of her time and where all her political activities were carried out – the NEF met there, the NSW Peace Council met there and the Aboriginal-Australian Fellowship was created there. 168 Figure 9.2: Kapila Khandvala and Mithan Lam at the 1946 Australian Woman’s Charter meeting ....................171 Figure 9.3: Lucy on the Teachers’ Certification Committee 1943 – this shows both how she was often the only woman and how diminutive she was. .187 Figure 10.1: The women on the organising committee for this 1953 conference, including Lucy and Elsie Rivett, attempted to address women’s interests and tailor communication strategies towards women who were not in unions or existing peace organisations. .205 Figure 10.2: A photograph of the only known remaining poster for the NSW Convention on Peace and War in November 1953. .209 Figure 10.3: Front page of Tribune, 7 October 1953, shows one of the earliest recognitions by Australia’s Communist Party that living Aboriginal people were threatened by atomic testing, rather than an isolated culture ...................213 Figure 11.1: Jessie and Lucy sharing a drink and a laugh during this 1954–55 trip. 226 Figure 11.2: The focus of Jessie’s reports: the high-level diplomatic meetings during the trip ..............................227 Figure 11.3: Lucy, Jessie Street and Anasuya Gyan Chand, Maharashtrian NFIW leader and cooperative advocate, in Lodhi Gardens, New Delhi, 1954 ......................233 x IllustratiONS Figure 11.4: Jessie Street, Lucy and Padma Narasimhan, Madras women’s activist, (possibly) during the Madras Peace Conference, 25 December 1954. .236 Figure 11.5: Visiting Kapila Khandvala in Bombay, 1955 .........240 Figure 12.1: Helsinki Peace Conference, June 1955, program cover .....................................244 Figure 12.2: Teachers Federation executive group, c. 1953 ........253 Figure 14.1: Lucy at International Women’s Day outdoor rally with Enid Hampson (Union of Australian Women, in striped dress) with Tom Wright (Sheet Metal Workers Union) speaking, IWD 1962 at Wynyard Park. 290 Figure 14.2: Lucy on delegation to China late in 1964 as guest of the National Chinese Women’s Council ................294 Figure 14.3: Portrait of Lucy in the sunny sitting room of her George Street flat, overlooking the Quay, Sydney Harbour. 298 Figure 15.1: Lucy Woodcock with Sam Lewis, Ethel Teerman Lewis and a friend at Sam’s farewell event .....................306 Figure 15.2: Opening of the Lucy Woodcock Hall, Erskineville Public School. Heather Goodall with Kit Edwards, 2016 .....313 xi Abbreviations AAF Aboriginal-Australian Fellowship ABC Australian Broadcasting Commission/Corporation ACTU Australian Council of Trade Unions AFWV Australian Federation of Women Voters AIWC All India Women’s Conference ALP Australian Labor Party ASIO Australian Security Intelligence Organisation ATF Australian Teachers’ Federation CAEP Council for Action on Equal Pay CIC Chinese Industrial Co-operative Movement CICD Campaign for International Cooperation and Disarmament CND Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament CPA Communist Party of Australia CPI Communist Party of India EWL Educational Workers’ League FSSTA Federated State School Teachers’ Association IFTA International Federation of Teachers’ Associations ILO International Labour Organization IPC International Peace Campaign IWD International Women’s Day IWW Industrial Workers of the World (also known as the Wobblies) NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization xiii TEACHER FOR JUSTICE NCJW National Council of Jewish Women NCW National Council of Women NEF New Education Fellowship NFIW National Federation of Indian Women NSW New South Wales OC Opportunity Classes PNG Papua New Guinea SRC Students’ Representative Council TLC NSW Trades and Labor Council UA United Associations of Women UAW Union of Australian Women UK United Kingdom UN United Nations UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization US United States of America USSR Union of Soviet Socialist Republics VPC Victorian Peace Council WFF World Fellowship of Faiths WFTU World Federation of Trade Unions WIA Women’s Indian Association WIDF Women’s International Democratic Federation WILPF Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom YWCA Young Women’s Christian Association xiv Acknowledgements This story, about a woman who took major public positions yet was reserved and even elusive about her personal life, posed many challenges. So there are many people to thank who have been generous with their time, their encouragement and their suggestions. We particularly want to thank our interviewees: Audrey McDonald, Jean Lewis, Beverley Bates, Kit Edwards, Ruth Fink Latukefu, Judith Emmett, Cathy Bloch, Clare Anderson, Lilon Bandler, Bob Makinson, Bruce McFarlane and Wendy and Allan Scarfe (who passed away last year and is missed by us all). The Erskineville Public School community, from its principal and teachers to the parents of its students – and particularly Sean Macken and Angel Nunley – have all been enthusiastic participants in the exciting search for Lucy’s work. We have been greatly assisted by analysts who have offered insights, critical readings and valuable resources: Phillip Deery, Meredith Burgmann, James Beattie, Lisa Milner, Martin Sullivan and Julia Horne. One of the least well-known areas of Lucy’s tireless work was in support of refugees fleeing Nazism in Europe. We turned to community members like Ron Witton and to Nola Symonds and Phillip Moses of the Australian Jewish Historical Society to learn about her work in this area. We were fortunate to have great research done beyond what we could do ourselves by Jayne Reagan in Canberra in the National Library of Australia and the Noel Butlin Archives. Lucy Woodcock was a committed unionist and, although much of her work, such as her contribution to the women’s movement, the Peace movement and working-class and progressive education, was outside the unions, she remained anchored in her commitment to cooperative industrial organisation through unions. She aimed to strengthen all these movements by building alliances between them. Neale Towart, from Unions Australia (previously the NSW Trades and Labor Council), has been most helpful. We are deeply grateful for the support and assistance xv TEACHER FOR JUSTICE of the NSW Teachers Federation,1 and, in particular, its president, Maurie Mulheron, along with Kerri Carr, Graeme Smart, Mary Schmidt and the Anna Stewart Fellow working on Lucy’s contribution, Sharron Talbot. Finally, the book would not have come to fruition without the work and patience of Geoff Hunt and Venetia Somerset and ANU Press’ Christine Huber and Emily Hazlewood.