Australian Dictionary of Biography

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Award of ADB Medal to John Poynter for long and distinguished service (2004)

Citation

Emeritus Professor John Poynter, AO, OBE, has served the Australian Dictionary of Biography with distinction for three decades.  When Volume 5 was published in 1974 he was a member of both the National Committee and the Editorial Board.  He served on the former until it was disbanded in 1983 and on the Board until July this year.  In addition he chaired the Victorian Working Party for volumes 6-14 (a period of twenty years) and also served as Victorian section editor for most of that time.

As a contributor to the Australian Dictionary of Biography, John Poynter has maintained an association that extends back even further.  The first of his sixteen entries, Alfred Felton, was published in Volume 4 in 1972.  Many of his subsequent articles were major contributions to the volumes.  They included a five thousand word entry on the Baillieu family and long entries on other significant figures such as the Grimwades, Alexander Leeper, Sir Ronald Munro Ferguson, Dame Mabel Brookes and Sir Charles Lowe.  All are characterised by solid research and elegant prose.  Even within the confines of his shorter entries, such as Helena Rubinstein and Sir Kenneth Wheare, Professor Poynter evokes his subjects vividly and assesses their lives with subtlety, sympathy and insight leavened by dry humour.

As a longstanding member of the ADB’s Editorial Board and chair of the Victorian Working Party, and as a distinguished author, John Poynter has made an outstanding contribution to the Australian Dictionary of Biography and, through it, to Australian scholarship.