The Spirit of England in Australia: Alan Bell’s Nightly Broadcasts

By Harshini Goonetilleke

“Lately, I have been strenuously ramming down Australian throats Britain’s efforts and burden – which swell impressively when you are so many thousand miles away.”[1] Alan Bell was indeed very far away from the wintery English landscape that he called home. May 1942 saw Bell make his way to the other side of the world on secondment to Melbourne radio station 3DB. The well-known Fleet Street journalist, who had made a name for himself through his work at the London Daily Mail and the BBC was now striving to serve his country in Australia, conveying England’s plight to her people in the Dominion.

Caricature of Bell by Herald cartoonist, “Wells”
Fig. 1. Cartoon of Alan Bell by the Melbourne Herald cartoonist, Wells. Image featured in Alan Bell’s second volume of broadcasts published in 1944 entitled Night In, Night Out. Accessed through the National Library of Victoria.

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Charles Meryon and the French etching revival

By the early 19th century in Europe, the intaglio technique of etching had fallen out of popularity in the graphic arts. Etching was a popular printmaking technique during the 16th and 17th centuries, with artists such as Rembrandt and Dürer regularly experimenting with the method. To create an etching, the printmaker coats a metal plate (traditionally copper) with an acid-resistant ‘ground’ before drawing their design through the ground with a sharp tool. Once the design is drawn, the plate is immersed in acid and the chemical reactions between the acid and the metal results in those areas unprotected by the ‘ground’ leaving behind clear lines. After cleaning the ‘ground’ off the plate, the printmaker applies ink to the incised lines and then transfer the design onto paper.

During the early 19th century, etching was employed as a reproductive process, and it consequently became closely associated with ideas of mass production and industry. In spite of this, a number of artists continued to pursue the medium. French artists and printmakers persevered with etching throughout the first half of the 19th century, and by the 1860s, a full-scale movement was underway that sought the contemporary revival of the technique [1].

Charles Meryon after Renier Zeeman, "Le Pavillon De Mademoiselle Et Une Partie Du Louvre", (1849), etching
Charles Meryon after Renier Zeeman, “Le Pavillon De Mademoiselle et une partie du Louvre”, (1849), etching.

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Archives of the disability rights movement

On 28 March, the University of Melbourne Archives with the Arts Faculty and Scope co-hosted the launch of the Geoffrey Bell Archive, with support from the State Trustees Australia Foundation.

The Geoffrey Bell Archive is a useful resource for researchers interested in the history of the disability rights movement in Australia and may prove a useful aid for future debates and discussions on disability rights issues. It is the first collection held at UMA that documents the disability rights movement and the lived experience of Australian’s with a disability.

At the launch, Geoff’s friend and fellow disability rights advocate, Maree Ireland gave a beautifully moving account of the contribution made by Geoff and the importance of his archive. We are delighted to be able to publish it. 

Maree Ireland speaks at the launch of the Geoffrey Bell Archive
Maree Ireland speaks at the launch of the Geoffrey Bell Archive, 28 March 2019

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The Great mirror of folly now digitised

Het Groote tafereel der dwaasheid or the ‘Great mirror of folly’ as it is known in English, is a unique Amsterdam publication complied around the year 1720, by an unnamed publisher, as a record of the aftermath of the West’s first stock market crash. No two volumes of this book are the same because different ephemeral items such as the prints, songs, poetry and broadsides which proliferated that year, were gathered up into bindings of varied arrangements and contents. The resulting book is something akin to a kaleidoscopic view of the financial misadventures of Europe in the 18th century.

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International Women’s Day 2019

First group of female science students; Ada Lambert, Georgina Sweet and Leonora Little. Photograph of science students and staff, 1894. University of Melbourne Photograph Collection, University of Melbourne Archives, 2017.0071.00668

In December 1883 Bella Guerin became the first female student to graduate the University of Melbourne. Women had been granted the same right to tertiary education as their male counterparts in 1880, however it would not be until 1913 that women were afforded the right to participate in University government as their fellow graduates. Despite the steady increase of women’s participation in all areas of university life, representation in academia and governance had to wait until 1936 for Dr Georgina Sweet, the University’s first female associate-professor, to be the first women elected to the University Council.

Professor Priscilla Kincaid Smith, undated, University of Melbourne Media and Publications Services Collection, 2003.0003, University of Melbourne Archives BWP/17,784

It was not until 1975, that Priscilla Kincaid-Smith was appointed to a Personal chair; the first female professor at the University. Kincaid-Smith was a Professor of Medicine until 1991, during which time two more women were appointed Chairs, Margaret Manion (Fine Arts, 1979-1995) and Nancy Millis (Microbiology, 1982-1987). Manion was also the first woman to chair the University’s Academic Board in 1987.

1980 saw Margaret Blackwood becoming the first Deputy Chancellor (see her entry in the Australian Dictionary of Biography http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/blackwood-dame-margaret-12218)  and in 2001 Fay Marles was installed as Chancellor. Further information on Marles’ life of milestones (including first female pilot for Ansett) can be found in her biography “Aiming for the Skies”.

Fay Marles with her graduating daughter, undated, University of Melbourne Media and Publications Services Collection, University of Melbourne Archives, BWP/16,170

 

Much can be found about women’s early student life, with a fantastic overview in our Keys to the Past resource https://archives.unimelb.edu.au/resources/keys-to-the-past/keys/key-18, as well as the 1985 publication ‘Degrees of liberation : a short history of women in the University of Melbourne’ by Farley Kelley and Juliet Flesch’s ’40 years/40 women: biographies of University of Melbourne women’ (2015). Further reading about women at the University of Melbourne can be found on UMA’s subject guide Women in the Archives https://archives.unimelb.edu.au/resources/subject_guides/women-in-the-archives

 

Professor Nancy Millis with students, undated, University of Melbourne Media and Publications Services Collection, 2003.0003, University of Melbourne Archives, BWP/16,209

 

Dame Margaret Blackwood, 17 July 1981. University of Melbourne Media and Publications Services Collection, 2003.0003, University of Melbourne Archives, BWP/21,215

 

Professor Margaret Manion, undated, University of Melbourne Media and Publications Services Collection, University of Melbourne Archives, 2003.0003.00140

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