Following on from his description of the Library’s Oral History collections relating to Australian prime ministers, Barry York looks at their personal papers in the Manuscript Collection The National Library’s Manuscript Collection has collected Australian historical records for about 90 years. These ‘manuscripts’ take many forms: original diaries, notebooks, correspondence and printed materials. The Manuscript Collection is strong in the archives of individuals who have achieved a degree of national standing and influence. Sometimes these archives have been assembled over long periods of time, in the course of an individual’s daily activities. Australia’s prime ministers are a case in point. The Manuscript Collection holds personal papers of 15 former prime ministers. ‘Papers’ are defined by librarians as ‘a natural accumulation of personal and family materials ... the private documents accumulated by an individual’ (K. Duckett, Modern Manuscripts. Nashville, TN: American Association for State and Local History, 1975, p. 342). Other types of manuscript holdings, such as collections consisting only of newspaper clippings, are not included in this article.
The prime ministers for whom papers are held are: Edmund Barton (prime minister from 1 January 1901 to 24 September 1903); Alfred Deakin (24 September 1903 – 27 April 1904, 5 July 1905 – 13 November 1908 and 2 June 1909 – 29 April 1910); John Watson (27 April – 17 August 1904); Andrew Fisher (13 November 1908 – 2 June 1909, 29 April 1910 – 24 June 1913, and 17 September 1914 – 27 October 1915); George Reid (18 August 1904 – 5 July 1905); Joseph Cook (24 June 1913 – 17 September 1914); William (Billy) Hughes (27 October 1915 – 9 February 1923); James Scullin (22 October 1929 – 6 January 1932); Joseph Lyons (6 January 1932 – 7 April 1939); Earle Page (7 – 26 April 1939); Robert Menzies (26 April 1939 – 29 August 1941, and 19 December 1949 – 26 January 1966); John Curtin (7 October 1941 – 5 July 1945); John McEwen (19 December 1967 – 10 January 1968); John Gorton (10 January 1968 – 10 March 1971) and William McMahon (10 March 1971 – 5 December 1972). Four of the collections listed are small, each less than a metre in shelf space. These are the papers of Watson, Cook, Scullin and Curtin. Curtin’s collection is the smallest, consisting of three items, which mainly relate to the centenaries of Melbourne and Sydney. Watson’s 30 centimetre collection is mainly correspondence on political and trade union matters, written during his term in the Federal Parliament. Scullin’s papers measure 64 centimetres and consist of 30 folders covering the period 1921–1947, mostly concerning his parliamentary work during and after the Second World War. Joseph Cook’s papers are held in four boxes and nine folders. The folders, which relate mainly to the Paris Peace Conference (1919) and the Naval Armaments Conference in 1927, were donated by Cook’s son in 1953. Other material came from two sources: as a donation from Cook’s granddaughter in 1968, and as a purchase from a book dealer in 1995.
The largest collection, measuring 80.9 metres, is that of Robert Menzies, followed closely by William McMahon’s at 80 metres. These are huge collections, as anyone who has swum in a hundred-metre race can testify. The Page and Hughes collections are, respectively, 42.6 metres and 35 metres, while McEwen’s and Deakin’s papers take up 15.2 metres and 12.6 metres. To make better sense of these measurements: John Gorton’s papers take up six metres of shelf space and consist of 43 boxes. Menzies’ collection takes up 578 boxes. The larger collections cover various periods of the individual’s life and career and have been well used by biographers such as Geoffrey Bolton (Barton), John La Nauze (Deakin), Laurie Fitzhardinge (Hughes), Allan Martin (Menzies) and Ian Hancock (Gorton). In addition to correspondence, notebooks and diaries, the material within the papers can include telegrams, minutes of meetings, reports, Cabinet papers, speeches, press statements, news cuttings, transcripts of interviews, photographs, conference proceedings, medical, legal and financial records, invitations, menus, certificates, albums, scrap books, petitions, legislation, family records, electoral returns, leaflets, tourist publications and illuminated addresses. Prime ministerial gaps in the collection are Stanley Bruce (9 February 1923 – 22 October 1929), Arthur Fadden (29 August – 7 October 1941), Francis Forde (6 – 13 July 1945), Ben Chifley (13 July 1945 – 19 December 1949) and Harold Holt (26 January 1966 – 19 December 1967). Fadden and Forde experienced brief periods as prime minister: about a month and a week respectively. Chifley was in power for more than four years while Bruce’s ‘reign’ covered most of the ‘roaring twenties’. A large collection of Bruce’s papers are held by the National Archives where, since 1975, prime ministerial personal papers have been deposited as a matter of course. Hence the Library does not hold the papers of Whitlam (5 December 1972 – 11 November 1975), Fraser (11 November 1975 – 11 March 1983), Hawke (11 March 1983 – 20 December 1991) or Keating (20 December 1991 – 11 March 1996). Further papers of earlier prime ministers—Curtin, Chifley and Holt—are also at the National Archives.
The National Library’s most recent prime ministerial manuscript acquisition was received in April 1998: a donation of material from Mrs. Anne Fairbairn, George Reid’s granddaughter, who had made previous donations in 1996, 1991 and 1989. Reid’s papers include the historic draft Commonwealth of Australia Bill (Constitution), the 1897–1898 premiers’ meetings, correspondence, family history information, newspapers and photographs. Some of the collections have made protracted journeys to the Library. The bulk of Edmund Barton’s papers, for instance, was received by the Commonwealth Library in 1929 from Sir David Maughan, Barton’s son-in-law and co-executor of his estate. Subsequent transfers were made in 1939, 1940 and 1955. After Maughan’s death, another group of Barton papers was transferred to the Library by Maughan’s son (in 1957). A final consignment was received from the family in 1996. Small additions from other sources were incorporated over a 50-year period from 1933. Thus, the Barton papers represent an accumulative process spanning nearly seven decades. While many collections originated from family sources, the McEwen papers came initially from the Country Party Secretariat in 1972 and 1975. In 1979 and 1980, Sir John McEwen personally made further donations, and a final consignment was received from Lady McEwen in 1981 and 1982, after Sir John’s death.
There is some considerable interconnection between prime ministerial papers. Former prime ministers frequently engaged in correspondence with current ones, and vice versa. Letters written by Deakin, for instance, are found in 12 other collections, including those of Barton and Fisher. And, of course, there are many other collections, of people who were never prime minister, that nonetheless throw light on prime ministers. Examples include papers of politicians, public servants, biographers and staff and family members. A good example of the latter are the papers of Dame Zara Holt, Harold Holt’s wife. Her papers contain correspondence for 1956–68, Harold’s diary for 1957–62, itineraries of official visits and photographs of Harold. A recent acquisition of papers from Don Watson, who was speechwriter to Paul Keating, is another example of a non–prime ministerial collection that is highly relevant to an important prime ministerial figure. The same applies to the papers of Donald Rodgers, who was Ben Chifley’s press secretary. A particularly useful collection is the Latham papers. John Latham, a deputy prime minister in 1931 and former chief justice of the High Court, corresponded with most of the prime ministers from Barton to Gorton. The collections relating to prime ministers form a significant proportion of the Manuscript Collection. It is estimated that the entire Manuscript Collection takes up 10 kilometres of shelf space, and that the prime ministerial papers represent about 300 metres of the whole.
In recognition of the historical importance of these collections, the Library chose the Barton Papers as the first collection to be placed directly online, as part of the Library’s Digital Services Project. The digitisation of such collections serves the long-term preservation of the originals, as well as making the primary source materials directly accessible to anyone in the world who has an Internet connection. More than 5000 digitised images from the Barton papers were released online in August 2001. The online guide to the papers allows users to browse the contents and to access online copies of collection items. The Internet address is: www.mla.gov.au/ms/findaids/ms51/. It is awe-inspiring to consider that, in the space of a mere century, such a wondrous development could take place. In Barton’s own day, such technology was even beyond the imaginative scope of science fiction writers. The papers held in the Manuscript Collection, and the sound recordings held in the Oral History Collection that were discussed in the previous instalment in this series, clearly complement one another and help build a more complete understanding of prime ministerial lives and careers. In the next, concluding, instalment, the final dimension—image—will be examined through the holdings of the Pictures Collection. BARRY YORK is a researcher and writer. His email address is: garocon@pcug.org.au |
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