The ADB ’s Story Edited by Melanie Nolan and Christine Fernon The ADB ’s Story Edited by Melanie Nolan and Christine Fernon Published by ANU E Press The Australian National University Canberra ACT 0200, Australia Email: [email protected] This title is also available online at http://epress.anu.edu.au National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry Title: The ADB’s story / edited by Melanie Nolan and Christine Fernon. ISBN: 9781925021196 (paperback) 9781925021202 (ebook) Subjects: Australian dictionary of biography--History. Encyclopedias and dictionaries--Australia--History. Biography--Dictionaries--History. Australia--Biography--History and criticism. Other Authors/Contributors: Nolan, Melanie, editor. Fernon, Christine, editor. Dewey Number: 920.094 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. Cover illustration: Keith Hancock planting an English oak tree on the southern lawn of University House in 1984 to celebrate the house’s thirtieth anniversary. The ‘Hancock oak’, grown from an acorn he brought from Cambridge, commemorates the association between The Australian National University and Cambridge, England. The ADB was another of Hancock’s ‘oaks’. ANUA225-511 The ANU Lives Series in Biography is an initiative of the National Centre for Biography in the History Program in the Research School of Social Sciences at The Australian National University. The National Centre was established in 2008 to extend the work of the Australian Dictionary of Biography and to serve as a focus for the study of life writing in Australia, supporting innovative research and writing to the highest standards in the field, nationally and internationally. Books that appear in the ANU Lives series will be lively, engaging and provocative, intended to appeal to the current popular and scholarly interest in biography, memoir and autobiography. They will recount interesting and telling life stories and engage critically with issues and problems in historiography and life writing. Cover design and layout by ANU E Press Printed by Griffin Press This edition © 2013 ANU E Press Contents A Dictionary of Public Figures . ix Geoff Page Foreword . xi Tom Griffiths Obligations and Debts in Writing the ADB’s Story . 1 Melanie Nolan and Christine Fernon 1. ‘Insufficiently Engineered’: A Dictionary Designed to Stand the Test of Time? . 5 Melanie Nolan Document: ‘The Australian Dictionary of Biography’, paper presented to ANU Council, 10 May 1960 . 34 Document: ‘The Australian Dictionary of Biography’, paper presented to ANU Council, 12 April 1962 . 36 Document: Keith Hancock launches Volume 10 of the ADB, 1986 . 42 Editors and their Eras 2. Sir Keith Hancock: Laying the Foundations, 1959–1962 . 49 Ann Moyal Document: Report of My Journey to Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne and Hobart, August–Sept. 1959, by Ann Moyal . 78 Profile: Ann Moyal . 86 Profile: Keith Hancock . 88 Profile: Malcolm Ellis . 90 The Wild Colonial Bore by O. K. H. Spate . 92 Profiles: Geoffrey Sawer and Ross Hohnen . 93 Profile: Norman Cowper . 95 Profile: Gwyn James . 97 Profile: A. G. L. Shaw . 99 3. ‘Born to do this work’: Douglas Pike and the ADB, 1962–1973 . 101 John D. Calvert Profile: Nan Phillips . 120 Profile: Jim Gibbney . 122 Profile: Sally and Bob O’Neill . 125 Profile: Ruth Frappell . 128 4. Bede Nairn and Geoffrey Serle: A Fine Partnership, 1973–1987 . 131 Christopher Cunneen Profile: Chris Cunneen . 147 Profile: Bryan Gandevia . 149 Profiles: Margaret Steven and Heather Radi . 150 5. John Ritchie: Consolidating a Tradition, 1987–2002 . 153 Geoffrey Bolton Document: Phar Lap: an ADB entry by B. G. Andrews . 172 Profiles: Richard Tolhurst, Gough Whitlam and Barry Jones . 174 Profiles: Barry and Ann Smith . 176 Profiles: John La Nauze and Ken Inglis . 178 6. The Di Langmore Era, and Going Online, 2002–2008 . 181 Darryl Bennet Profile: Darryl Bennet . 201 Profile: Gavan McCarthy . 203 Profile: John Molony . 205 Profiles: Ivy Meere, Edna Kauffman and Karen Ciuffetelli . 207 The ADB’s Workflow Board . 208 ADB Files . 209 The ADB’s Corrigenda Ruler . 210 National Collaboration 7. Working Parties: Recollections of the South Australian Working Party . 213 John Tregenza The New South Wales Working Party . 218 Beverley Kingston Recollections of the New South Wales Working Party . 227 Russell Doust The Queensland Working Party . 229 Spencer Routh Profile: Spencer Routh . 234 Profile: Michael Roe . 236 Profile: Wendy Birman . 238 Profile: Cameron Hazlehurst . 240 Profiles: Maurice (Bunny) Austin, Alec Hill and Frank Brown . 242 Profiles: Gordon Briscoe and Frances Peters-Little . 244 Profile: John Poynter . 246 8. From the First Fleet to ‘Underbelly’: Writing for the ADB . 249 Gerald Walsh Profile: Gerry Walsh . 261 Profile: Ann Hone . 263 Profile: Ken Cable . 264 Profiles: Martha Campbell and Suzanne Edgar . 266 A King’s Remains by Suzanne Edgar . 269 The ADB—My Best Friend by P. A. Selth . 271 9. National Collaboration: The ADB Editorial Board and the Working Parties . 277 Jill Roe Profile: Jill Roe . 295 Profile: Geoffrey Bolton . 297 10. Assessing the ADB: A Review of the Reviews . 299 Mark McGinness Review of ADB, Volumes 1 and 2 (1967) by Geoffrey Blainey . 322 Review of ADB, Volume 9 (1983) by Stuart Macintyre . 329 Review of ADB, Volume 18 (2012) by Mark McGinness . 332 Pasts and Futures ADB Volumes . 337 11. Opportunities for National Biography Online: The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 2005–2012 . 345 Philip Carter 12. From Book to Digital Culture: Redesigning the ADB . 373 Melanie Nolan Appendices Appendix 1: Time Line . 397 Appendix 2: ADB Staff List, 1958–2013 . 403 Appendix 3: National Committee, Editorial Board and Working Parties by Volume . 411 Appendix 4: ADB Medal Recipients . 443 Appendix 5: ADB Bibliography . 447 Abbreviations . 469 Index . 471 A Dictionary of Public Figures Geoff Page Buried now a second time by alphabet and golden year (floreat circa 1880) the outlines of their lives are fleshed again from paper; their myths persist or are straightened slightly by proud great-nieces and polished by scholars. Admission here is by committee with death the first requirement— this mild St Peter’s gate of three Will vanish also into the text. Clergymen, graziers, colonial mayors, owners of goldmines or morning papers … their public lives are shown and kept as notable crustaceans the white flesh private underneath. The sum of all these shelves is what we are or what they’d have us be, each row a long sarcophagus or crypt— the earlier volumes wearing already the discontinued smell of yellow. Only the recent flesh to the nose. Public Figures (1880) Pressed flat with watchchain and cigar wince and flinch as year by year the sweaty thumbs turn through them. Geoff Page is a Canberra poet. His wife, Carolyn, worked for the ADB in 1982–84. This poem is reprinted from Collected Lives (Angus & Robertson, 1986) with the author’s permission. ix Foreword Tom Griffiths When an organisation begins to imagine the next phase of its future, it generally composes a strategic plan. The Australian Dictionary of Biography (ADB), however, writes a history—and one spiced with biographical portraits. Of course, the ADB has done the strategic plans too—more than should have been demanded of such an unimpeachable and impressive national enterprise. But the reality of daily life in the ADB is that, even after 50 years, it continually has to fight for its future, especially against those within its own university who are driven by corporate competition rather than national collaboration. The ADB’s Story reminds us of the foundation vision of cooperative scholarship that brought the ADB to life, a vision that the dictionary has realised so superbly and that continues to inspire all who work for it. This book is about a half- century of dedicated work across the nation by good and generous people who are also brilliant scholars. It is about the organic, federal design of the ADB and how those structures have coped with and invented change. Knowing this history—in all its biographical and contextual richness—is the best strategic plan an institution could possibly generate. We learn from this history that when Keith Hancock was establishing the Australian Dictionary of Biography in 1959, he assured the ANU vice-chancellor that he thought it ‘unlikely’ that he would ‘need to look for a millionaire’. As Hancock’s current successor as chair of the Editorial Board of the ADB, I recently sought help from the ANU vice-chancellor in finding that millionaire. The ADB Endowment Fund, wisely established by Professor John Ritchie, has become more important with the years and has been vital to maintaining core functions in straitened times. The Australian National University remains firmly committed to the ADB, but its ability to fund this prestigious collaboration is being steadily eroded. Yet, as Keith Hancock foresaw, the ADB—more than any other single enterprise— realises the national mission that is literally at the heart of The Australian National University. In the recent words of the Chancellor of the ANU, Professor the Hon. Gareth Evans AC QC, ‘The Australian Dictionary of Biography captures the life and times and culture of this country in an absolutely distinctive and irreplaceable way … I could not be prouder of the ANU’s continuing role as custodian of this crucial part of our national