A VC in turbulent times

Dealing with turbulence: Sir Zelman Cowen as Queensland University Vice Chancellor.This is the third in a three part series on the life of Sir Zelman Cowen. 

In my last column I said that while Zelman Cowen’s public activities as the University of New England’s second VC did increase the public prominence of the university, his internal influence as VC is more difficult to measure.

In his history of UNE, Mathew Jordan mentions two areas where Cowen’s influence was important.

The first was the establishment in 1969 of a separate Faculty of Education. The second was his support for the establishment of a Faculty of Natural Resources. The Commonwealth would not agree for financial reasons, but agreed to the establishment of a School of Natural Resources finally established in 1971 after Cowen’s departure. 

Both were important initiatives: the Faculty of Education was the first in New South Wales, while the School of Natural Resources was the first such institution in Australia. Both attracted students and funding.

There was a third more problematic area, adult education, which Jordoa ignores. This is an odd gap in his history. He makes great play of the establishment of adult education and then, somehow, it disappears.   

First Belshaw as Acting Warden and then Madgwick had placed emphasis on adult education. It fitted with their personal philosophies and was an important element in the Northern outreach that had been so strongly emphasized by New England’s founders.

By the mid 1960s, university extension was a critical element in the University’s integration with its regional communities, while its summer schools such as the School of Dance, a school now seen as one of the seminal influences in the history of Australian dance, had achieved national prominence. Then, somehow, it largely stopped.

John Ryan’s PhD thesis draws out some of the complexities associated with the decline of adult education.

There were internal university problems, as well as funding issues linked to changing Australian Government policies. The loss of the sense of Northerness following the narrow loss of the 1967 self government plebiscite did not help.

Zelman’s role in the decline is unclear.

He was supportive of the role of adult education, but he had to balance that with changing attitudes at Commonwealth level and the reactions within the University to increased funding constraints. I also think that he did not share the original vision of the University as a Northern institution, as well as a national and international institution.

In 1970, Zelman left New England to become VC at the University of Queensland, a post he held until becoming Governor General in 1977 after Sir John Kerr.

In both roles he had to deal with turbulence, with political and social change. He did so with a focus on rational argument, the gathering of evidence and with a grace and tact that have justly given him a place in Australian history.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 20 November 2019. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not all on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited/History Matters columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013, here for 2014, here for 2015,  here for 2016, here  2017, here 2018, here 2019  

University's growing pains

The appointment in 1966 of Zelman Cowen to replace Robert Madgwick as the University of New England’s Vice-Chancellor was seen, rightly, as a considerable coup. Why, some of his colleagues at Melbourne University asked, had he not gone to Harvard or Cambridge?

After the hard early days, Madgwick had overseen very rapid growth at UNE. This growth is worth recording, for it was during the final Madgwick period that the University moved from a significant to dominant driver in the local economy.

Internal student numbers had grown from 249 in 1955 to 1,396 in 1965. External student numbers had grown from a zero base to 2,568.

Residential: The original Wright College, part of the new buildings constructed under Sir Robert Madgwick. This is the second in a three part series on the life of Sir Zelman Cowen. 

Academic staff had grown from 63 in 1953 to 360 in 1966, while general staff had increased from around 100 to 693. Construction work had boomed.

Madgwick was worried about the speed of growth.

How might the University preserve its collegiate nature and special culture, its outreach? How might it overcome the tendency to become more inward looking, more fragmented, as it grew?

By 1966, Madgwick had formed the view that it might be necessary to cap the size of UNE to preserve its character and the standard of teaching and student experience.

Madgwick was right to be worried.

He did not foresee the social changes that were just getting underway, the proliferation of new universities, the constant changes that would come in policy, the rise of corporatism, managerialism and the mega-university.

However, Madgwick did identify weaknesses within UNE that would later impede its ability to manage change. As the University grew it became comfortable, turned inward, reduced its regional role opening the way for new competitors, and forgot that it had to be better just to survive.

These changes and challenges still lay just ahead when Zelman Cowen arrived in 1967.

Upon arrival, Cowen maintained his role as a public intellectual. In 1967 he prepared the case for the ABC supporting a yes vote on the Aboriginal constitutional referendum, then in 1969 he delivered the ABC Boyer Lectures.

Cowen had long been interested in civil liberties and individual freedoms. His Boyer Lectures, the Private Man, focused on the erosion of privacy, on the challenges presented to society by new technology and the need for law reform to keep pace.

These have become even more pressing topics today.

Cowen’s public activities did increase the public prominence of UNE. His internal influence as VC is more difficult to measure.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 13 November 2019. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not all on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited/History Matters columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013, here for 2014, here for 2015,  here for 2016, here  2017, here 2018, here 2019  

The story of Zelman Cowen, Australian intellectual, Governor General and UNE's second VC after autonomy

Zelman Cowen, UNEs second VC, 1968.This is the first in a three part series on the life of Sir Zelman. 

October marked one hundred years since the birth of the University of New England’s second Vice-Chancellor, Sir Zelman Cowen.

Zelman Cowen was born in Melbourne on 7 October 1919, the son of Bernard and Sarah Cohen. His father changed the family name to Cowen a few years after his birth.

After studying locally, the boy won a scholarship to Melbourne’s Scotch College where he was Dux in 1935. He then studied law at Melbourne University, winning the Supreme Court Prize as top student, followed by a Rhodes scholarship.

With the onset of war, Cowen deferred the scholarship, enlisting in the Royal Australian Navy. He was in Darwin at the time of the Japanese bombing in 1942 and then served on General McArthur’s staff in Brisbane.

In 1945, Cowen married Anna Wittner. The couple became, in the words of Michael Kirby, “a partnership of intellect, culture and wit” with Anna “sometimes softening the ego that was a feature, probably inevitable, of such a brilliant man.”

One senior New England academic who, while liking and respecting Cowen, described the pair somewhat acerbically as Anna and the King of I Am.

Following his marriage, Cowen took up the delayed Rhodes scholarship at New College, Oxford. There he again demonstrated that energy, drive and intellect that had already marked his life. 

He won the Vinerian Scholarship as the top graduate in civil law and became a lecturer at Oriel. There he won his doctorate with a biography of Sir Isaac Isaacs.

Isaacs, a hero of Cowen’s, had become Australia’s first Jewish Governor-General after serving on the High Court of Australia, including a period as Chief Justice.

In 1950, Cowen returned to Melbourne University as the chair of public law. He also became Dean of Law.

While at Melbourne, Cowen began broadcasting radio commentaries, mainly on legal topics including the attempts by the Menzies Government to dissolve the Australian Communist Party.

Cowen was becoming a prominent public intellectual, a not always easy role in Australia. He was also interested in questions of civil rights and privacy, concerned about the potential erosion of individual liberties.

In 1966, Sir Robert Madgwick resigned as the University of New England’s Vice-Chancellor to become Chair of the Australian Broadcasting Commission.

As Warden of the New England University College and then as first VC of the newly autonomous University, Madgwick had steered the institution through the difficult early foundation stages into growth.

Cowen accepted an invitation to become the second VC, arriving in Armidale in 1967.  In my next column, I will look at his role as VC and beyond.

Postscript

In the newspaper edition of this column, I had Sir Zelman attending Oriel College at Oxford while a Rhodes scholar. A correspondent corrected me. Cowen went to New College.  

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 6 November 2019. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not all on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited/History Matters columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013, here for 2014, here for 2015,  here for 2016, here  2017, here 2018, here 2019  

Maslyn Williams - the beginnings in Tenterfield and beyond

Maslyn Williams: one of Australia's best post war documentary makers before turning his hand to writing. This the second in a series on growing up on the Northern or New England Tablelands

“He should go to Australia, to his mother’s people,” Uncle George said, “that’s what she always intended.”

The lad listened. Aunt Yvonne was not convinced. ”But he’s got a good brain. He should go to Cambridge like his father.”

Uncle George, a Whitehall civil servant with a practical mind accustomed to shedding responsibility, would have none of this.

“He can go as an immigrant for next to nothing. I’ll arrange it. If he doesn’t like it, he can come back.”

“He should go to Australia, to his mother’s people” Uncle George said; “that’s what she always intended.”.

The lad listened. Aunt Yvonne was not convinced.

”But he’s got a good brain. He should go to Cambridge like his father.” Uncle George, a Whitehall civil servant with a practical mind accustomed to shedding responsibility, would have none of this.

“He can go as an immigrant for next to nothing. I’ll arrange it. If he doesn’t like it, he can come back.”

Robert Ronald Maslyn Williams, the listening lad, was probably around 17. He had been born in 1911. His father, a career military officer, had been killed in the Great War. His mother had just died.

Fate decided, the lad joined a group of young immigrants on the journey to Australia and, in his case to station outside Tenterfield to become a jackeroo. There he fell in love with Australia, ultimately becoming one of this country’s best known documentary film makers and writers.

It is clear that the lad was interested in writing from the beginning, although his taste first ran to poetry. He kept notes, wrote descriptions and long letter to his Aunt Yvonne.

In 1988, the 77 year old Williams used those notes and letters to write an award winning biographical memoir, His Mother's Country (Melbourne University Press), looking back at the lad (he refers to himself as the lad through out) coming of age on the Tablelands. It was a time when life seemed to be “permanently sunlit”.

The first part of the book outlines why he came, the voyage, reactions to Sydney and describes the long train trip to Tenterfield on the Brisbane Mail, a description that would be instantly familiar to older New Englanders.

The lad knew little of Australia, less of the country or farm work and nothing about his destination. This was his introduction to the new, to strangeness that would soon become familiar.

At Tenterfield, the lad was met by the boss who managed the station on behalf of the family and taken to his new home. It was a large and well established place, a self-contained world, a small village.

One core focus in the book from this point is station life, work and people, as the lad learns to do his job and establishes his place. A second is the lad’s growing involvement in the life of Tenterfield and, to a lesser extent, the nearby big town of Glen Innes.

Final acceptance comes when the irascible and taciturn overseer Old Mackie, the Old Man, is hurt in an accident and the lad has to go for help. Two days later, a heavily bandaged Mackie comes in for breakfast, sits down and looks straight at the lad and says “G’day”.

The book ends with the lad’s departure for England following a further intervention by Uncle George. It’s clear, though, that the lad will return to Australia.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 27 June 2018. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not all on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited/History Matters columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013, here for 2014, here for 2015, here for 2016, here  2017, here 2018 

A note on New England Aboriginal servicemen

Interesting piece on ABC Radio National's Awaye! Program,  Indigenous Anzacs: Letters home from Aboriginal WWI diggers reveal humour, sadness, (program itself here, Saturday 22 April) on Aboriginal servicemen during the First World War. Presenter Daniel Browning's great-great uncle Thomas Browning (photo) was one of those featured in the piece.

Quoting from the piece on Thomas Browning::

"In May 1917 a military order revoked the nominal ban on Aboriginal men serving in the Australian Imperial Force, although in fact many had already enlisted.

One of the Aboriginal men who joined up after the military order was Samuel Browning, a fisherman from Fingal (then known as The Caves or Caves Point) on the North Coast of New South Wales.

One of Browning's mates enlisted with him but was rejected on the grounds that he had no European heritage. Browning left Australia in late 1917 aboard the troop ship Euripides, and disembarked at Devonport in the south of England on Boxing Day.

In Browning 's letters to his mother Mary, his heartbroken bride-to-be, and 10-year-old sister, there is no mention of the horrors of the Western Front nor of his gassing in the trenches near Rouen in northern France in August 1918, just a few months before the guns fell silent.

In an undated letter from Bath, where he was convalescing, Sam wrote urgently to Fingal, anxious that his younger brother stay away.

"Dear Mother, tell George to stop where he is instead of enlisting — one is enough from home, so don't forget."

Elsewhere, Browning longed for the beach.

"I am longing for a good feed of oysters and pippies. I'd give ten bob for a feed," he wrote to his mother from the ANZAC training camp at Codford in February 1918. 

Others who served from the opposite side of New England were the three Firth brothers.  Again I quote;
.

"Francis Walter Bertie Firth served in the Middle East and lost a brother in Egypt, but his letters from "somewhere in France" are consumed by anxiety about missing letters apparently sent by his mother Kate from Pilliga in northern New South Wales but never received.

Bertie wrote to his mother on Easter Sunday in 1917: "Just a few lines to let you know that I am still in the land of the living," he wrote.

"It is about time the winter was over, I would not like to be here for another, the coldest place on earth."

Characteristically, and presumably without irony, Bertie signs his letters that he hopes everyone at home is well as it leaves him, "in the pink of condition".

Another letter suggests that he may he have been jilted: "I got a letter from Peggy the other day. She is engaged to someone else. Good luck to her."

I don't have a lot of information on Aboriginal servicemen from Northern NSW. Another who served during the Second World War was David Cook. From a piece by Noah  Riseman:

"Lance-Corporal David Cook is an Aboriginal man born in Ebor, near Armidale New South Wales, in 1945. Around the time of Dave's tenth birthday, he and his four siblings were forcibly removed from their parents. Dave was placed in Kinchela Boys Home for three years before being fostered. At the age of 17, he enlisted in the Army, seeking a life away from his daily troubles.

Dave served in Papua New Guinea, Borneo and Malaya before being sent off to Vietnam. Throughout his service he proved to be a successful soldier and was well-liked by his peers. He served two tours in Vietnam before being discharged in 1968.

When Dave returned to New South Wales, his life rapidly spiralled out of control. Cycles of violence, imprisonment and racism threatened to turn him into another Aboriginal statistic. However, Dave managed to reconnect with his siblings, who helped him get his life back on track through emotional support, stability and employment. Now retired, Dave does volunteer work in Cambodia, applying his Army engineering knowledge in a land mine clearance program.".

I wondered if readers had more information on Aboriginal servicemen (and later women) from Northern New South Wales, Hunter to the border? This would help me flesh out another part of New New England's history.

Update

AIATSIS has an exhibition on the Stafford Brothers, a family with New England connections.

Debrah Novak put up a Facebook post repeating a story from the Grafton Daily Examiner on the attempts of Mackenzie Laurie to enlist. I quote:
This is a newspaper article in the Daily Examiner Tuesday, May 1916: TRUE AUSTRALIAN REGIMENT? CLARENCE DARKIES WANT TO ENLIST: Mackenzie Laurie has not just arrived from Scotland. He has never seen that county, and except he desires to help the Empire, has no desire to leave the land he loves and has lived in for 23 years. Laurie is, in other words, a young Clarence River Aboriginal, and has tried to enlist in Maclean, Ulmarra, Grafton and Harwood. He has been turned down everywhere he has tried, and, like many others in a dilemma, sought out the Daily Examiner man as a last resort. Laurie is bashful, if brave; had never been inside a newspaper office in his life before, and has always been a close reader of this particular paper – he read the tips and all about Randwick doings and the war. Here is his complaint told in his words.

“I want to ask is why not a pure Australian regiment? They won’t take me or Harry Grant, or Cowan, or Daley or Bundock- and we’re all Australians. They turn us down. They say the English will mistake us for Turks, and shoot us. But that don’t matter. We don’t care that we shot at or not. We want to kill a few Turks and (in deep thought and not wishing to appear misinformed) -The Bulgar (semi-nomadic warrior Turk) - that’s the fellow. If England goes under, where are we? Myself, Harry Grant, D. Torrens, T. Daley, Billy and Jim Cowan, K. Bundock, Harry and J Neville, Piebald, Ferguson, Hamilton, P. Mercy, my two brother in laws, and J. Morris and Alf Blakeney.

The pressman stopped; he seemed to have written a regiment. Laurie Persisted. He wrote on:
“Put all of them down, all of them want to go at once, NOW. There is also A. Olive, R. Cowan, B. Robertson, Donelly, Dunn and J.Boney.”

“All these are ‘pure Australian’s, everyone one of them as black as I am, no immigrants about any of them” (looking straight at the reporter). “You can call yourself ‘Stralian! You only immigrant Britisher. If you are pure ‘Stralian, you must first be able to speak our language – wurra-murra girooha lomiba booyamba, Can you say that?

The reporter said he didn’t understand the Australian classics.

Mackenzie Laurie continued to give names. “Harry Grayson, Walker, Cameron Fred Laurie (my brother) and D Cameron (my brother in law)”
.
“I want you to put all our names in this paper, and show the Government in Sydney that us pure ‘Stralians is ready to fight for the country straight away. I’m single, all teeth are good, as you see, good chest, aged 23, work for Mr Smith near the Common, and I am prepared to run any man on the Clarence 120 yards for any money up to 50 quid.”

“Tell them I am an athlete, went to Glenreagh Sports with sixpence in my pocket and came home with two quid. I’m off to work now, but if Sergeant Swan or Constable Sproule wants to get me, they can find me at Alumny Creek, ready straight away to fight for the country.” End Note: The is a photo of Harold Cowan from Grafton who enlisted in 1917 when Aboriginal people were finally allowed to enlist.

History Revisited - Thomas' death a blow to New England's Aboriginal history

PHOTOGRAPHY PIONEER: Thomas Dick took many photographs of Aborigines in the Hastings Valley in the first decades of the 20th century

The discovery of another collection of Thomas Dick’s Aboriginal photos attracted considerable interest. Oyster grower, naturalist and photographer, Thomas Dick produced 500 photographs of the Hastings Valley that are today seen as works of art.

Thomas Dick’s grandparents settled at Port Macquarie in 1841. Grandfather John was a tanner. Thomas’s father, also John, worked in the family tannery business until taking up one of the first oyster leases on the Hastings River in the 1880s.

Thomas took up his own oyster lease in 1899. Like many at the time, this was the age of the amateur naturalist, he became fascinated by nature. This brought him into contact with the young economic zoologist Theo Roughley who had just started working at the Technological Museum in Sydney and was especially interested in fisheries.

Roughley taught Thomas the rudiments of photography and helped him buy his first camera just before the start of World War One. Thomas became hooked, setting up his own darkroom.

During the working week, Thomas worked his lease, growing and marketing his oysters. Then at the weekend, he explored his interest in natural history and photography, searching for suitable objects and backgrounds. Thomas was clearly knowledgeable, providing information both to Roughley and to Richard Baker, the Technological Museum’s curator.

Thomas is best known now for his Aboriginal photographs. “I set out years ago, he wrote in 1923, “to collect and write the history of these Aborigines, and get together, not only a fine collection of photos, but also a fine collection of implements etc., and …. a remarkable amount of information.”

Thomas’s photos were staged, itself a remarkable feat for he had to persuade his Aboriginal models to remove clothing and pose undertaking traditional tasks. He built trust, aided in some cases by payment of fees.

The photographs may have been staged, but they were authentic nevertheless. Thomas went into the mountains with the Aborigines, gaining trust and the secrets of their laws, information provided on the basis that it would not be made available until after the death of the informants.

“I was fortunate”, he later recorded, “for some of the old men were most intelligent and they recognised that their race was run, as it were, so they gave me under the conditions named, the history of their race.”

“Now by these means I secured all of the marks on the sacred trees, and their meaning, all of the rules of the ‘Waipara’ or man making ceremony.”

Tragically, Thomas Dick died on his fiftieth birthday in 1927. He had gone to study marine life in one of his favourite rock pools and seems to have been caught by a major wave.

Thomas knew the value of the information he had, but had clearly been struggling to get it down. . “I do not known when I will bring out the work for I am now too much handicapped”, he had written sadly in 1923. In that year, he also resigned as a member of the Royal Society of NSW. There were clearly problems.

With Thomas’s death, we lost access to that past he had learned about, lost the chance to establish a bridge between that past, the present and the future. This loss is particularly great for the Birpai/Biripi people themselves. 

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 2 December 2015. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013, here for 2014, here for 2015.

History Revisited - Armidale plays a big role in Proctor's life

GLAMOROUS EVENT: Thea Proctor's interest in decorative work strengthened by her participation in annual The Chelsea Arts Club Ball.

Artist Thea Proctor was 23 or just 24 when she arrived in London 1903. It was an exciting time.

In addition to her close relationship with George Lambert, she mixed with the other Australian expatriate artists including Charles Condor, Arthur Streeton and Tom Roberts, artists whose paintings can be found in the New England Regional Art Museum.

Proctor became preoccupied with line, colour and form, concentrating on drawing and water colour painting. Here she was influenced by Condor’s fan designs, Japanese prints and the drawings of the French neo-classical artist Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres. Her interest in decorative work was also highlighted by the Chelsea Arts Club balls with their elaborate costumes and through exposure to the Ballets Russes.

Founded by impresario Sergei Diaghilev in 1909, the Paris based Ballets Russes is widely regarded as the most influential ballet company of the 20th century. Diaghilev consciously tried to promote artistic collaborations among leading young choreographers, composers, designers, and dancers. As part of this, he commissioned works from composers such as Igor Stravinsky and Claude Debussy, artists such as, Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse, and designer Coco Chanel.

The impact on Thea seems to have been considerable. .After seeing the Ballets Russes in 1911, she exclaimed “it would be difficult to imagine anything more beautiful and inspiring”.

Thea’s art works, her decorative fans and drawings, were well received. However, I am left wondering at the extent to which this focus was gender connected. We know from other writing including the biographies of Australia artist Stella Bowen as well as that of Dora Carrington that decoration was seen as a more acceptable female role.

Thea returned to Australia in 1912, but finding the market unresponsive she moved back to England late in 1914, achieving more critical success. Then, with many other expatriate artists including George Lambert, she returned to Australia following the war.

In Sydney she became active in the Society of Artists and in 1925 held a joint exhibition in Sydney and Melbourne with Margaret Preston. Both artists included brightly coloured wood cuts in scarlet frames. While Proctor’s work was comparatively conservative, it was seen as ‘dangerously modern’ in Australian terms.

The next year, she joined with Lambert and others to found the Contemporary Group to promote young avante garde artists.

While Proctor’s work achieved considerable critical and indeed popular success, she needed to supplement her income through teaching art and writing.

Always elegantly dressed and considered an arbiter of taste, Thea wrote on fashion, flower arranging, colours for cars and interior decoration. In the 1920s she organized artists' balls; in 1932 she designed the fashionably modern Lacquer Room restaurant for Department store Farmer & Co; and in the 1940s produced theatre décor.

Thea continued to paint throughout her life and to play an active role in encouraging young artists. Unmarried, she died at Potts Point on 29 July 1966. It had been a long and interesting life from her birth in Armidale and those early years at NEGS.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 9 September 2015. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013, here for 2014, here for 2015.

History Revisited - Mallaby shared his soap with the world

AUSTRALIAN INFLUENCE: Armidale's renowned soap maker travelled to Paris for the World Exhibition in 1900 

In an earlier column on Armidale industry, I referred to Mallaby’s Soap. Its golden bar soap was perfect for toilets or washing laces, silks and woollens, while scrubbing the table, floors, pots and pans with Mallaby’s pumice stone soap made them much cleaner.

I don’t remember Mallaby’s Soap, production finished by early 1942, but I certainly remember those scrubbed tables that you used to find in country kitchens.

In 1900, George Mallaby attended the World Exhibition in Paris. Held in pavilions stretching from the Eiffel Tower, the Exhibition was not just a display of the miracles of the new, but also a celebration of the wonderful Art Nouveau style, bringing that into public prominence.

The old European order that would be swept away by the Great War was its peak, and countries vied with each other for the grandeur of their exhibits, joined by chambers showcasing science and industry. If you google the Exhibition, you will find early colour photos of the whole show. It was quite something.

It is not clear what Armidale’s George Mallaby made of the whole thing, although I’m sure that he found it interesting. His purpose was more pragmatic, to exhibit his soap for which he apparently won a gold medal. He also took the opportunity, and this was probably the primary purpose of the trip, to visit England after a very long break. His parents had died and he wanted to visit their grave and pay for the cemetery plot. 

We know from John Harvey’s story of his grandfather (New England Lives II) that George Mallaby was born on 13 December 1860 at Osset, West Riding, Yorkshire. On 21 May 1882, George married the twenty year old Faith Furness. Both had been working in the mills.

In August the following year, the young couple set sail for Australia. After a relatively brief stay in Dubbo, the family moved to Armidale around early 1885 to escape the Western Plains heat. There George began making soap in a copper in the backyard.

By the time of George’s visit to England in 1900, he had established a successful business and had also acquired considerable real estate. Just as well, for there were now seven children!

I have written before about the way the new Great Northern Railway reduced many local activities because of the competition from imported goods. In the Mallaby case, George was able to use the railway to gain business, shipping soap south to Werris Creek, north to the Queensland border, thus consolidating his business. Nearby Hillgrove with its gold mines was also a profitable market.

Many of the patterns of life in Armidale and the North more broadly were linked to varying forms of religious observance. The Mallabies were strict Methodists, although Faith and George appear to have mellowed somewhat in later years.

Saturdays were preparation for Sundays, with the boys filling the wood box and polishing shoes. On Sunday, oldest daughter Emma stayed home to prepare the roast while the rest of the family went to church. No embroidering or reading for pleasure was allowed, while music was limited to hymns.

George Mallaby died in 1926, Faith died less than a year later. By then, the young couple from working class England had been able to provide for their now large family, giving them the opportunities they had lacked. 

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 12 August 2015. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013, here for 2014, here for 2015.

History Revisited - the long history of man's best friend

NATIVE CANINE: It is thought that the dingo reached Australia 4,000 ago to become the first Australian dog variety.

Continuing the story of the dog from my last column, the RSPCA suggests that Australians have over four million pet dogs. That’s a considerable number. However, the role of dog as pet is quite recent.

There appears to be considerable dispute as to when the first dog diverged from wolf ancestors. However, a date range of 27,000 to 40,000 years ago appears most likely. It also appears that population shifts during the Late Glacial Maximum, that cold period when the Northern Tablelands displayed semi-glacial conditions, helped spread the dog.

Archaeological remains suggest that the first Australian dog variety, the dingo, reached this continent somewhere between 3,500 and 4,000 years ago. We know that the dingo had reached Northern NSW around 3,200 years ago because of the presence of a canine tooth found in a shell midden at Wombah in the lower Clarence.

Dogs and humans seemed to have formed a natural pairing, in so doing changing the dogs in the process. Dogs are intelligent pack animals, fitting into the natural life style of hunter-gather societies.

With time, they came to be used in a variety of roles – hunting, guarding, herding, transport and, in some cases, food. The dingo could well have reached Australia as live food on off-course voyages.

The role of dogs as guards and hunters is well incorporated into mythology, showing the ancestry of the relationship. In Greek mythology, Cerberus is a three-headed watchdog who guards the gates of Hades. In Norse mythology, a bloody, four-eyed dog called Garmr guards Helheim. In Hindu mythology, Yama, the god of death owns two watch dogs who have four eyes.

NUISANCE: Barking in urban areas has become a problem in modern times. It's just a question of selection.  

Time, space, natural selection and breeding with related species created a variety of dog types. Breeding to achieve or preserve particular characteristics has a considerable history, Barking, now seen as a major problem in an urban environment, is an example of a trait that seems to have developed through breeding for guard purposes.

A major change took place over the nineteenth century with the creation of dog breeds through selective breeding and breed promotion through kennel clubs and dog shows. Increasingly, dogs came to be selected for attractiveness and distinctive features, resulting in a vast variety of breeds.

Growing up in Armidale, few people had dogs for pets. Those that did generally kept their dogs outdoors. There was a clear distinction between the working dog and pets, creating a rural urban divide.

From around the start of the 1980s, there was an explosion in the number of domestic pet dogs and cats. The dog became an urban phenomenon. This was reflected in changes in the veterinary profession and especially the rise of the small animal vet. Today, the majority of veterinary students see their practice in terms of urban clinics catering to pets.

The rise of the urban dog has created its own rules and problems, including the rise of the puppy farm. The puppy farms are an urban, not rural problem. There would be no puppy farms without the urban buyer.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 22 July 2015. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013, here for 2014, here for 2015.

History revisited - memories of artists' camps

As part of their on-going fund raising, the New England Regional Art Museum has been running an “Adopt and Artwork” program. In simple terms, you adopt an artwork, and pay for the conservation costs.

It’s not cheap, although you can donate smaller amounts. Conservation work is expensive, but its part of the price we pay to maintain those things that we love about our city.

That was a view a friend took. He gulped, and then adopted Arthur Streeton's "Sydney from the Artist's Camp", a classic Australian painting.

I am obviously a history nut. I wouldn’t be sitting here year after year writing this column, trying to interest you in the history of Armidale and the North, if I were not. However, the history of the things that you see around you in Armidale, the things that we take for granted, can lead you into worlds that you might not expect, worlds with their own excitement totally disconnected with the routines of our daily life.

Arthur Streeton returned to Sydney on 19 April 1920. Art collector Howard Hinton met him on arrival, taking him to lunch at the Café Francis. On 22 April, Hinton visited Streeton in his rooms at Dalley Street which he was sharing with painter Benjamin Edwin Minns (1863-1937).

Minns is a Northerner. Born at Dungog, he grew up in Inverell where he had his first lessons in painting and drawing.

Hinton recorded his visit to see Streeton in his notes: “bought one of his panels showing Cremorne Point and the city from Sirius Cove – an easterly breeze is blowing over the blue water – fine strength – full charm in his blue water contrasted with the gold of distant shores and bronze gum trees.”

This is, I think, the painting Paul adopted, an Australian classic.

The painting is significant for another reason as well. Sirius Cove is the location of one of those artists’ camps that dotted the shores around the Sydney suburb now called Mosman.

Howard Hinton was born in England in 1867. It seems almost certain that when or soon after he arrived in Sydney in 1892, Hinton went to live with artist friends in a camp on the edge of Balmoral Beach.

Today as Sydney café society gathers at Balmoral for their morning breakfast overlooking the water, it is hard to imagine what it looked like then, a beach camp in bush near the water’s edge.

Mind you, camp is a relative concept. C B Newling, a friend of Hinton’s and the first principal of the Armidale Teachers’ College, described the camp in this way.

Several strong tents with wooden floors provided sleeping accommodation. A central marquee with a piano, table etc provided a dining and living room. Nearby were a kitchen and shower room, while canvas deck chairs dotted the grounds. An ex-navy rating acted as cook, caretaker, housekeeper and gardener.

That’s what I call camping!

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 25 March 2015. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013, here for 2014, here for 2015.

Growing up in New England – four stories

Some years ago now, Neil Whitfield commented that he and I seem to have grown up in different Australia's. The trigger for the comment lay in an exchange of experiences relating (among other things) to first exposure to things Asia. He was right, of course.

I was reminded of this by four books that I have been re-reading. The books are all set on the Northern or New England Tablelands. Each is a story of childhood or young adulthood in a country setting. Spanning many years, they tell stories of change set against a backdrop of major historical change.

The period from the early eighteenth century to the start of the Second World War saw a period of economic expansion followed by consolidation. There were major shocks: the depression of the 1840s, that of the 1890s and the 1930s; there was war. During those periods, many lost their properties, some their lives, yet the social system they established seemed solid. Decline followed in the great remaking of Australian society from World War Two through to the end of the twentieth century. By the end of the twentieth century, their society that had seemed so secure had been largely relegated to history.

Writer and film maker Maslyn Williams was born in England in 1911. In the 1920s he came to Australia to work as a jackeroo on a large station near Tenterfield. His Mother's Country[1] is an almost lyrical account of his experiences there. His account shows life on the station but also in the nearby town from the perspective of someone who could mix across social divides. In Maslyn’s case, his experiences created a love of Australia that would keep him there for the rest of his life.

Poet and writer Judith Wright was born in 1915, a member of the Wright family who had major pastoral interests in the Falls country to the east of Armidale and in Queensland. Her half a lifetime[2] is a very different book. Written towards the end of her life, it is a partial account of that life up to the death of husband Jack in 1966 covering childhood, school, her experiences at Sydney University and then in Queensland.

The historical span of half a lifetime is greater than the other books, stretching over 140 years from the arrival of George and Margaret Wyndham in the Hunter Valley in the late 1820s. It is a more acerbic and reflective book than the others, written by a woman looking back and reflecting in part on the formation of her own views.

Binks Turnbull Dowling was born in Papua in 1923. In 1928, her parents sent her to stay at Kotupna, the Turnbull family property also in the Falls country east of Armidale not far from the Wright properties. Bink’s autobiographical memoir For crying out loud![3] starts in Papua, covers her childhood and early life up to her marriage. Full of detail, the book centres on life on Kotupna and the interactions among the extended Turnbull family.

Judith Wallace was born in 1932 and grew up on Ilparren, a sheep and cattle property just to the west of Glen Innes. Her family was part of the Ogilvie family, a family described a little earlier in George Farwell's book Squatter's Castle: The saga of a pastoral dynasty.[4].

Judith Wallace's Memories of a Country Childhood[5].centres on Ilparren, recording the now vanished life style and the changes that were forced on it from external events. He book ends:

The new owners (Ilparran had been sold) never homesteaded on Ilparran and the great house, still standing in spite of the sunken foundations, stares with blind eyes over the ravaged garden.

Three of the four books are marked by this sense of impermanence. In Judith Wright’s case, The Wyndham branch of the family lost much of their assets in the great crash of the 1890s, while the Wrights’ themselves would lose Judith’s beloved Wallamumbi the year following publication of half a lifetime. In Bink’s case, the book is in part about the decline and loss of Kotupna.

As personal stories, the books are interesting in their own right. Together, they also represent social history of particular life in an area over time.

I referred at the start to Neil Whitfield’s comment that he and I seem to have grown up in different Australia's.

The overlapping worlds of all four writers are familiar to me. I am very much younger, but aspects of their life and the people they write about are also part of my own life. I see things a little differently, in part because of age, in part because I came from another if again overlapping part of New England life, more because my experience and research means that I see them contextually, as part of a broader pattern.

It’s complicated to explain. Some aspects, my personal reactions, are better dealt with via autobiographical memoir where I can observe from my own perspective. But as historical documents, the four books are intensely interesting because I can put them into context as part of an interlinked story.

---

[1] Maslyn Williams, His Mother’s Country, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, 1988

[2] Judith Wright edited by Patricia Clarke, half a lifetime, Text Publishing, Melbourne, 1999

[3] Binks Turnbull Dowling, For crying out loud!, published by the author, Glen Fernaigh via Dorrigo, 1997

[4] George Farwell, Squatter's Castle: The saga of a pastoral dynasty, Lansdowne Press, 1973.

[5] Judith Wallace, Memories of a Country Childhood,. University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, 1977.

History revisited – the kitchen becomes the heart of the household

I am not sure how old we were. We must have been young, for we travelled in the Morris Minor that was Gran’s car, although it always seemed to be driven by my aunts who were then living at home. In this case, Aunt Kay was going to see Great Aunt Sarah and brought us along for the ride.

I do not know how old Sarah was, although cousin Arnold might be able to tell me. Certainly she seemed very old to us. The house had a slab kitchen separated from the main house as many kitchens once were. While I can no longer remember all the details, I do remember how quaint and old fashioned it seemed.

Geoffrey Blainey in his fascinating study of early Australian domestic life, Black Kettle and Full Moon, notes that as late as 1850, less than half the dwellings in Australia had a kitchen. People cooked out doors or, if they had a sizeable hut, on open fires at one end of the room. Many huts had huge fireplaces running almost the width of the building. Cooking took place in pots or billies placed on or just above the open fire.

By 1850, the camp oven (image, Powerhouse Museum) was already a popular way of cooking. Essentially a small cast-iron box with a lid on top and often set on three legs, the camp oven could be placed in the open fireplace and ashes heaped over it, allowing for a more even distribution of heat. Bread could be cooked, puddings made or meat roasted.

As kitchens spread, they were (as in Sarah’s case) built separate from the house at the back, often linked by a covered pathway. They sometimes included the laundry, a store room and, in wealthier households, a servant’s room just off the kitchen, creating a back wing. You can still see signs of this configuration in some older houses.

This layout reduced the risk of fire, an ever present problem in colonial New England. It kept food smells away from the main house and, in hot areas, the heat of the constantly burning kitchen fire. In colder areas such as the high Tableland, it also made the servant’s room the warmest room in the house.

From the 1880s, houses even in the bush began to include an interior kitchen. The reasons for this shift are unclear.

Blainey surmises that it may have been due to acclimatisation. People were more willing to accept kitchen heat in summer, less willing to accept winter cold. My own feeling is that the shift was simply practical, it was easier to get hot food to the table.

The shift to an inside kitchen combined with another change from the 1860s, the introduction of the kitchen stove in place of open fire and camp oven. This greatly aided cooking while reducing the risk of fire.

The new kitchen and especially the kitchen table had become the heart of the household, a central workplace and point of family gathering.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 7 January 2015. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013, here for 2014, here for 2015.

History revisited – the shears stop in Newcastle

End of an Era. The Newcastle wool sales came to an end last year after more than ninety years in operation. Jim Belshaw explains how the sales began in the 1920s to help Northern farmers.

Tuesday 19 February 2013, Newcastle. The last wool sales had begun. For the last time, the buyers, brokers and graziers gathered together. Unlike other centres where selling had become remote, the mob of woolgrowers and buyers who relished travelling to Newcastle to see the collective clip had never wavered, propping up hotels, restaurants and business. It was their sale, a major social outing.

Barbara Morley had served the wool brokers and growers breakfast, lunch and dinner for 27 years. Now she was to don her apron for the last time, serving dinner for up to two hundred people, enjoying a last chardy or chat with all the familiar faces.

‘Country folk are just so unbelievable, real gentlemen and so respectful – I’ll miss them.’’

The story now ending had begun many years before. During the 1920s, Northern graziers experienced difficulties in selling their late cut wool because of congestion in the Sydney wool stores. Wool shorn in October or November could not be sold until the following March, creating a cash flow hole. The problem had become so bad that some growers were selling their wool from the shed, taking a lower price just to get the cash.

A small group (J J Price, A E Hunter and W E Tayler) decided that the solution was to open wool sales in Newcastle. Newcastle was a deep water port with a direct rail connection that finished on the water front. Tayler came to see P A Wright to seek his support and to ask him whether he was prepared to join the board of the new venture.

PA, everyone called him PA if not always to his face, was frustrated. He had sold his own large clip from the shed in 1927. A strong supporter of self government for Northern New South Wales, Wright believed that existing institutional structures impeded local development. He was also a supporter of direct action; those experiencing problems should act to fix them at once as best they could.

Wright listened to Tayler’s arguments. The need was clearly there. The concept was attractive. But would it work in a practical sense? There was a big gap between that embryo group and the practical realities involved in creating a new wool selling centre in the face of entrenched institutional and commercial barriers.

Wright was a methodical practical man. However, that was combined with curiosity, with a willingness to observe and experiment and the ability to see visions and to pursue causes with a dogged persistence.

As a practical man, he did his own investigation, visiting Sydney for talks with wool brokers. As a visionary, he became convinced that part of the solution to Northern problems lay in the development of Newcastle as an export port for Northern produce. It wasn’t just wool. Northern wheat growers were experiencing similar problems trying to export through Sydney.

After reflection and investigation, Wright decided to support the project and join the board. I will continue this story in my next column.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 11 June 2014. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because the columns are not on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013, here for 2014.

Alan Barcan, the Sydney Old Left and threads in New England’s history

I have been reading Alan Barcan’s Radical Students: the Old Left at Sydney University (Melbourne University Press, Carlton South 2002). I bought it a second hand bookshop because I was curious, curious about the subject, but also about the author.

Back in the late 1970s and early 1980s I was writing a PhD thesis on the life of my grandfather, David Drummond, Drummond was an activist Country Part Education Minister in NSW for some twelve years and had a major influence on education in New England, in NSW and beyond. In writing I drew quite heavily from Alan’s work on the history of education in Australia since it helped provide structure and set a basic context for part of my work.

That explains in part why I bought the book since it is something of a personal memoir of a man whose writing I have used and liked. However, I was also attracted by the title. I knew the old left had been influential; I remember the fights between the old and new left. I was curious about that, but also wondered what influence it had all had in regard to my primary project, a history of New England. How did that fit in, if at all?

As I read the book, I was disappointed at the lack of reference to the North. Then I thought, how dumb! The New England University College was established in 1938, the Newcastle University College in 1951. Many of the earlier events that Alan describes took place before their creation or when they were still very small.

Episodes such as the sometimes conflict between the left and the Andersonians, the followers of philosopher John Anderson, for influence on the Sydney campus were hardly relevant to the North. Even the broader influence of Anderson, including his influence on Libertarian thinking and the by-blow creation of what became known as the Sydney Push, were peripheral.

Still, as I read, I realised that Alan’s analysis of student life and old left activism actually provided a useful framework for one small part of the Northern story.

At Sydney University, the left and the Christian movements often combined. The Student Christian Movement (SCM) with its sometimes radical Christian humanism was especially important here. This overlapped with the social and ideological concerns of the old left, leading to fluctuating alliances.

The University of New England has been described as Australia’s most religious campus during the 1950s and 1960s. By the 1960s, there was a clear if small left on campus. This focused especially on limited political issues, things outside the ken of most students.

By contrast, the Christian groups were very powerful measured by participation. The Roman Catholic Newman Society and Evangelical Union tended to be more religious and socially conservative, more inward looking.

The SCM was especially  large and active, as was the Methodist Youth Fellowship. A town based group that combined University and Teachers’ College, the MYF exercised a disproportionate influence relative to the proportion of Methodists in the general Australian population. This group was strongly influenced by the change waves sweeping the Methodist Church at the time.

All this made for an activist campus, but one whose manifestations were different to those holding at Sydney. It was humanitarianism within a religious rather than political ideological frame.

As I read Barcan’s book, I was a bit surprised at the number of names that I knew. That shouldn’t have surprised me, Australia was a very small world then, but it did. I was also interested in proportionally how many of those named ended up in the North. Alan himself moved to the University of Newcastle.

Peter Coleman’s review mentions Alan’s encyclopaedic approach, the depth of his research. He concludes:

I first met Barcan at Sydney University in 1946. I was 17 and he was a grand old man of 24. He was the communist editor of Honi Soit.  I look back in amazement at his encouragement of my juvenile essays in journalism - interviews, reviews, reports. His manner was generous, tolerant, good-humoured.  That is the tone of this nostalgic if sometimes melancholy history which is also memoir.

I think that’s not a bad spot to leave this post.