Name: Ross McMullin
Bio: Author of the award-winning biography Pompey Elliott, So Monstrous a Travesty: Chris Watson and the world’s first national labour government [Scribe Publications] and Will Dyson: Australia’s Radical Genius [Scribe Publications, 2006]
Will Dyson: Australia’s Forgotten Genius – 21st September 2006
This speech was printed in Sydney Papers Vol.19 No.1 in 2007 (pages 15-26)
Early Australia in War and Peace: Chris Watson and Pompey Elliot – 22nd March 2005
Early Australia In War and Peace: Prime Minister Chris Watson and Brigadier-General Pompey Elliott
This speech was printed in Sydney Papers Vol.17 No.2 in 2005 (pages 47-61)
Chris Watson was Labor’s first prime minister – but he split with Labor in 1916 over conscription and joined the political conservatives. Pompey Elliott was one of Australia’s finest military leaders in World War 1 – but he returned to Australia a disillusioned man and committed suicide in 1931. Ross McMullin is the author of the award-winning biography Pompey Elliott, and So Monstrous a Travesty: Chris Watson and the world’s first national labour government [Scribe Publications] and has brought together the lives of these two men in an evaluation of Australia in the early twentieth century. Their stories tell us much about early Australia – in war and peace. Ross McMulllin addressed The Sydney Institute on Tuesday, 22 March 2005.