Australian Dictionary of Biography

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Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 8

View articles from the Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 8

Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 8

Period: 1891-1939
Names: Cl-Gib
General Editor: Bede Nairn and Geoffrey Serle
Published in hardcopy 1981

Preface

This volume of the Australian Dictionary of Biography, containing 672 entries by 465 authors, is the second 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 and Bede Nairn for volume 6 and Nairn and Geoffrey Serie for volume 7. 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 prepared when 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 university staff and by a wide variety of specialists in other fields.

The Australian Dictionary of Biography is a project based on consultation and co-operation. 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 the 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 for his guidance as chairman of the editorial board. 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, Department of Transport library and Department of Veterans' Affairs, in Canberra; to the Metropolitan Water Sewerage and Drainage Board, Public Trustee, New South Wales Police Department, East Sydney Technical College, Australian Broadcasting Commission Archives, and Commercial Banking Co. of Sydney Ltd, in Sydney; to Australian National Railways, central division in Adelaide, the Public Service Board in Queensland, and the history section, Education Department, in Melbourne; 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 national committee, editorial board, and the working parties. For particular advice the Dictionary owes much to M. Austin, Sir Stanley Burbury, Eileen Duncan, B. Gandevia, A. C. Gray, A. J. and Nancy Gray, G. McKeown, H. S. Williams, M. Shaw, Sir Harold Wyndham and Sir John Young.

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 Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand; by the General Register Office, Edinburgh, Scotland; by Bureaux of Vital Statistics in State Health departments in California, Florida, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Rhode Island, Tennessee and Washington in the United States of America; by registrars general in Fiji and in Mauritius; by the Vital Statistics Department, Alberta, the prothonotary, Superior Court, Sherbrooke, and the registrar general, Toronto, in Canada; by the mayors of Boulogne-sur-Mer, Cannes, Pau and Romorantin-Lanthenay in France; by the mayors of Amsterdam and Delft in Holland; by the mayor, Belmont-sur-Yverdon and the state archivist, Neuchätel, in Switzerland; by the director of tourism in Monaco; and by the South African and Royal Danish embassies in Canberra.

For assistance overseas, thanks are due to Diana Killen, liaison officer of the National Library of Australia in London and to her staff; to Leonie Glen and Deirdre Pescott, London, and Margery Walton, New Zealand; to the archives and/or libraries of the universities of Bristol, Cambridge, Durham, Exeter, Liverpool, London, Oxford and Reading and of the Imperial College of Science and Technology and King's College, London, in England; of the universities of Aberdeen, Edinburgh and St Andrews in Scotland, the New University of Ulster, Londonderry, in Northern Ireland, and the National University of Ireland, and Trinity College and All Hallows College, Dublin, in Ireland; to the archives and/or libraries of Columbia University, New York, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, and the universities of Chicago, Michigan and Oregon in the United States of America; the University of Ottawa in Canada; Albert Ludwig's University Freiberg, and Heidelberg University in the Federal Republic of Germany. Thanks are also due to the Anglican Consultative Council, the Chamberlain's Court, Guildhall, the General Synod of the Church of England, the Geological Society of London, Guildhall School of Music and Drama, the Honourable Society of the Inner Temple and the Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, Jews' College, London College of Music, the Ministry of Defence, the Public Record Office, the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, the Royal Academy of Music, the Royal College of Music, the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, the Royal Horticultural Society, the Royal Society of Arts, the Society of Authors, the United Society for the Propagation of the Gospel and Westminster School, all in London, and to the Bishop of Woolwich, the Chancellor, Lincoln, the General Registry, Isle of Man, Salisbury Diocesan Registry and Woolwich Garrison, in the United Kingdom; the Hochschule für Musik und darstellende Kunst, Vienna, in Austria; the archives of the Ministry of the Interior, and the general state archives, The Hague, in Holland; the Swiss National Library, Bern, in Switzerland; the Chicago Historical Society, the Chicago Public Library, Cohoes Public Library, New York, the Library of Congress, Washington D.C., the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard, the National Museum of Natural History, Washington D.C., Newberry Library, Chicago, and the New York Historical Society, all in the United States of America; the Alumni Association of Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, in Canada; the Dictionaries of Canadian and South African Biographies; and other individuals and institutions who have co-operated with the Dictionary.

The Dictionary deeply regrets the death of such notable contributors as Ellinor Archer, Marnie Bassett, G. F. J. Bergman, Irene Crespin, Sir Lorimer Dods, E. M. Dollery, H. J. Finnis, S. M. Gilbert, J. C. Jaeger, Patricia Keep, H. C. Lewis, W. E. Pidgeon, G. W. Symes, H. R. Thomas, D. H. Tribolet and Sir Kenneth Wheare who in their several capacities, greatly assisted the work of this and previous volumes. In this volume there appear articles on Sir John Cleland and Sir Hudson Fysh, the first time that former contributors to the Dictionary have been in turn included.

Grateful acknowledgment is due to the director and staff of Melbourne University Press; to Nan Phillips and Dorothy Smith (both recently retired after long service); to the editorial staff in Canberra: Martha Campbell, Sally O'Neill, James Gibbney, Suzanne Edgar, Chris Cunneen, Frank Brown, Merrilyn Lincoln, Ann Smith, Margaret Steven, Alan Fewster and Helga Griffin; to Barbara Dale, Ruth Frappell and Naomi Turner in Sydney, Betty Crouchley in Brisbane, Joyce Gibberd in Adelaide, Wendy Birman in Perth, Margaret Glover in Hobart and Mimi Colligan in Melbourne; and to the administrative staff: Ivy Meere, Frances Dinnerville, Dorothy McBride, Betty Newman, Judith Ly and Marion Consandine.