A Remarkable Ten – They Left Their Mark On Australia and Were Then Forgotten

Ian Macfarlane AC is an Australian economist and was Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia, from 1996 to 17 September 2006. He has not let retirement end his endeavours, however, and is now the author of a new book, The Remarkable Australians, that puts together the stories of ten remarkable Australians who were once prominent and well-known but whose images have faded from the national memory. Ian Macfarlane addressed The Sydney Institute on Tuesday 17 September 2019 to discuss some of the highlights of his research of his remarkable Australians.

A REMARKABLE TEN – THEY LEFT THEIR MARK ON AUSTRALIA AND WERE THEN FORGOTTEN

IAN MACFARLANE

First of all, I would like to thank you all for coming tonight. It’s good to see that there are still a lot of book lovers and history buffs in our city. I would also like to thank The Sydney Institute for organising this event which Gerard informs me is not a book launch, but it is the first event since the book became available last week.

I suspect the question some of you are asking is why did I choose to write a book on a subject apparently outside my area of expertise. It would have been much easier to write on an economic subject; in fact, I was approached to do so by a publisher immediately after I left the Reserve Bank thirteen years ago. (It was Richard Walsh from Angus & Robertson, when they were still publishers)

But the subject of this book it is not totally outside my area of expertise. As a life-long reader of books on history and biography, it is not a surprise that at some point I would choose to write on these subjects, not just read about them. I can date exactly when I first thought of the idea for this book. It was in 2003, when I was reading a biography of Rupert Brooke by an English author and I came across the Australian Frederick Kelly.

Kelly had won the diamond sculls at the Henley Regatta three times and an Olympic gold medal in rowing, and so was a celebrated sportsman. But that was only the second string to his bow. He was first and foremost a concert pianist and classical music composer. What an amazing man I thought. I should learn more about him, possibly even write about him.

Some time later, when reading a book by a Canadian author about early attempts to climb Mount Everest, I came across the Australian George Finch who had a good claim to being the world’s most accomplished mountaineer. In 1922, he climbed higher than anyone had ever climbed before, and with better support from the British climbing establishment may have been able to reach the top of Everest. And, by the way, he was also a professor of chemistry and a fellow of the Royal Society. And the connection between him and Peter Finch, the first Australian to win the academy award for best actor, was an intriguing one. Again, I wanted to learn more and I thought my interest would be shared by others.

The third event that spurred my interest was when I came across a biography of Harry Hawker in a Berkelouw catalogue. The Hawker Aircraft Company was the best-known name in British military aviation in the twentieth century, and it got its name from a young Australian of humble birth and limited education. Not only was Harry Hawker a trophy-winning pilot and aeroplane designer, he was the first person to attempt to fly across the Atlantic Ocean – the longest continuous flight ever attempted over water. He only got half way, but he survived and became a hero. That adventure in 1919 was an amazing story on its own. By now the idea for a book in the form of a series of biographical essays had clearly formed.

I want to make it clear that my motive for writing the book was not an altruistic one. I did not set out to rescue these people from obscurity, and so create a memorial to their memory. If that happens, it will be well and good, but it would only be a by-product of what I aimed to do. My motive was much simpler and less noble than that. I wrote this book because I found the stories of these lives very interesting, and I believed that lots of other people would find them equally interesting. In fact, the original title of the book was Interesting Lives, but I was persuaded to change it to something a little more positive.

I ended up with ten people, which was more than I expected when I first started writing. They all had several things in common:

• They were all born in the second half of the nineteenth century in colonial Australia before Federation
• They all spent most of their lives abroad and were, in a sense, the first wave of Australian expatriates
• They all lived extremely interesting, and in many cases, adventurous lives
• They all excelled at more than one thing
• They all became well-known – even famous –but are now largely forgotten by the public

I have put the list of ten names before my friends and they have trouble recognising more than one or two, so readers should not feel inadequate if they have not heard of them. I was not interested in celebrating the already famous, so a Melba, Monash, Mawson or Kingsford Smith would not make my list. They have already been honoured with knighthoods and their portraits on bank notes. Thirteen people born in Australia have been commemorated on bank notes, but none are in my book. This gives me comfort that I am not simply duplicating what is already well known.

My decision to write about people who were not well known did not help me when it came to finding a publisher. I was rejected by three large publishers who told me the book was not commercially viable. That was the term they all used. Fortunately, I found a small publisher – Connor Court – who had confidence in me and to whom I am grateful. I can understand the attitude of the big publishers – they are business people who have to make a profit in publishing, an industry where money is hard to come by. They felt that readers would be reluctant to buy books about people they had never heard of. Maybe they are right, but I hope not. Unfortunately, this attitude means that publishers are happy to churn out repeated biographies of the same old names, just as Hollywood studios are regularly doing remakes of earlier films. There have been three biographies of Monash published in the past decade, none, by the way as good as the one by Geoffrey Serle in 1982. And how many biographies have there been of Ned Kelly? I can tell you. There have been twelve published since 2000. And Don Bradman? Eleven since 2000. By the way, the best biography of Bradman in my opinion – and I have read a few of them – was written by Irving Rosenwater in 1978 in England.

I have already introduced you to three of my subjects – Kelly, Finch and Hawker. I will now go quickly through the other seven, although it is a challenge to do this quickly as they all led such eventful lives. First:

George Morrison, also known as Chinese Morrison or Morrison of Peking – traveller, doctor, journalist and personal advisor to the President of China. While he spent the second half of his life in China, his early adventures in Australia and the Pacific are worthy of a book in themselves. For example, at the age of 20 he walked from the Gulf of Carpentaria to Melbourne. This was only 20 years after Burke and Wills had failed to do the journey in the opposite direction. Morrison led an adventurous life in which he managed to get himself speared on one occasion and then shot on another.

Next, Sir Hubert Wilkins – polar explorer, First World War photographer. As Captain Wilkins MC he was the only war-time photographer to be decorated for bravery. He was knighted for being the first person to fly from America to Europe via the Arctic Ocean. He also had the Order of Lenin pinned on him by Stalin, not for services to communism, but for his Arctic exploits. He was also the first person to attempt to go under the North Pole by submarine. He failed, and many people thought he was mad to try it. Yet 27 years later two US submarines performed the feat.

Next, Henry Handel Richardson – under this pen name, she wrote what many considered to be the “Great Australian Novel” – The Fortunes of Richard Mahony. It is in fact a trilogy of three separate novels that took her 20 years to write. She is better known for a lighter piece, The Getting of Wisdom, which was made into a popular film in the 1970s. Both were written in London, but she spent 15 years before that in Germany training as a pianist.

Next, Lyndhurst Falkiner Giblin – scholar, marginal member of the Bloomsbury group, international sportsman, gold prospector, plantation manager and member of parliament, who volunteered for the first world war at the age of 43 and came back as Major Giblin MC DSO. At the age of 47 turned to economics and ended up as professor at Melbourne University and the most important economic advisor to the Australian Government during the Depression and Second World War.

Next, John Peter Russell trained as an engineer, but turned to painting. Spent most of his life in France, first in Paris, later in Britanny. One of the few people to form an easy friendship with Van Gogh. He also knew Monet, Rodin and Matisse. He was a wealthy man, lived a comfortable life and raised a large family in France.  He died in obscurity; now his best paintings are worth more than a million dollars.

Next, Gilbert Murray – scholar, playwright, poet and authority on ancient Greek. Made a professor at the age of 23, then spent a decade in the London theatre world. George Bernard Shaw parodied him in his play Major Barbara. Murray returned to academia and was appointed Regius Professor of Greek at Oxford University. Prominent public intellectual in Britain and author of 61 books. Married into the British aristocracy then spent much of his life campaigning for peace via the League of Nations.

Next, and finally, Reginald “Snowy” Baker – reputed to be Australia’s greatest all-round sportsman who represented Australia internationally in four different sports. Claimed to have excelled in 26 different sports. Later he became a boxing promotor, whose life was intertwined with the tragedy of Les Darcy. He also became a pioneer of the Australian film industry making five films in Australia and six in Hollywood where he lived from his mid-thirties.

Each essay in this book tells the story of how a life developed from birth, childhood, education, marriage, family relationships, professional achievements and setbacks. I try to make an assessment of their character, and of how important they were in the wider scheme of things. So, the book is mainly about people. But it is also about historical events in which they participated, about different countries and about the times in which they lived. Their stories tell us a lot about the Australia of their time, although most of the action takes place overseas.

The thing I wanted to emphasise about Australia was that, even in this early time, we were very outward looking. Physically we were insular, but mentally we were always looking abroad for inspiration. This is not surprising. If you are small, you have to look abroad. A citizen of London, New York or Paris might think that everything worthwhile was available at home: if you are from a small country, you would never make that mistake.

Each of my subjects started their Odyssey by getting on a ship and sailing to London. That was always the starting point, but their stories broadened out from there so that France, Germany, Switzerland, the United States, Canada and China also figure prominently in these stories. But the link with Britain was still extremely strong, and the similarities and differences between the two countries are a constant background.

The English statesman Sir Charles Dilke visited Australia in 1880 and was surprised by the similarities between the two countries. He said Australia was like England with the upper class left out. There was a lot to be said for this summary. We had mostly English institutions, English law and English education, and we had rich and poor citizens as in England. But we didn’t have a leisure class with private incomes, who didn’t have to work. Nor did we have the equivalent of Eton, although we inherited the English system of private schools. We had six universities at this time of roughly equal status. We didn’t have an Oxford or Cambridge. In our armed forces we didn’t have smart regiments and not-so-smart ones. The English like to establish a hierarchy within each area of life; we didn’t. We really didn’t have a class system to speak of.

So, we were clearly more egalitarian than the mother country and we were richer in terms of national income per head. But we were a lot smaller – only 3.8 million people in 1900 compared with 40 million for Britain.

We are now up to 25 million people and are closing the gap with Britain which has 60 million. As a result of the great post-war immigration programs, we are also more multicultural and less British than we used to be. However, a lot of the British influence lingers and has underpinned the stability of our democracy. Some people are surprised when I remind them that five of our post-war prime ministers went Oxford, and there would have been six if Kim Beazley had won.

Although the book concentrates on ten remarkable Australian lives, a lot of other familiar names are dotted through the pages. From Australia, Prime Ministers Barton, Fisher, Hughes, Bruce, Scullin and Lyons make appearances, as do Monash and Melba. And sportsmen such as Trumper, Spofforth and Darcy, as well as painters Roberts and Streeton. Looking abroad, no account of this historical epoch would be complete without a role for Churchill, who appears in two essays, as does Einstein.

Figures from the world of entertainment also appear such as George Bernard Shaw and Charlie Chaplin. One that surprised me was the actress Elizabeth Taylor who gets three mentions. How could this be? It turns out that Snowy Baker taught her how to ride a horse for National Velvet, the film that made her famous. She also co-starred with Peter Finch in a film, so she gets a mention in the Finch essay. MGM made another film starring her called Rhapsody, based on a book by Henry Handel Richardson, so she gets a mention in the Richardson essay. I am indebted for this last piece of information to Bruce Beresford, the director of the Getting of Wisdom. He then went on to describe Rhapsody as an absolute stinker.

One thing I was certain of when I planned this book is that I wanted it to be a series of essays or chapters. I was never interested in writing a whole book about one life. I have always liked the concept of a book of essays. My favourites when I was younger were by Bertrand Russell and George Orwell. More recent masters of the essay form are Clive James and Malcolm Gladwell. Biographical essays also have a long pedigree starting with Aubrey’s Brief Lives in the seventeenth century. Australian examples are John Hetherington’s Australian’s: Nine Profiles and more recently Ross McMullin’s Farewell Dear People.

I find it satisfying to read a series of short biographical essays because each is different. As John Howard expressed it – each of these people is refreshingly different. If the one you are reading is not exactly to your taste, the next one probably will be. There is always something to look forward to. I should add at this point that, to the best of my knowledge, none of the subjects of these biographies ever met another. There are two cases where one refers to another, but no cases of actual meetings.

The other thing I had strong views on was the structure of the printed book. Not only do I like reading books, I like books as physical objects. I like them to be well designed, well printed and well bound. That is why this book is an illustrated hardback with stitched binding. It is more expensive than a paperback or a hardback with glued binding, but it is a better and longer-lasting book.

So that, ladies and gentlemen, brings me to the end of my presentation. I hope that you get as much pleasure out of reading the book as I did out of the research and writing. The only part for me that was exasperating was finding a publisher. But I finally found one, and I am completely happy with what he produced. But before I found him, I consoled myself with the fact that J K Rowling was rejected by twelve publishers before she found one that would take a chance on her Harry Potter series which allowed her to become the biggest selling author in the past 100 years.