Fryer Folios Volume 9 Issue 1 2014
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FRYF oliosER AUGUST 2014 ISSN 1834-1004 FRYER FryerF Library, The University olios of Queensland Volume 9 | Number 1 | AUGUST 2014 3 7 10 TWO PIONEERS OF ‘ENGLISH’ A WOMEN’S TRIBUTE TO WAR QUEENSLAND WOMEN’S IN QUEENSLAND – JJ STABLE Historian Judith McKay tells the story of FRANCHISE PETITIONS OF AND FW ROBINSON Daphne Mayo’s Queensland Women’s War 1894 AND 1897 2013 Fryer Award winner Dr William Hatherell Memorial as recorded in two manuscript Deborah Jordan delves into the records of explores the establishment of the discipline collections in the Fryer Library. the Women’s Chrisitan Temperance Union of ‘English’ through the work of academics and discovers how the union contributed JJ Stable and FW Robinson. to the achievement of women’s suffrage in Queensland. 15 20 24 JACK F HENNESSY, ARCHITECT BRISBANE BETWEEN HANDS ON HISTORY AT FRYER OF THE GREAT COURT AT THE THE WARS Librarian Liz Alvey profiles an event held in UNIVERSITY OF QUEENSLAND Excerpted from an online exhibition by Fryer in conjunction with the Professional John East discusses the work of former Fryer staff member, librarian Jeff Historians Association and the Australian Jack F Hennessy Rickertt, this article explores some of the History Association Conference. ways Brisbane architecture reflected political, social and economic changes during the interwar period. 26 31 34 OBITUARIES WHAT’S NEW FRIENDS OF THE LIBRARY Fred Derek Osmond Fielding, Fryer congratulates two award winners, A look at events enjoyed by the Friends, Emeritus Professor Ken Goodwin AM, farewells one manager and welcomes and upcoming activities Margaret Mittelheuser AM another, and provides an update on digitisation of the collection. Front cover: Proposed new factory, South Brisbane, for Messrs T Tristram, UQFL228, Conrad & Gargett architectural drawings, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland Library. Back cover: St Lucia University site lay-out as proposed by Dr FW Robinson, c1936-7. UQFL250, Folder 6, Plan 2, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland Library Fryer Folios is published by The University of Queensland Library to illustrate the range of special collections in the Fryer Library and to showcase scholarly research based on these sources. ISSN 1834-1004 (print) ISSN 1834-1012 (online). Fryer Folios is distributed to libraries and educational institutions around Australia. If you wish to be added to the mailing list, please contact the Secretary, Friends of the Library, The University of Queensland Library, The University of Queensland Q 4072. Telephone (07) 3365 6315; Email: [email protected] (Note: individuals wishing to receive a copy will need to join Friends of Fryer). Unless otherwise stated, the photographs in this magazine are taken by the Fryer Editors Elizabeth Alvey, Ros Follett, Marion Diamond, Library Reproduction Service. The views expressed in Fryer Folios are those of Joan Keating, Chris Tiffin, Penny Whiteway the individual contributors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editors Photographer Kaylene Biggs, Andrew Yeo or publisher. Every reasonable effort has been made to contact relevant copyright Graphic design Lilly Borchardt holders for illustrative material in this magazine. Where this was not possible, the Printed by Blue Star Go, St Lucia, Qld copyright holders are invited to contact the publisher. 2 UQ LIBRARY TWO PIONEERS OF ‘ENGLISH’ IN QUEENSLAND – JJ STABLE AND FW ROBINSON 2013 FRYER AWARD WINNER DR WILLIAM HATHERELL EXPLORES THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE DISCIPLINE OF ‘ENGLISH’ THROUGH THE WORK OF ACADEMICS JJ STABLE AND FW ROBINSON. is central to what and German at The University of Queensland Above: Grotesque most of us think from 1912 and the University’s first professor of of JJ Stable on the ‘ENGLISH’ of and experience as education—acquiring the English language and literature from 1922 until Forgan Smith building rudiments of reading and writing the language his retirement in 1953, and Frederick Walter in the Great Court. in primary school; writing essays on poems, Robinson, lecturer in English and German from UQFL466, image plays, novels in secondary school; for many, 1923 and associate professor of English from AC/P/99, Fryer Library, taking more advanced studies in literature 1946 to 1958. The University of and language at university. Yet ‘English’ as a Queensland Library discrete academic discipline is a relatively recent Stable and Robinson were legendary figures in phenomenon. The first professor of English the early decades of the University. With just a (as opposed to Anglo-Saxon) at Oxford, for handful of colleagues, they effectively were the example, was appointed only in 1904 and the English program at The University of Queensland teaching of English in secondary schools in from 1920s to the 1950s. (For most of this Britain and Australia in a form that we would period, English was an honours school within recognise only emerged after the landmark the Department of Modern Languages, with a Newbolt Report of 1921. separate Department of English only established in 1953.) However, Stable and Robinson did not The story of the spectacular rise of ‘English’ confine their energies to the University. Both were over the course of the twentieth century has leading figures in the development of school been told in many recent books and essays. English in Queensland, and in the numerous Leigh Dale’s The enchantment of English (2012) cultural societies of the time. does this for university English in Australia. But the story of ‘English’ in Australia is a highly The Fryer Library is a wonderful place to study localised affair, with individual universities the careers of these two energetic and influential and state education systems offering their men. Robinson was of course the founder of the own variations on national and international library (as amply documented in Mark Cryle’s narratives—very often decisively influenced by article in the June 2010 edition of Fryer Folios), powerful or charismatic individuals. In the case and the thirty-four boxes of his papers (UQFL5) of Queensland, both the state and the university, form one of Fryer’s core collections. Fryer also the two key such individuals were Jeremiah has some of Stable’s papers (such as his 1923 Joseph Stable, lecturer in English, French inaugural address to the English and Modern FRYER FOLIOS | AUGUST 2014 3 to launch and sustain during the inter-war period—particularly the Queensland Authors and Artists Association (F1456), the English and Modern Languages Association of Queensland (F1455), and the Anthropological Society of Queensland (F1462). In a period when the University effectively dictated the secondary school curriculum through its power to set and mark the junior and senior public examinations, Stable and Robinson played key roles on the relevant committees and maintained a lively dialogue with their school colleagues. Much of this is recorded in the University Archives, particularly the minutes of the Public Examinations Board. As a young lecturer in the 1920s, Robinson led a group of university and school teachers of English to conduct a local version of the Newbolt report under the auspices of the English and Modern Languages Association of Queensland. The Report on the teaching of English in secondary schools in Queensland, published in October 19271, was the result of four years of characteristically Above: St Lucia Languages Association of Queensland) and methodical work by Robinson, involving the University site lay-out copies of his edited books that touched the collation of responses to detailed questionnaires as proposed by lives of generations of children in Queensland sent to every secondary school in Queensland as Dr FW Robinson, secondary schools—four anthologies of poetry well as a considered response to some of the key c1936-7. UQFL250, starting with The bond of poetry (1924) and his issues—such as the relative importance of literary Folder 6, Plan 2, edition of Julius Caesar (1936), published as part and language studies—raised by Newbolt. Fryer Library, of the Australian Students’ Shakespeare series, The University of of which Stable was general editor. Fryer also Stable’s main contribution to school English was Queensland Library contains records of many of the cultural societies through a series of anthologies—beginning with in Brisbane that Stable and Robinson helped The bond of poetry (1924)—that were universally 4 UQ LIBRARY used in Queensland secondary schools and was announced in 1935. Although grounded formed the poetic tastes of more than one in traditional scholarship, Robinson’s work generation of Queenslanders. The bond of poetry, exemplified the ‘interdisciplinary’ approaches along with its successor The second bond of that were to become fashionable only decades poetry (1938), was editorially innovative in placing after his death. One of his long-term projects, Australian poems alongside such stalwarts of the part of which formed the basis for his 1963 English canon as Coleridge’s ‘The Rime of the Macrossan lectures on ‘Prelude to Australia’, was Ancient Mariner’, suggesting not just bonds of provisionally titled Australian literature: the prelude citizenship with the home country but also ways and the first seventy years up to 18504 whose in which Australian poets had developed and ‘theme is not so much works of literature as the modified imported genres and texts. body of ideas and emotional reactions [about Australia] which slowly, in a new environment, Robinson was also concerned with the place of at least may lead to literature’. A chapter Australian literature and culture in relation to its title of this manuscript work exemplifies the European antecedents. He is widely credited with approach—‘Greek Geographical Theory and the offering the first university course in Australian Idea of the Antipodes’. Robinson’s scholarship literature in the 1920s. Importantly, however, draws on a large range of historical, journalistic, Australian content was embedded within a anthropological and philosophical—as well as broader course on English literature, reflecting literary—texts.