Australian Dictionary of Biography

Period: 1891-1939
Names: Lat-Ner
General Editor: Bede Nairn and Geoffrey Serle
Published in hardcopy 1986

Preface

This volume of the Australian Dictionary of Biography, containing 659 entries by 445 authors, is the fourth of six for the 1891-1939 section. The two volumes of the 1788- 1850 section and the four of the 1851-1890 section have already been published. The late Douglas Pike was general editor for volumes 1 to 5, Bede Nairn for volume 6, and Nairn and Geoffrey Serie for volumes 7 to 10. Nairn retired as joint general editor on 31 January 1984. The chronological division was designed to simplify production, for more than 7000 entries will be included in volumes 1-12. (Volumes 1-2, for 1788- 1850, had 1116 entries; volumes 3-6, for 1851-1890, 2053; and 4000 are planned for volumes 7-12). The placing of each individual's name in the appropriate section has been determined by when he/she did his/her most important work (floruit). A general index volume will be published after the three sections are completed.

The selection of names for inclusion required prolonged consultation. After quotas were estimated, working parties in each State and the armed services working party prepared provisional lists, which were widely circulated and carefully amended. Many of the names were obviously significant and worthy of inclusion as leaders in politics, business, the armed services, the professions, the arts, the labour movement, etc. Many others have been included as representatives of ethnic and social minorities and of a wide range of occupations, or as innovators, notorieties or eccentrics. Many had to be omitted through pressure of space or lack of material, and thereby joined the great mass whose members richly deserve a more honoured place; however, many thousands of these names, and information about them, are accumulating in the biographical register at the Dictionary headquarters in the Australian National University.

Most authors were nominated by working parties. The burden of writing has been shared almost equally by the staff of universities and other tertiary institutions and by a wide variety of other specialists.

The Australian Dictionary of Biography is a project based on consultation and cooperation. The Australian National University has borne the cost of the headquarters staff, of much research and of some special contingencies, while other Australian universities have supported the project in various ways. Its policies were originally determined by a national committee, composed mainly of representatives from the departments of history in each Australian university. At Canberra the editorial board has kept in touch with all these representatives, and with the working parties, librarians, archivists and other local experts, as well as overseas correspondents and research assistants in each Australian capital. With such varied support the Australian Dictionary of Biography can truly be called a national project.

Acknowledgments

Special thanks are due to Professor K. S. Inglis and Dr A. Barnard for their guidance as chairman and acting chairman of the editorial board and to Professor G. M. Neutze, director of the Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, and Mr P. Grimshaw, business manager of the research school. Those who helped in planning the shape of the work have been mentioned in earlier volumes.

Within Australia the Dictionary is greatly indebted to many librarians and archivists in Canberra and in each State; to the secretaries of many historical and genealogical societies; to the Australian War Memorial, Australian National Gallery and Department of Veterans' Affairs, in Canberra; to the registrars of probates in the various States, and of Supreme and Family Courts, whose generous co-operation has solved many problems; and to the Department of Defence for authenticating many details. Warm thanks for the free gift of their time and talents are due to all contributors and to all members of the editorial board and the working parties. For particular advice the Dictionary owes much to the late Brigadier M. Austin, and to B. Gandevia, G. McKeown, Bernard Smith, Daniel Thomas and C. W. Wrigley and the staff of the Petherick Room, National Library.

Essential assistance with birth, death and marriage certificates has been provided by the generous co-operation of registrars in New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Western Australia, the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory, and by the government statist, Victoria; by the reference librarian, Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand; by the General Register Office, Edinburgh, Scotland; by Bureaux of Vital Statistics in State Health departments in Arkansas, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Washington, D.C., South Carolina and Wisconsin, in the United States of America; by the registrar-general in Fiji; by the Superior Court, Montreal, and the registrar-general, Ontario, in Canada; the principal civil status officer, Port Louis, in Mauritius; the registrar, Supreme Court, Barbados; by the mayors of Cannes and La Boussac, in France; by the civil status officers, Velaine, Belgium, and Genoa and Siena, Italy; and by the Royal Danish Embassy and the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany.

For assistance overseas, thanks are due to Sean Murphy, Dublin, Ireland; to Information Systems Consultants Inc., Bethesda, Maryland, in the United States of America; to the archives and/or libraries of the universities of Birmingham, Cambridge, Leeds, London, Manchester and Oxford and of the Imperial College of Science and Technology, London, in England, of the universities of Edinburgh, Glasgow, and St Andrews in Scotland, and of Trinity College, University of Dublin, in Ireland, of the University of Liege in Belgium, and of California, also Harvard and Stanford universities in the United States of America.

Thanks are also due to the Linnean Society of London, the Public Record Office, the Royal Academy of Music, the Royal College of Music, all in London, to the Ministry of Defence, Middlesex, in England; to the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, Scotland; the Dictionary of Canadian Biography; and other individuals and institutions who have co-operated with the Dictionary.

The special services to the Dictionary over many years of Nan Phillips merits particular notice of her death in 1984. So do the deaths in 1984-85 of 'Bunny' Austin, Denis Murphy and John Reynolds, friends and advisers, as well as contributors. Andrew Brudenall, a young member of the Dictionary administrative staff of outstanding promise, died in a tragic accident in 1985. The Dictionary deeply regrets these deaths and those of such notable contributors as Harry Adlam, R. W. Baker, Diane Barwick, Macfarlane Burnet, Eleanor Dark, D. K. Darling, Denison Deasey, A. B. Doyle, Alban Doyle, E. Beatrix Durie, Harley W. Forster, A. J. Gray, D. A. Herbert, V. Hodgman, Roy H. Holden, Frederick Howard, F. C. Hutley, R. B. Joyce, R. M. Jukes, Michael C. I. Levy, T. B. McCall, J. M. Main, S. Merrifield, R. S. Neale, Ralph Pervan, R. T. M. Pescott, A. A. Phillips, E. R. Pretyman, D. Bruce Ross, E. J. Semmens, Merab Harris Tauman, W. V. Teniswood, K. A. Townley, Sydney Walker, Mervyn J. Wasson, Judah Waten, George F. Wieck and Keith Willey.

Grateful acknowledgment is due to the director and staff of Melbourne University Press; to the editorial and research staff in Canberra: Frank Brown, Martha Campbell, Suzanne Edgar, Gillian Fulloon, James Gibbney (now retired), Emma Grahame, Helga Griffin, Paula Harris, Diane Langmore, Merrilyn Lincoln, Patti Sharp, Ann Smith and Margaret Steven: to Michal Bosworth, Hilary Carey, Ruth Frappell and Susan Hogan in Sydney, Betty Crouchley in Brisbane, Joyce Gibberd in Adelaide, Wendy Birman in Perth, Margaret Glover and Gillian Winter in Hobart, Mimi Colligan in Melbourne and Leonie Glen and Sally O'Neill in London: and to the administrative staff: Marion Consandine, Annie Gan, Edna Kauffman, Alison Manners, Ivy Meere, David Turner and Margaret Tyrie.