CHPE AGANSTP DRLTVERY RAOD1~ T R! R
SPEECH BY THE PRIME MINISTER
LAUNCH OF VOLUME 12 OF
THE AUSTRALIAN DICTIONARY OF BIOGRAPHY
CANBERRA 7 NOVEMBER 1990
The first volume of the Australian Dictionary of Biography
was launched in 1966 by Sir Robert Menzies. A quarter of a
century and seven Prime Ministers later, it is my very great
pleasure to finish off the job.
To put it quite simply, today's launch celebrates the
appearance of a new landmark in the intellectual landscape
of this country.
Today brings to completion the original ADB project: twelve
volumes of biographies covering Australia's history from the
First Fleet to the outbreak of the Second World War.
I am not prone to biblical quotation. But there is a
compelling relevance in those stirring words from the
Apocrypha: " Let us now praise famous men."
The relevance is two-fold.
First, the Australian Dictionary of Biography has become the
foremost reference for anyone seeking information about the
" famous men" and famous women of Australian history.
And second, in creating these volumes, the editors and
authors of the Australian Dict4onary of Biography have
themselves earned the praise and the gratitude of all
Australians. It was that . Iormidable pioneer . of . Australian historical
studies, the late Sir Keith Hancock, who thirty three years
ago convened the conference at the Australian National
University that launched the ADD project.
It must have seemed a breathtakingly ambitious proposal. It
called for an unprecedented commitment to cooperative
scholarship involving thousands of people around Australia.
It demanded work that was at once scholarly and eminently
readable. 3075
2.
And today, with the twelfth volume safely of f the press, we
can lo~ ok back on 7211 biographies in the ADB and on nearly
seven million words; and we can'only conclude that the plans
and expectations of the ADB's founders have been met and
surpased'. It is thoroughly right that. I should name those leading
figures who have so expertly praised our famous men and
women. As chadirman of the editorial board, Sir Keith Hancock was
succeeded by Professor John La Nauze and the current
incumbent Professor Ken Inglis; Professor Douglas Pike, the
first general editor, was'succeeded by gode Nairn, Geoffrey
Serle and, currently,* 3ohn Ritchie.
Let m. e add how good it islthat Bede Nairn is with us today.
His generous and productive involvement with the ADS
continues, with his authorship of seven of the biographies
in this volume.
The Research School of Social Sciences at the Australian
National University has borne most of the expenses of the
project, the Melbourne University Press has been a stylish
and accurate publisher.
Finally, there is the veritable army of authors, nearly 3000
strong, and contingents of advisers in libraries, archives,
registries and historical societies around Australia and
overseas who have generously contributed their time and
efforts to do the leg-work, the patient digging, the
painstaking research, that ultimately gives these volumes
their strength and stature.
The triumph of the ADD is that it has been truly a national
project, in its planning and execution.
It has not taken some elitist view of Australian history,
glorifying the deeds of the leading public figures of
Melbourne and Sydney.
It has taken a truly national vantage point, that has
encompassed women as well as men: shearers and . bushrangers
and murderers and artists as well as Premiers and Governors
and. Bishops; those born overseas as well as those born in
Australia; the west coast and the smaller states as well as
the~ populated south-east corner of the continent.
So it is as diverse as the Australian community that it
dencribes. -r
In these last six volumes, covering 1891-1939, that
community becomes an independent federation; undergoes the
cycle of booms and busts including the Great Depression;
endures the First World War and the lead-up to the Second.
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3.
Reading this book about : he people oaught up in those events
is like watching a parade going past an extraordinarily
diverse national parade.
In this the twelfth volwae alone, we have
Labor's first Prime Minister, J C Watson;
the tragedy of Ted Theodore;
the soldier whom C E W Bean considered tli
greatest man he ever knew, Sir Brudenell White;
Streeton and Strehlow and a brace of Symes;
the pioneer feminist Adela Pankhurst and Ethel
Turner, author of Seven Little Australians;
Joseph Leslie Trheodore Taylor, better known as
Squizzy Taylor, whose occupation is crisply given
as ' criminal';
James Whelan, Just as crisply: wrecker;
Fred Walker, the Vegemite man; and
John Whittle, Victoria Cross winner, who by 1932
was forced to beg to feed and clothe his family.
Dr Johnson said that " to make dictionaries is dull work"
but reading this one is far from dull.
It is embued with a fantistic sense of evocative detail.
We are told, for example, that John Wren died after.
suffering a heart attack when Collingwood won the 1953 Grand
Final; we glimpse Sydney University's Professor of Greek,
William Woodhouse, spending his time on the train every
morning teaching himself Albanian, Bulgarian and Hebrew.
I was particularly pleased to see Sir Donald Bradman's
tribute to Bill Woodfull, Test skipper during the ' Bodyline'
series, and Bede Nairn's superb biography of Victor Trumper.
And the ADB is embued too with a fundamental honesty. This
dictionary is not an exercise in hagiography, of either the
individual or the nation,. Our shortcomings are on display,
too biographies of individuals who had to struggle,
sometimes unsuccessfully, against community neglect or
hostility.
The unhappy story of the Aboriginal warrior Tjangamarra and
Bill Gamage's life of the New Guinean patriot, Sumsuma, show
two men whose different careers taught them depressingly
similar lessons about the Australia of the Europeans.
Ladies.-and gentlemen,
For all these reasons, this volume is in every respect the
equal of its eleven predecessors.
It's very appropriate theit it should be launched in this
building a building whose history lies ahead of it. 3077
4.
Inevitably, many of the words that will be spoken in this
now Parliament House, and many of the deeds to be performed
here, will one day be recorded in volumes of the Australian
Dictionary of Biography that are as yet unplanned.
But for all its newness, this is also a building that rests
firmly on the foundations of Australian history.
It embodies our parliamentary democracy and it encompasses
the essence of our federal nationhood those vast enduring
achievements won, at great cost, by our predecessors, many
of whom of course are memorialised in the Australian
Dictionary of Biogra Rhy.
In this building are guaranteed the values they held dear:
freedom and the supremacy of the individual in this great
Australian nation.
So the Australian Dictionary of Biography reminds us of what
it truly means to be an Australian, and will teach future
generations the basic truths of the Australian identity and
the Australian achievement.
In launching this volume and in commending this project I
can give it no higher praise than to say that it performs
those vital tasks accurately, comprehensively and with
style.
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