Australian Dictionary of Biography

Keith Leopold, 1985

Sunday Mail (Brisbane), 14 April 1985, 19

Keith Leopold (1920–1999), language teacher and author, was born on 30 July 1920 at East Maitland, New South Wales, only child of New South Wales-born parents Charles William Leopold, apiarist, and his wife Nellie, née Codling. Keith’s parents separated shortly after he was born, and he had no further contact with his father. He attended East Maitland Public School and Maitland Boys’ High School (1933–37) where he obtained his Leaving certificate, coming fourth in the State in history and ninth in French.

In 1938 Leopold enrolled at Armidale Teachers’ College and was also part of the inaugural intake of the newly established New England University College, then a part of the University of Sydney (BA, 1942). He was primarily interested in French, but also took elementary German on the advice of the warden, Edgar Booth, that it would improve his prospects of employment as a secondary school teacher. Many years later Leopold recalled: ‘the Armidale years were the happiest and most profitable of my life’ (Leopold 1998, 187). German was to become his major subject. For three consecutive years he won the Garton scholarship in German, awarded for the highest average mark for non-native speakers. In 1940, in order to attain honours, he was obliged to transfer to Sydney where he was awarded the university medal in German in 1942.

World War II interrupted Leopold’s studies. Having enlisted in the Citizen Military Forces on 27 January 1943 (and then in the Australian Imperial Force from August), he served in Australia with several Special Intelligence Personnel sections, and in Papua (June–December 1943) with No. 55 Special Wireless Telegraphy Section. He was promoted to acting corporal (1943). On 3 June 1944 he married Queensland-born Dora Jane Morris in the Albert Street Methodist Church, Brisbane. He was discharged from the AIF in Sydney on 3 May 1944 to become a diplomatic cadet in the Department of External Affairs. Having completed the required course at Canberra University College, in December 1945 he became a staff clerk in the administrative section of the department, but in March 1946 resigned and returned to the University of Sydney as a teaching fellow. In 1947 he was appointed the sole lecturer in German within the department of English and modern languages at the University of Queensland. He was promoted to senior lecturer in March 1952, and in 1953 was made head of an autonomous department of German.

While he was teaching, Leopold continued to study at the University of Sydney (MA, 1949), where he was again awarded a university medal, and later at the University of Queensland (PhD, 1957) where he completed his thesis, ‘The First-Person Novel: Its Forms and Techniques. With Special Reference to German Literature.’ In the meantime, he had taken study leave to travel to the Federal Republic of Germany in 1954, attending undergraduate classes in German language and literature at the University of Tübingen. On a subsequent trip to Cologne and Britain in 1962 he studied German language and teaching.

In 1958 Leopold was promoted to reader. Appointed professor on 5 March 1964, he continued to teach, supervise postgraduate work, and present undergraduate lectures in a formal but engaging style. A former student recalled that Leopold ‘displayed a very avuncular attitude to all his students from wherever they hailed’ (Moses 2023, 67). He was involved in administration at the university, as sub-dean of the faculty of arts (1960–61), as a member of the executive committee of the faculty (1963), and as chairman of the board of the Institute of Modern Languages (1956–61).

Leopold’s commitment to teaching and his attachment to German language and culture extended beyond the university. In 1960 he initiated fortnightly German language radio broadcasts for Queensland schools. Until 1980 he was a member of the State Board of Secondary Studies, and from 1947 was chief examiner for German, and periodically French. He held offices in the Queensland Goethe Society, the Australasian Universities Language and Literature Association, and the Modern Language Teachers’ Association of Queensland, of which he was made a life member in 1979.

A prolific author, Leopold’s work included scholarly articles on German language and literature, textbooks, and readers for teaching German in schools, as well as three short novels in German for students. In discussions with his students on literary matters, he invariably introduced detective fiction, his lifelong interest. As one observer noted: ‘He writes with equal enjoyment on conjugating verbs and kidnapping’ (Mishinski 1985, 19). He wrote two short novels in English for a teenage and young adult audience: When We Ran (1981) (later a television drama, Run, Chrissie, Run!) and Fleur (1993), as well as My Brow Is Wet (1969), a light-hearted, satirical crime novel set in a fictional Brisbane university. A memoir of his student years in Armidale and Sydney, Came to Booloominbah: A Country Scholar’s Progress, 1938–1942, was published in 1998.

Music was another of Leopold’s passions, preferably on gramophone or radio: concerts and theatre held little appeal. His adult listening included classical music and radio plays, but also popular entertainment. He was a keen filmgoer and wrote short reviews of the films he saw, which he filed on index cards. When he retired on 30 July 1985 as professor emeritus, he admitted: ‘I’m going to miss showing off in front of classes’ (Mishinski 1985, 19). In 1973 the Federal Republic of Germany had recognised his teaching by conferring on him the Cross of Merit, First Class (Verdienstkreuz 1.Klasse). Former colleagues and students established the Keith Leopold prize in 1986 for undergraduates studying German at the University of Queensland. He died at Paddington, Brisbane, on 13 July 1999, and was cremated. His wife had predeceased him (d. 1993); the couple had no children.