The Australian Library Journal

The quest for the nation's title deeds, 1901-1990

Graeme Powell

Manuscript received January 2005

Among the 36 Senators in the first Commonwealth Parliament were Josiah Symon from South Australia and John Keating from Tasmania. Like many of their colleagues, they were both lawyers, but the two men differed markedly in experience and temperament. Symon was a Freetrader, with long political experience as a member of the South Australian legislature and as a prominent delegate at the Federal Convention of 1897-98. An eloquent and emotional speaker, he could often be abrasive and argumentative and was inclined to pursue private vendettas. At 29, Keating was the youngest member of the Parliament. A Protectionist and strong advocate of Federation, he was a political novice. A parliamentary reporter described him as 'an unemotional man. His voice is soft-purring; his manner is smooth-oily; his style is sleek-slim. He does not make many enemies'.[1] Despite their differences, Symon and Keating had common intellectual interests and they maintained a long friendship. They shared a passion not only for the law but also for literature and history, including the history of their own country. Known to be great book collectors, they were nominated as founding members of the Parliamentary Library Committee and they remained active members of the Committee for many years.[2]

In 1901, the year in which Parliament first met, the eighth and final volume of the Historical records of New South Wales was published. As readers of this series and other works on Australian history, Symon and Keating were well aware that most of the sources on the maritime exploration and colonization of Australia were located on the other side of the world. Twenty years earlier, several Australian writers had drawn public attention to the extensive original records concerning Australia held in the Public Record Office, the Colonial Office, the British Museum and elsewhere in London. One writer, James Bonwick, began transcribing Australian documents in 1887 and, with funding from colonial governments, persevered with this arduous work for 17 years. The Bonwick transcripts provided much of the material reproduced in Historical records of New South Wales. Transcripts and publications had great utilitarian value for researchers, students and general readers who had no chance of seeing the original documents in Britain. However, they lacked the emotional appeal and symbolic value of the original items. Symon and Keating were among the first to propose that original documents of great historical importance should be transferred to Australia and placed in libraries.

Symon experienced the excitement of looking at historical records during a holiday in England in 1907. He visited the Public Record Office in Chancery Lane and was shown various 'precious volumes' of Australian interest, including the official logs of Captain Cook's ships, the Endeavour and the Resolution. He exclaimed 'These are our title deeds' and hinted that they should be in Australia. He had become aware that some years earlier the log of the Mayflower had been transferred from London to Boston and he eagerly provided details of the transaction to the Master of the Rolls and the Deputy Keeper of Public Records.[3] They were unmoved. In the following year the Master of the Rolls, Sir Charles Cozens-Hardy, told Symon that he understood his longing to possess the logs. However, 'beati possidentes [the beauty of possession] is a governing maxim with us'. The Mayflower precedent was not applicable, as it was not a Royal Navy ship and the log was not a public record. His conclusion was unequivocal. 'We have no power to part with the records of which we are custodians. Nothing short of an Act of Parliament could justify this'.[4] Symon was reluctant to give up, but recognised that an appeal would need to be mounted at a higher level.

In September 1908 Keating brought to the Library Committee a similar but more wide-ranging proposal that he had received from Thomas O'Callaghan. O'Callaghan was the Chief Commissioner of Police in Victoria. An autocratic, bombastic man, and possibly corrupt, he was currently waging a war against John Wren and his totalizator empire. He had one saving grace, a strong interest in history; many years later he was to be president of the Royal Historical Society of Victoria.[5] O'Callaghan suggested to Keating that the Commonwealth Government should obtain from the Public Record Office its early records on the history of Australia. Whether Symon supported this idea is not known, but the Committee took the realistic view that the British Government was unlikely to surrender these records. Instead, it directed the Librarian to seek an estimate of the cost of obtaining copies.[6] The Librarian chose to do nothing, possibly on the grounds that copies already existed in Sydney in the form of the Bonwick transcripts.

Keating and Symon soon had a rare opportunity to advance their claims. In 1909 Sir Charles Lucas, who headed the Dominions Department within the Colonial Office, arrived in Australia on a fact-finding mission. A scholarly man, who had written widely on imperial history, Lucas was probably surprised to find that Australian politicians were anxious to discuss historical records, as well as imperial relations, immigration, railways and other pressing topics.[7] Keating claimed that Lucas was sympathetic to the suggestion that certain documents be given to Australia, but it is unlikely the British official offered any encouragement.

On 30 September 1909 Symon took the case to the Senate. He moved a resolution that:

In the opinion of the Senate it is desirable that the logs and journals of Captain Cook's ships the Endeavour and the Resolution now deposited at the Public Record Office in London should be secured for the Commonwealth, in order to be placed and preserved among the Historical Records and Archives of the Commonwealth, and that the Government be requested to communicate with the Imperial Authorities through the proper channel with a view to obtaining the same if possible.

Symon referred to his visit to the Public Record Office in 1907 and his conviction that the logs were the title deeds of Australia. He described the handing over of the Mayflower log to the United States and argued that Cook's place in Australian history was equivalent to that of the Pilgrim Fathers in America or Champlain in Canada. "All Proclamations, Orders in Council, Parliaments and legislation are subsequent to and rest on the claim made by Cook in 1770'. He alluded to the efforts of the New South Wales Government in obtaining copies, but said that copies were of no use in the case of the Cook logs. He was thus stressing the importance and uniqueness of the logs as historical artefacts, rather than simply as carriers of information.[8]

The inclusion of the Resolution in the motion was surprising, considering that the ship only spent a few days in Australian waters in 1777, during Cook's third voyage. However, rather than restrict the motion to the logs of the Endeavour, several senators argued that it should be even broader. Keating urged that the records of French, Spanish, Portuguese and Dutch navigators be obtained for Australia, while agreeing that the logs of the Endeavour and Resolution would be a first step in the right direction. The only note of dissension was struck by Edward Pulsford, who suggested that originals be acquired if they were in private hands, but copies should be accepted if they were in the great institutions in London. He also rejected Symon's view that they were Australia's title deeds, pointing out that Cook's voyages encompassed the entire Pacific, not just Australia. Under pressure from Keating and others, Symon agreed to the words 'or elsewhere' being inserted after 'London', but pointed out that the claim would be stronger if limited to a few documents. The Senate passed the resolution unanimously and Lord Dudley, the Governor-General, forwarded it to London.

At the Colonial Office the despatch containing the resolution passed over several desks. There was some uncertainty whether the disposal of original records was a matter for the Secretary of State or the Master of the Rolls. Officials referred to their strong personal opinions about the Australian request, but knowing that Sir Charles Lucas had only recently returned from Australia they were hesitant to express them. Lucas himself was quick to deny that he had given Keating and other colonial politicians any encouragement.

Their point of view can be appreciated. They want, as they say, their own title deeds. Being in a new land they place, if possible, more value on what is old than we do; it may well be that some of them have visited our record office and realise that much that we stow away has an interest for them out of all proportion to the interest which it has for us. Having said this, it seems to me the request is inadmissible. Parliament and the public would not agree to what would amount to breaking up the greatest storehouse of colonial records in the world. What is done for one province or group of provinces must be done for another.

Lucas concluded that the original documents should remain in London and the Colonial Office should ensure that there was no wavering on the part of the Public Record Office. Lord Crewe, the Secretary of State, agreed, noting 'It is clear the idea of distributing all over the Empire original records concerning each part of the Empire cannot be considered'.[9] In sending the resolution to the Public Record Office, Lucas wrote that it appeared that the Master of Rolls was forbidden by statute from parting with these records and in any case they did not just relate to Australia. This advice was hardly necessary, as officials at the Public Record Office were well aware that they could not give away public records of 'public value'. They could do no more than offer facsimile reproductions of the Endeavour and Resolution logs.

In April 1910 Lord Crewe informed Lord Dudley that the British Government could not transfer any public records to Australia, as to do so would infringe the Public Record Office Act. The transfer of the Mayflower log was not a precedent, as it was never a public record.[10] When Josiah Symon learnt of this response he expressed strong disappointment and hoped that the Australian Government would not give up the quest. He told Andrew Fisher, the Prime Minister, that it should be a simple matter for the British Parliament to amend the law and enable the Master of the Rolls to part with particular documents. Facsimile copies of the Endeavour and Resolution logs 'would obviously not adequately satisfy the natural feeling and desire of Australia'.[11] Fisher expressed sympathy, but declined to renew the request. In London steps were taken to produce facsimile copies of the logs and donate them to Australia, but the Treasury summarily vetoed the proposal. Due to an oversight, the Australian Government was not told of this decision. Many years later an official in the Colonial Office observed that 'Australia does not appear to have thought the prospect of facsimiles sufficiently attractive for further enquiry'.[12] He was right, as Symon and Keating and their supporters were only ever interested in acquiring the original documents and had no interest in copies.

Sir Charles Lucas and other officials in London were aware of shifting public opinion in the Dominions, with growing support for various forms of colonial nationalism. Anxious to retain the loyalty of the Dominions, they were prepared to make concessions. In 1903 the Colonial Office was sympathetic to the proposal of the collector Thomas Hocken that records of the New Zealand Company be presented to New Zealand libraries.[13] The Public Record Office took a more rigid stand, claiming there was no precedent for handling over original records to colonial governments, irrespective of their value.[14] Discussion about the Hocken request continued for several years. Finally, in 1908 the Secretary of State approved a new rule whereby certain Colonial Office documents, such as duplicates, could be offered to colonial governments rather than be destroyed. Lists were compiled of duplicate despatches of Australian governors and offered to State governments. Between 1909 and 1912 all the States apart from Queensland received sets of despatches ranging from 1813 to 1856. They were important sources for historians, but as they did not include the earliest despatches they could not be regarded as the 'title deeds' of the colonies. Initially they were kept in government houses, but in 1911 George Henderson of the University of Adelaide moved an ANZAAS resolution that the despatches be transferred to the various public libraries.[15] Colonial Office officials were dismayed, as they had not envisaged the despatches being read by the general public, but within a few years most of the sets had been lodged in libraries.[16]

The despatches of early governors were useful for historians, but the Senators who debated the 'title deeds' resolution in 1909 showed no interest in recovering foundation or political documents. They did not suggest acquiring, for instance, the original instructions issued to Arthur Phillip before the First Fleet sailed in 1787 or his first despatch describing the establishment of the colony in 1788. Instead, they were preoccupied with maritime discovery and exploration and, above all, with Cook. This passion for naval history was shared by academic historians, such as G. Arnold Wood in Sydney, Ernest Scott in Melbourne and George Henderson in Adelaide, as well as by journalists and the writers of textbooks. Graeme Davison has written, 'James Cook was perhaps Australia's first real hero, and his fame rose further in the nineteenth century when his humble birth, scientific skills, and humanitarianism won the admiration of a democratic age'.[17] Commemoration of Cook began as early as 1821, when a tablet was placed at his landing-place at Kurnell, and in the next century statues and monuments were erected in Sydney, Melbourne, Cooktown and elsewhere. In contrast, there were no statues of Phillip or early colonial figures such as William Charles Wentworth.[18] The other Australian hero was also a navigator, Matthew Flinders, whom Scott called 'the godfather of Australia'.[17] In 1913 Henry Gyles Turner spoke for many of his contemporaries when he said, 'Next to the great Cook, I think [Flinders] stands highest in the estimation of all Australians'.[20] Plaques around the southern coasts commemorated his explorations and in the early twentieth century he was accorded further recognition. A new naval base was named after Flinders in 1912, Scott published a substantial biography in 1914, and in the interwar years statues were commissioned and erected in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide.

In view of the reverence accorded to Cook and Flinders, the private journals that they kept on their exploring voyages assumed enormous importance. The journals had survived in England and in 1922-23, in the space of a few months, they were purchased by Australian libraries.

The acquisition of the journals of Flinders was linked in a curious way with the public campaigns for commemorative statues. In 1901 Sir William Flinders Petrie, the distinguished archaeologist, had placed some papers of his grandfather in the Public Library of Victoria, but he had retained others. They included transcripts of the two private journals that Flinders kept as commander of the Investigator in 1801-3, when he circumnavigated Australia and charted the southern and northern coasts in great detail. Petrie undertook to donate the original journals and other papers to a public library provided a suitable statue of Flinders was erected in a prominent position. A statue committee was formed in Melbourne in 1911, chaired by the Lieutenant Governor, but its fund-raising efforts petered out during the War and there were squabbles over the choice of a sculptor. Meanwhile in Sydney, W H Ifould persuaded the New South Wales Government to erect a statue next to the Mitchell Library in Macquarie Street, with the trustees purchasing the manuscripts from the Government at the cost of the statue. The statue was completed in 1922 and in the same year the Mitchell Library received the journals, letterbooks, a private diary and a miniature portrait.[21]

A few months later, the London auctioneers Sotheby's announced that they would be selling the holograph journal kept by James Cook on the Endeavour in 1768-71. Whereas the official logs had been surrendered to the Admiralty at the end of the voyage, the private journal had stayed in Cook's possession. Since 1868 it had been owned by the Bolckow Family in Yorkshire. The sale aroused a great deal of interest and there was considerable anxiety that the journal might be bought by an American collector rather than an Australian library. Ernest Scott wrote in February 1923 that 'to us, the journal is not only an interesting and costly manuscript, it is one of our title deeds'.[22] The lawyer and collector John Ferguson wrote 'No manuscript of more profound interest or historical value can ever again come into the market as far as Australia is concerned. To see such a national heirloom pass into the possession of a foreign power would be nothing short of a national tragedy'.[23] There was strong public support for the Mitchell Library in its efforts to buy the journal. In Melbourne, however, Kenneth Binns of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Library was quietly exerting pressure on the new Prime Minister, S.M. Bruce. Bruce's intervention led to the Commonwealth buying the journal at the sale on 21 March 1923.[24] The acquisition of the Endeavour journal was acclaimed by editorial writers and historians throughout the country. One wrote 'The two title deeds of our history are to be found in the discovery and annexation of this continent by Captain Cook, and the more spiritual discovery of the soul of Australia on the bleak historic shores of Anzac'.[25] Another claimed that 'the determination of Australia to obtain this treasure at any monetary cost...is itself an evidence of our passage to a higher reach of national self-consciousness'.[26] The journal has never lost its iconic appeal and eighty years later it remains the greatest treasure in the National Library.

Senator Pulsford had suggested in 1909 that Australian libraries should be trying to acquire private manuscripts in Britain, if necessary by purchase, and realize that public documents could only be copied. He was more realistic than colleagues like Senator Keating who called for the transfer of numerous public records. Yet despite their success in obtaining the private journals of Cook and Flinders, Australian librarians continued for another 15 years to petition the British Government for original public records.

In 1930 Kenneth Binns, who now headed the Commonwealth National Library, asked the Prime Minister, James Scullin, to raise the matter of early maritime records when he attended the Imperial Conference in London. Binns used the standard utilitarian argument that the growing number of Australian historians and history students, as well as officials concerned with Australia's international relations, had great difficulty in obtaining access to primary sources held in the Public Record Office and other offices in London. He acknowledged that the offices were unlikely to surrender documents willingly and suggested that Scullin first broach the subject at a high political level.[27] Scullin duly obliged and spoke to the First Lord of the Admiralty.

Admiralty officials evinced various degrees of hostility to the proposal that they send Royal Navy records to Australia. The Admiralty Librarian rightly suspected that George Henderson had instigated the request and urged his superiors to give no encouragement. 'Australians are not the only people interested in these records and London is a more convenient centre than Australia'. He argued that it was the first move to plunder the Public Record Office of archives relating to Australia and that any transfer would be opposed by British universities and historical societies. If any records were relinquished they should go to the new National Maritime Museum at Greenwich.[28] The minutes of his colleagues were less caustic but essentially they agreed with the librarian. They saw no objection to providing copies, but neither the Admiralty nor the Public Record Office had the power to transfer naval records to the Dominions. The Permanent Secretary concluded the discussion by noting that they 'should not compromise with the principle of not allowing the UK to be plundered of its records. The achievements of Britain in world discovery and colonisation are an important part of its history and belong to this country'.[29] The Secretary of State for the Dominions expressed sympathy with the Australian request, but the Public Record Office sided with the Admiralty, pointing out that any transfer would require legislation.

Three State libraries made similar approaches to the British Government, with the same results. In 1931 the Public Library of South Australia asked if it might acquire emigration registers compiled by the South Australian Colonization Commissioners. The records would be worthless for students in Britain but of great interest to hundreds of families in South Australia.[30] In 1933 the Public Library of Victoria made a more ambitious claim, seeking 'a comprehensive collection of documents' for the Victorian Centenary Celebrations. Among the documents it cited were the orders received by David Collins to found a settlement at Sorrento in 1803, charts of Port Phillip, a letter and plans of John Batman, and correspondence of Hume and Hovell.[31] In 1937 it was the turn of Western Australia, with the State Archives expressing keen interest in the possible transfers of early records.[32] In each case, the response of the Public Record Office was the same. The Master of the Rolls had a statutory responsibility to retain all public records and, in any case, Colonial Office records were continually in use and their dispersal would have a deleterious effect on research. It offered to provide copies of documents but the offers were ignored by the Australian libraries.

Attempts through official channels to break down British resistance to the transfer of historical records had clearly failed. In 1937 the issue was debated publicly following the publication in the London Times of a letter from R A Crouch. Like Symon and Keating, Crouch had been a member of the first Commonwealth Parliament and, having switched parties, he returned to the Parliament in 1929. A resident of Ballarat, he was a great collector of books and manuscripts and an active member of the Royal Historical Society of Victoria. In his letter he referred to the fact that new legislation enabled records of Scottish interest to be transferred from London to Edinburgh. He hoped that the transfer of records to the Dominions would also be possible and in particular urged that Admiralty and Colonial Office records relating to Australia be offered to the Commonwealth. He mentioned that, on behalf of the Public Library of Victoria, he had sought the log of the Lady Nelson on its voyage to Bass Strait in 1800-1, but had been rebuffed.[33]

The letter from Crouch inspired a spate of letters and also a leading article. The Royal Empire Society was sympathetic, claiming that an increasingly decentralized Empire must expect to decentralize its records.[34] Others argued that dispersal would make research more difficult and pointed out that the voyages of Cook were of vital interest to several countries, not just Australia. One writer made the dubious claim that there were more people living in Britain with an interest in Australian records than there were living in Australia.[35] In its leader The Times disputed this claim and acknowledged that it was only natural that Dominions should wish to be entrusted with the records of their own countries. However, it favoured copying rather than dispersal of the original records.[36] In Australia W H Ifould supported the comments of Crouch, saying that there were 'thousands of letters and other documents' in British archives which were not used in Britain but would be of great value to students in Australia.[37] The question was raised in the House of Commons where Lord Hartington, the Secretary of State for the Dominions, referred to the willingness of the Public Record Office to provide copies for libraries in the Dominions. He made it clear that, like his predecessors, he opposed the transfer of original records.[38]

Binns and Ifould tended to focus on the practical difficulties faced by Australian historians in gaining access to sources, rather than the symbolic and magical qualities of the original artefacts that had so impressed Josiah Symon. Ever since 1910 British officials had been responding by offering photographic or photostat copies and few doubted that the difficulties of historians would be greatly reduced by extensive copying. Two years after the debate in The Times, both the National Library and the Public Library of New South Wales approached the Public Record Office with requests to microfilm records of Australian interest. Arrangements were cancelled following the outbreak of war, but in 1945 the two libraries signed an agreement establishing the Australian Joint Copying Project. Filming began at the Public Record Office in 1948 and the first records identified for copying related to the despatch of the First Fleet in 1787 and the establishment of the colony in New South Wales.[39] Within ten years all the Colonial Office records dealing with the founding and early years of the six Australian colonies had been copied, together with the official logs and other papers of Cook, Flinders and other explorers. Thus all the title deeds of Australia could now be studied in Australia, even though the originals mostly remained in British archives. As the years passed, the records filmed by the AJCP became more and more diverse, covering not just official records but also missionary, scientific, business and military records and the papers of individuals and families. By the time the Project came to an end in 1993 over 10 000 reels had been produced.

The establishment of the AJCP signified that British officials and archivists had won the long battle. Australian libraries could acquire private records of great historical value, such as the Cook journal, but after 1937 they were content to accept copies of public records, even if those records were arguably the title deeds of the nation. Yet in 1984 the old arguments in favour of securing original documents were revived by two political figures. The Commonwealth Attorney-General, Gareth Evans, proposed that Australia seek one of the two original copies of the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act. Although somewhat drab in appearance, the two copies were of great symbolic importance in signifying that on 9 July 1900 Queen Victoria had given her assent to the passing of the Act by the British Parliament. When the request was first made to the House of Lords Record Office and the Public Record Office, both institutions were resistant, arguing that they had no legal right to dispose of the records and there was no precedent for doing so. Similarly, when Bob Hawke discussed the idea with Margaret Thatcher she rejected the proposal. Following in the tradition of Lord Crewe in 1910 and Lord Hartington in 1937, she offered the Australian Government a fine facsimile, which would be authenticated by the Queen's Sign Manual.[40]

Hawke was not willing to give up and the argument continued for several years. The Secretary of the British Cabinet insisted that a transfer would require legislation and he was sure it would meet strong resistance in Parliament. In a conciliatory move, the Public Record Office lent its copy of the Act for exhibition during the Australian Bicentenary in 1988. This was a tactical mistake. Beati possidentes, as Sir Charles Cozens-Hardy had said in 1908, and the Australian Government demonstrated it by procrastinating over the return of the document. One British politician accused the Government of 'conniving, for accepting it as a loan and then hanging on for dear life to what is rightfully ours'.[41] In 1990 an article by Hawke appeared in The Times appealing to the British people to give up one copy of the Act. He did not use the term 'title deeds', but his language would have been admired by Josiah Symon and John Keating.

As we look back to affirm our origins as a nation, we cannot go past this Act, the embodiment of Australian nationhood. The Constitution is not a dry piece of paper, but a living document which continues to have a direct and immediate impact on a vast range of the country's affairs.

Referring to the long connection between Australia and the British Parliament, extending back to 1787, Hawke claimed that the Act would complete 'the birth certificate of the nation'.[42] Thatcher relented and, although still concerned about the risk of setting a precedent, the Government introduced an Australian Constitution (Public Record Copy) Bill in the British Parliament. It was passed unanimously. On 23 August 1990 the Foreign Secretary formally presented the document to Hawke, saying that it was 'entirely natural and right that Australia would want to possess its 'birth certificate''.[43] Since 2001 the Constitution Act has been on display in the Federation Gallery in the National Archives of Australia.

Australian politicians, historians and librarians were remarkably persistent in seeking the transfer of original historical records from Britain to Australia. Over a long period they achieved considerable success with private records. The journals of Cook and Flinders were pre-eminent but there were other important acquisitions: papers of Sir Joseph Banks and Lachlan Macquarie, various First Fleet journals, papers of Governors-General. However, in seeking the transfer of public records they were unduly optimistic and even naïve. Some British politicians and officials might be sympathetic, but there were dozens of dominions and colonies to consider apart from Australia. Whether it be in 1910 or in 1990, they were acutely aware of 'the Elgin Marbles syndrome' and the danger of creating a precedent. British law was on their side and they were also helped by the vague meaning of 'Australia's title deeds'. Australia had no equivalent of the American Declaration of Independence. The emphasis on maritime discovery by Symon, Keating and their successors tended to lack a national focus. Even Cook did not have the same heroic status in Western Australia as in the eastern States, while James Grant and the Lady Nelson were hardly remembered outside Victoria. As Stuart Macintyre has written, 'The efforts to commemorate explorers established a distinctly regional sense of the past'.[44] Australian claims were also weakened by uncertainty about the purpose of transferring historical records. Librarians like Ifould and Binns spoke of the problems of distance faced by Australian historians, yet these problems could be overcome by copying. Politicians like Symon or Hawke did not spend time on utilitarian arguments, but rhapsodised over the symbolic and emotional appeal of the original title deeds or birth certificate. Hawke did not pretend that historians would benefit from the transfer of the Constitution Act, but instead spoke of the two million Australians who had gazed at the document when it was displayed in Parliament House. By concentrating on a single document of national significance, he caused the British Government to relent and a modest victory was achieved.

Endnotes

1. Herbert Campbell-Jones, The Cabinet of Captains; the romance of Australia's first Federal Parliament, pp179, MS 8905 National Library of Australia (NLA)
2. Symon was a member of the Library Committee in 1901-4 and 1907-13, while Keating remained a member for the entire period he was in the Senate, 1901-22
3. Sir Josiah Symon to Sir Herbert Cozens-Hardy, 16 January 1908, 28 January 1908, Symon Papers, MS1736/1/1277 NLA. The Mayflower log had been kept in Fulham Palace. In 1897 it was presented by the Bishop of London to the Government of Massachusetts.
4. Cozens-Hardy to Symon, 1 March 1908, Symon Papers, MS 1736/1/1686 NLA
5. Robert Haldane, The People's Force; a History of the Victoria Police (Melbourne, Melbourne University Press, 1995), 123-25. O'Callaghan was the model for Thomas Callinan in Frank Hardy, Power without glory (Melbourne, Realist Printing and Publishing Co, 1950).
6. Commonwealth Parliamentary Library Committee minutes, 25 September 1908 NLA
7. Sir Charles Lucas, Notes on a Visit to Australia, New Zealand, and Fiji, October 1909, CO 881/11 The National Archives (TNA, formerly Public Record Office)
8. Commonwealth Parliamentary Debates, vol. 52, pp 3926-40
9. Lord Dudley to Lord Crewe, 19 October 1909, and minutes by C Atchley, E W Johnson, Sir Charles Lucas, John Seeley, Lord Crewe, 24 November-1 December 1909, CO 418/71 TNA
10. Lord Crewe to Lord Dudley, 21April 1910, CO 707/1 TNA
11. Sir Josiah Symon to Andrew Fisher, 25 June 1910, Symon Papers, MS 1736/1/1526 NLA
12. W C Bottomley to A.C. Parkinson, 10 November 1926, CO 418/86 TNA
13. T Hocken to Colonial Office, 11 August 1903 and minutes by C Atchley, W Kennaway and H B Cox, 15 August-4 November 1903, CO 209/265 TNA
14. R S Bird to Colonial Office, 9 November 1903, CO209/265 TNA
15. Report of the 13th meeting of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science held at Sydney, 1911, Sydney, 1912: lviii
16. P H Rowe to A B Keith, 17 June 1911 and minutes of A B Keith, C Atchley, G Johnston and Sir Charles Lucas, 26 July-9 August 1911, CO 418/92 TNA
17. Graeme Davison, 'Heroes and heroines', in Graeme Davison, John Hirst, Stuart Macintyre eds. The Oxford Companion to Australian History, Melbourne, Oxford University Press, 1998, p.310
18. K S Inglis, The Australian Colonists; an Exploration of Social History 1788-1870, Melbourne, Melbourne University Press, 1974, chapter 15. A statue of Wentworth was erected within the Great Hall of Sydney University, hardly a prominent position.
19. Argus (Melbourne), 13 September 1921: 7
20. Henry Gyles Turner, 'Why Flinders should have a memorial in Melbourne', Victorian Historical Journal, 30, 1913: 22-25
21. Sydney Morning Herald, 27 June 1922: 10; Paul Brunton, ed. Matthew Flinders; personal letters from an extraordinary life (Sydney, Hordern House, 2002), 2
22. Argus (Melbourne), 10 February 1923: 4
23. Daily Telegraph (Sydney), 21 February 1923: 8
24. Kenneth Binns, Memorandum to WA Watt on forthcoming sale of Captain Cook's journal, 1 March 1923, CP 740 set 11 NLA; Peter Biskup, 'Captain Cook's Endeavour journal and Australian libraries; a study in institutional one-upmanship', Australian Academic and Research Libraries, 18 (3), 1987: 137-49; Greg Dening, 'MS 1 Cook, J. Holograph Journal', in Peter Cochrane, ed. Remarkable Occurrences; the National Library of Australia's first 100 years 1901-2001 (Canberra, National Library of Australia, 2001), 1-19
25. The Sun (Sydney), 24 March 1923: 6
26. Daily Telegraph (Sydney), 28 April 1923: 6
27. Kenneth Binns to J H Scullin, 6 August 1930, PRO 1/99 TNA
28. J H Scullin to A V Alexander, 23 October 1930 and minutes by D B Smith, 27 October 1930, 4 April 1932, Adm 1/8759/204 TNA
29. Minute by Sir Oswyn Murray, 2 May 1932, Adm 1/8759/204 TNA
30. E Machtig to Public Record Office, 31 July 1931, PRO 1/98 TNA
31. R Linton to Dominions Office, 26 October 1933, DO 35/385, file F10780 TNA
32. J Wade to Dominions Office, 27 July 1937, DO 35/965, file Z100/7 TNA
33. The Times (London), 12 April 1937: 10
34. Ibid, 16 April 1937: 10
35. Ibid, 1 July 1937: 12
36. Ibid, 16 April 1937: 16
37. Ibid, 14 April 1937: 13
38. Great Britain. Parliamentary Debates, Commons, vol 322: 1918
39. Graeme Powell, 'The Origins of the Australian Joint Copying Project', Archives and Manuscripts, 4 (5) Nov. 1971: 9-24
40. Sydney Morning Herald, 13 February 1990: 11
41. West Australian, 19 February 1990: 40
42. Bob Hawke, 'Please complete our birth certificate', The Times (London) 22 February 1990: 14
43. Canberra Times, 24 August 1990: 5
44. Stuart Macintyre, A History for a Nation: Ernest Scott and the Making of Australian History, (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1994), 51

Biographical information

Graeme Powell is the manuscript librarian at the National Library of Australia, a position he first occupied in 1969. From 1979 to 1987 he was in charge of the Australian Joint Copying Project in London. While working in the Australian High Commission, he was involved in the attempt to transfer to Australia the assent copy of the 1900 Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act.