Australian Dictionary of Biography

Period: 1940-1980
Names: Pik-Z
General Editor: John Ritchie
Published in hardcopy 2002

Preface

Six hundred and seventy-three individuals with surnames from Pike to Zinnbauer are included in Volume 16 of the Australian Dictionary of Biography. Fittingly, the first entry in the volume is Douglas Pike, the project's founding editor. The last is Alfred Freund Zinnbauer, a Viennese-born pastor and one of many Europeans of Jewish origin whose escape from Nazism is chronicled in the present series of volumes. Between them is a host of men and women from all walks of life who died in the years from 1940 to 1980. The 673 entries have been written by 569 authors. It is the fourth and final volume for this period.

Incorporating the lives of some 2700 individuals, volumes 13 to 16 illustrate such topics as immigration, accelerating industrialism, urbanization and suburbanization, and war (World War II, Korea, Malaya and Vietnam). While other themes are also illuminated—material progress, increasing cultural maturity, conservative and radical politics, conflict and harmony, loss of isolation and innocence—the emphasis of the biographies is on the individuals. The entries throw light on the complexity of the human situation, and on the greatness and the littleness of moral response and actual behaviour which this can evoke. The subjects of Volume 16 range in lifespan from Peter Santo, an indentured labourer who arrived in Queensland from the New Hebrides in 1888 and died in 1966 aged about 105, to Catherine Warnes, a 19-year-old entertainer killed in Vietnam in 1969. Although the majority of men and women included in this volume flourished in the 1940-1980 period, a minority of the lives, such as those of John Shephard, a manufacturing engineer born in 1852, Isaac Selby, a writer born in 1859, or Isabella Bruce Reid, born in 1878 and reputed to be the world's first female veterinarian, reveal facets of Australian history long before 1940.

The two volumes of the 1788-1850 section of the A.D.B., the four of the 1851-1890 section and the six of the 1891-1939 section were published between 1966 and 1990. Volumes 13, 14 and 15, the first three of the 1940-1980 section, were published in 1993,1996 and 2000 respectively. Douglas Pike was general editor for volumes 1 to 5, Bede Nairn for volume 6, Nairn and Geoffrey Serle for volumes 7 to 10, Serle for volume 11, and John Ritchie for volumes 12 to 15. An index to volumes 1-12 was published in 1991, and the A.D.B. was produced on CD-ROM in 1996. The chronological division was designed to simplify production. 7211 entries have been included in volumes 1-12 (volumes 1-2, for 1788-1850, had 1116 entries; volumes 3-6, for 1851- 1890, 2053; volumes 7-12, for 1891-1939, 4042). For the three sections between 1788 and 1939, the placing of each individual's name was determined by when he/she did his/her most important work (floruit). In contrast, the 1940-1980 section only includes individuals who died in this period. The 'date of death' principle will be maintained in future volumes. Work has begun on Volume 17, the first of two volumes covering the period 1981-1990.

The choice of subjects for inclusion in this volume required prolonged consultation. After quotas were estimated, working parties in each State, and the Armed Services and Commonwealth working parties, prepared provisional lists which were widely circulated and carefully amended. Many individuals were obviously significant and worthy of inclusion as leaders in politics, business, the armed services, the church, the professions, the arts and the labour movement. Some have been included as representatives of ethnic and social minorities, and of a wide range of occupations; others have found a place as innovators, notorieties or eccentrics. A number 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, but thousands of these names, and information about them, have been gathered in the biographical register at the A.D.B.'s headquarters at 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 by a variety of other specialists.

The A.D.B. is a project based on consultation and co-operation. The Research School of Social Sciences at the A.N.U. has borne the cost of the headquarters staff, of much research and of occasional special contingencies, while other Australian universities have supported the project in numerous ways. The A.D.B.'s policies were initially determined by a national committee composed mainly of representatives from the departments of history in each Australian university. That committee's successor, the editorial board, has kept in touch with historians at many universities, and with working parties, librarians, archivists and other local experts, as well as with research assistants in each Australian capital city and correspondents abroad. With such varied support, the A.D.B. is truly a national project.

Acknowledgments

The Australian Dictionary of Biography is a programme fully supported by the Research School of Social Sciences at the Australian National University. Special thanks are due to Professor Jill Roe for guidance as chair of the editorial board, and to Professor I. McAllister, director of the R.S.S.S., and Mrs Pauline Hore, formerly the school's business manager. Those who helped in planning the shape of the work have been mentioned in earlier volumes.

Within Australia the A.D.B. is indebted to many librarians and archivists, schools, colleges, universities, institutes, historical and genealogical societies, and numerous other organizations; to the National Library of Australia, the Australian War Memorial, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies and the National Archives of Australia; to the archives and public records offices in the various States and Territories, and to registrars of probates and of the Supreme and Family courts, whose cooperation has solved many problems; to various town and shire clerks; to the Returned & Services League of Australia, the Australian Department of Defence and State education departments; to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the Australian Political Studies Association, the New South Wales College of Nursing, the Nurses Registration Board, the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia, the Marist Fathers, the Marist Sisters, the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart and St Paul's Library, the Religious Society of Friends, the Rosicrucian Order, Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Royal Alexander Hospital for Children, Royal Hospital for Women, St Luke's Hospital, Potts Point, Tresillian Family Care Centres, Chartered Secretaries, Australia, the Sydney Cricket and Sports Ground Trust and the Australian Hereford Association, all in Sydney, and to the Aberdeen Angus Cattle Society, Armidale, New South Wales; to the Association of Sculptors, Victoria, the Australian Institute of Management and Public Administration, the Federal Institute of Accountants, the Royal Humane Society of Australasia, the St John Ambulance (Victoria), the Australian Red Cross, the Melbourne Club, the Australian Music Examinations Board, the Royal Victorian Institute for the Blind, the Austin and Repatriation Medical Centre, the B.H.P. archives, all in Melbourne, and the Great Western Race Club, Victoria; to the Australian College of Education, the Australian Institute of International Affairs, the Institution of Engineers, Australia, and the Australian Institute of Building, all in Canberra; to the Queensland Teachers' Union, Brisbane, and the Tully District Hospital, Queensland; to the Law Society of South Australia, Adelaide, the Historical Society of Katherine, Northern Territory, and the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Launceston, Tasmania.

Warm thanks for the free gift of their time and talents are due to contributors, to members of the editorial board and to the working parties. For particular advice the A.D.B. owes much to Molly Angel, Bob Douglas, John Dowie, Justin Corfield, Bill Gammage, Helga Griffin, Ian Hancock, Ken Inglis, John Molony, Hank Nelson and F. B. Smith.

Essential assistance with birth, death and marriage certificates has been provided by the co-operation of registrars in New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria, Western Australia, the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory; by the General Register offices in London and Edinburgh; by the registrars-general in Papua New Guinea and Malaysia; by the Public Registry, Valetta, Malta; by the mayor of Chantilly, France; by the civil registration offices in The Hague; by the National State Archives, Belgium; by the consul-general for Poland in Sydney, and by the consul for Italy in Adelaide; by the Austrian, Belgian, Brazilian, Egyptian, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Netherlands, Pakistan and Thai embassies, and the British, Indian, South African, and Zimbabwe high commissions, Canberra.

For other assistance overseas, thanks are due to Judith Farrington, London, William Murphy, Dublin, Betty Iggo, Edinburgh, and Roger Joslyn, New York; to the universities of Birmingham, Cambridge, Durham, Leeds, Liverpool, London, Manchester and Oxford, and to Jesus College, Christ's College, and Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, and Oriel College, Oxford, England; to the universities of Aberdeen, Edinburgh and St Andrew's, Scotland; to the University of Aberystwyth, Wales, to the National University of Ireland, Dublin; to Technische Universität, Berlin, and Bayerische-Julius-Maximilian-Universität, Wurzburg, Germany; to the Graduate Institute of International Studies, Geneva; to Columbia University, New York, Harvard University, Cambridge, and Springfield College, Springfield, Massachusetts, Michigan Technological University, and the universities of Washington and Indiana, U.S.A.; and to the universities of Canterbury and Otago, New Zealand.

Gratitude is also due to Trinity College of Music, the Central St Martin's College of Art and Design, the Royal College of Physicians, the Royal College of Surgeons of England, the Royal Humane Society, the Royal Geographical Society, the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, the Zoological Society of London, the Royal Philatelic Society, the Royal Institute of British Architects, the Institution of Civil Engineers, the Ministry of Defence, the Naval Historical Branch and the Air Historical Branch, R.A.F., all in London; to the Institute of Actuaries, Oxford, England; to the Secretariat of the Chapter of Orders, Copenhagen; to the Österreichisches Staatarchiv, Vienna; and to the New Zealand Defence Force, Wellington; to the staffs of the Northern Territory Dictionary of Biography, Österreichisches Biographisches Lexikon, Vienna, Dictionary of Canadian Biography, Toronto, and Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, Wellington, and to other individuals and institutions who have co-operated with the A.D.B.

The A.D.B. deeply regrets the deaths of such notable contributors as E. M. Andrews, J. M. Antill, H. W Arndt, John Bechervaise, H. C. Bolton, D. F. Bourke, Donald Bradman, F. Brown, Graeme Bucknall, J. V. Byrnes, A. W. Campbell, Nancy Cato, R. J. K. Chapman, Brian Clerehan, Kay Daniels, R. A. Douglas, C. J. Duffy, Geoffrey Dutton, Ronald East, H. Vaughan Evans, Audrey Ferguson, R. A. Ferrall, Cedric Flower, G. J. Fraenkel, A. D. Garrison, K. E. Gill, C. J. M. Glover, L. Goldberg, John Griffith, R. M. Hague, Dorothy Helmrich, J. P. Holroyd, C. J. Horne, W.J. Hudson, John V. Hurley, J. Keith Jarrot, Lorna M. Jolly, John D. Keating, E. F. Kunz, P. N. Lamb, Godfrey Laurie, C. J. Lloyd, Judith Wright McKinney, Ian F. McLaren, J. F. McMahon, A. W. Martin, P. E. Maskell, Elyne Mitchell, Francis Robert Moulds, D. M. Myers, K. B. Noad, William N. Oats, Harold Perkins, 0. H. K. Spate, G. T. Stilwell, Jacqueline Templeton, P. V. Vernon, D. F. Waterhouse, D. B. Webster, Peter Westcott, E. T. Williams, June C. Warrillow-Williams, Paul D. Wilson, A. T. Yarwood.

Grateful acknowledgment is due to the director and staff of Melbourne University Press, to Chris Coulthard-Clark, Gillian O'Loghlin, Sally O'Neill, Sue Graham-Taylor and Fay Woodhouse who worked for the A.D.B. while Volume 16 was being produced, and to Robert O'Neill and Ross Johnston for twenty-five years' and fifteen years' service respectively as section editors.

The A.D.B. expresses its deep appreciation of financial assistance from Mrs Caroline Simpson of Sydney and the Myer Foundation, Melbourne, which helped in the production of this volume.