Fritz Duras: Australian ‘father’ of physical education and sports medicine

Katrina Dean, University Archivist

Fritz Duras’ pipe was recently transferred to the Archives along with his elegant signature block, a 1943 Workers Educational Association talk ‘Quotations for Students’, a 1944 tutorial lecture on the benefits of swimming, and some of his lecture slides on ‘human growth’ outlining the conception and growth of the human embryo. http://ow.ly/SBcUe This joins earlier deposits of his articles, notebooks, talks and teaching material http://ow.ly/SBcWl; http://ow.ly/SBd2h

Pipe and signature block
Pipe and signature block, University of Melbourne Archives. Artefacts, audiovisual items and typescripts of Fritz Duras, 2015.0078

Duras was the first director of physical education at the University of Melbourne to be appointed in 1937. Born in Bonn in 1896, Duras following his education at the Royal Gymnasium, served in the German infantry in World War One and was awarded the Iron Cross. He studied medicine at the University of Freiburg-im-Breisgau, worked as a house physician in the University hospital and a clinical assistant at the Association for Sports Medicine becoming director and senior physician (1929-1933). Under the Nazi laws for the reform of the civil service, which saw the dismissal of some 2000 academics across universities and research institutes, Duras was forced to resign his position in 1933 because his father was Jewish.

Quaker contacts arranged for Duras and his wife to travel to London to improve his English where he was introduced to the Academic Assistance Council who helped Jewish refugees. The University of Melbourne was planning to introduce a one year course to train physical education teachers and obtained a grant from the Carnegie Foundation of New York to employ Duras. He became the ‘father’ of physical education and sports medicine in Australia. Duras directed the World Congress of Physical Education in Melbourne in 1956 before the Olympic Games and helped realise the Beaurepaire Centre for sport and physical education built in the University in the same year. The Melbourne School of Graduate Education and the Australian Council for Health, Physical Education and Recreation have named Lectures in his honour.

The pipe is a sign of its times. The first medical reports linking smoking to lung disease appeared during the 1920s but it wasn’t until the 1950s and 1960s that major studies confirmed tobacco as the cause of serious diseases. Elsewhere in the Archives (1986.0107,) it was immunologist and Nobel Laureate Frank Macfarlane Burnet who took up the campaign against smoking from the late 1970s (http://ow.ly/SBe7K Series 6, Item 30), having quit himself in the 1950s.

 

“sheets and a bed – glorious”

“sheets and a bed – glorious.” So describes Wilberforce Newton’s delight in his hospital accommodations on 12th November 1915. Plagued by suspected bronchitis whilst serving with the Royal Medical Corps on the Western front, Newton’s simple joy illustrates the conditions that became the new ‘normal’ experienced by servicemen and women during World War One.

Outside, group shot of the 58th Brigade of the 19th Division of the Royal Army Medical Corps.
Men from the 58th Brigade of the 19th Division of the Royal Army Medical Corps. Wilberforce Newton is standing on the far right. University of Melbourne Archives, Newton Stephen family collection, 1980.0146 item 5/6/2

Newton’s diary is just one of such valuable items digitised by the University of Melbourne Archives (UMA) to commemorate the anniversary of the First World War. Over 20 diaries and notebooks of individuals serving in the war are now available from UMA’s Digitised Items Catalogue. Researchers are able to remotely access over 1,700 pages of personal accounts of ‘the Great War’; from a tunneller’s account of the campaign for Hill 60 to a medical officer’s description of the landing at Anzac Cove, these items represent a range of service and experience. Many describe their journey to Europe, the months waiting in training camps in Egypt, and finally their call to action at Gallipoli and onto the Western Front.

Conserving and digitising these treasured items not only minimises the effects of handling but allows greater access for local and international researchers, historians and genealogists.

The following is a list of those whose records have been digitised and are now available through the Digitised Items Catalogue;

Oswald Benjamin (1989.0062)
Alan Rowland Chisholm 2002.0029
Alfred Plumley Derham (1963.0024)
Harold Clive Disher (Strathfieldsaye Estate 1976.0013)
Edwin Huck (1994.0124)
W R Keast – (1972.0025)
Rowland McCure (1979.0133)
Willberforce Newton (1980.0146)
Alfred Edward Rowden White (1963.0004)
Oliver Woodward (1982.0140)

The Social Policy Archive

In 1993, associate professor in Youth Studies Dr David Maunders saw his vision to establish a Social Policy Archive (SPA) at RMIT University come to fruition. Transfers into the Archive occurred throughout the mid-1990s; much of it coming from lecturers at RMIT and their social welfare sector connections. The SPA was primarily a research collection focusing on the broad area of social policy, youth, and child-care services based at RMIT Bundoora (formerly Phillip Institute of Technology).  Following decommissioning of the archive in its original context, much of the collection was transferred to the University of Melbourne Archives (UMA) in 2013 as a means of once again making the collection available to researchers.

Into the future: opportunities for young South Australians, Administration records and publications 2013.0130, University of Melbourne Archives, Unit 6, 72/1329
Into the future: opportunities for young South Australians, Administration records and publications 2013.0130, University of Melbourne Archives, Unit 6, 72/1329

The SPA is a collection of deep research value with records spanning a century and multiple organisations and individuals, reflecting a collection strategy to capture the records of community sector organisations operating in the welfare sector. The collection contains material from the Citizens Welfare Service (CWS), Youth Advocacy Network and the Youth Affairs Council of Victoria, as well as professional and government bodies. The community sector was particularly active in the period when many of the records were created, (1970s-1990s) and the period was one of significant change in government and society both in terms of the economy and social relations. The collection strikes a balance between theoretical studies, research papers, case files, and administrative records, reflecting its intended use for education and research.

The SPA develops UMA’s existing holdings in the welfare sector, linking to existing research collections origination from the CWS Victoria, Australian Red Cross Society Archive and the professional papers of social workers including Teresa Wardell (link to specific accession 1986.0123), Leonard Tierney (2008.0060) and Concetta Benn (2012.0025). It complements other UMA collections with connections to the youth sector such as Youth Hostels Association, Young Women’s Christian Association of Australia, and Junior Red Cross.

Parts of the Social Policy Archive are also contextualised by large social research collections held at the University of Melbourne such as the University of Melbourne Social Survey (1941-1943), the 1964-1968 Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research Survey of Living Conditions in Melbourne, and the more recent public opinion based Age Polls in the Irving Saulwick collection. The SPA includes:

  • Publications and administrative records of the State Youth Council, Youth Advocacy Network and the Youth Affairs Council of Victoria as well as correspondence and reference files, reports and publications of the Youth Policy Development Council.
  • A range of records documenting the activities of the Youth Workers Association of Victoria.
  • Reports and reference papers dating from 1961-1991 collected or generated by the Youth Council of Victoria, covering a wide range of topics within the broad field of youth and community affairs.
  • Terms of reference, minutes of meetings, submissions and the final report of the Committee of Enquiry in Child Care Services in Victoria (commonly known from the name of the Chairman as the Norgard Inquiry).

Other significant series in the collection are;

  • Administration and correspondence  files (1891 – 1988) of the Citizens Welfare Service recording policy development and precedent issues. Correspondence, reports and news-cuttings collected by CWS and its predecessor agencies.
  • CWS client case records 1943 – 1987, whilst narrow in their scope of relationship, support and general counselling, provide a strong and complete longitudinal sample; these files are also from an agency that was pioneering professional techniques.
  • Social welfare conference papers and collected annual reports from a variety of charitable organisations (1946 – 1996).
  • Australian Government published research reports of studies undertaken in connection with the Australian Government’s Commission of Inquiry into Poverty. Topics include migrants, rural poverty, long term unemployment, Aboriginal and Islanders, and welfare service delivery.
Flyer about Government Housing, Administration records and publications 2013.0130, University of Melbourne Archives, Unit 2, 39/600
Flyer about Government Housing, Administration records and publications 2013.0130, University of Melbourne Archives, Unit 2, 39/600

Much of the collection is open to researchers although case files and other parts of the collection containing sensitive personal information will require permission from the organisation that created the records as well as completion of a deed of undertaking to anonymise research findings. Further information, including detailed finding aids, and more advice about access conditions is available through the UMA online catalogue. To access the collection contact the UMA reference service: archives@archives.unimelb.edu.au or 8344 6848.

A Hannibal Lecter textbook murder

In one example of a web forum, art crimes are identified and an emoji of Edvard Munch’s The Scream is used to rate the perceived severity of each offence; as if such an appropriation were not itself a crime. There are endless instances of crimes against art with as broad a stroke as theft, damage and intellectual property infringements. Rarer discussions surround works of art that have been used to inspire crime. Dr Hannibal Lecter is one such individual who uses art to inform murder.

Described as Hannibal the Cannibal, a psychiatrist and murderer, he is one of the most famous and feared criminals of the 20th century, albeit a fictional one.  A terrifying protagonist of novels, film and television, he first appears in the novel Red Dragon (1981), a title which refers to a William Blake drawing.  Here we discover how he was exposed by detective Wil Graham and then incarcerated in an institution for the criminally insane: ’”It was Sunday. He saw patients on Sunday…He saw me right away. We were talking and he was making this polite effort to help me and I looked up at some very old medical books on the shelf above his head. And I knew it was him.’” [1] Wil Graham had made a connection between the medical books, a medical textbook illustration, and Dr Lecter’s sixth victim.

It was the medical illustration known as Wound Man that was Hannibal Lecter’s undoing. Wound Man appeared in late medieval anatomy texts as a chart or encyclopaedic diagram of all the injuries a body may sustain. [2] He then evolved into printed form until the seventeenth century before arriving centuries later in popular fiction. He likewise appears in facsimile versions in the University Library collections. He is a sort of ubiquitous figure experiencing all the blights of humanity.  He exhibits such a prescriptive pattern of wounds and ailments as to be recognisable to detective Graham when he sees them replicated on Dr Lecter’s former patient and victim.

Wound Man from Hans von Gersdorff Feldbuch der Wundarzney, Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons
Wound Man from Hans von Gersdorff Feldbuch der Wundarzney, Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons

 

Depictions of Wound Man do differ through texts and centuries, and medieval versions for example, show bite wounds from a dog, snake and insects whereas the Renaissance Wound Man exhibits injuries more reflective of the results of war. He has been pierced by arrows, slashed by blades and bludgeoned with clubs. A woodcut version for the battle surgeon which appears in Hans von Gersdorff’s Feldbuch der Wundarzney (Field book of surgery) in 1517 incorporates a new technological advance as his bones are smashed by cannon balls; the use of the cannon in warfare developed in sixteenth century Europe.  A Wound Man of the 21st century may well exhibit smartphone related injuries. 

Wound Man may himself have been based on the traditional portrayals of St Sebastian, an early Christian martyr who is customarily depicted in art fatally wounded by arrows. [3] The Baillieu Library Print Collection contains images of the legend by Albrecht Dürer seen by the engraving St Sebastian at the Column (c.1501).

Albrecht Dürer, St Sebastian at the Column, (c.1501) engraving, Baillieu Library Print Collection, Gift of Dr J. Orde Poynton, 1959
Albrecht Dürer, St Sebastian at the Column, (c.1501) engraving, Baillieu Library Print Collection, Gift of Dr J. Orde Poynton, 1959

 

Hannibal Lecter’s knowledge of art and culture is extensive and it is one of the chief motivations of his character.  His murders are executed with a distinct sinister emphasis on taste and artistry. After he escaped from custody, he despatched the former occupant and reinvented himself as the curator of the Palazzo Capponi in Florence. Later forced to flee after his discovery, his is regretful as ‘There were things in the Palazzo Capponi that he would have liked to find and read. He would have liked to play the clavier and perhaps compose; he might have cooked for the Widow Pazzi, when she overcame her grief.’ [4]

The interaction of art and crime is an elaborate and fascinating subject, and the Hannibal Lecter textbook murder is just one illustration designed to leave you hanging.

Kerrianne Stone (Curator, Prints)

 

Notes

[1] Thomas Harris, Red Dragon, 2000, Bantam Dell, New York, p. 70

[2] Julie Anderson, The art of medicine: over 2,000 years of images and imagination by Julie Anderson, Emm Barnes, and Emma Shackleton; foreword by Antony Gormley, Chicago Press, 2011, p. 196

[3] Cynthia Marshall, ‘Wound-man: Coriolanus, gender, and the theatrical construction of interiority,’ in Feminist readings of early modern culture: emerging subjects edited by Valerie Traub, M. Lindsay Kaplan, Dympna Callaghan, Cambridge [England]; Cambridge University Press, 1996, p. 103

[4] Thomas Harris, Hannibal, 2000, Bantam Dell, New York, p.239

A researcher visits our repository

Loretta Smith, Author

Original posted on the Facebook page Alice Anderson Garage Girl.

Alice Anderson in her Kew garage workshop, c1922
Alice Anderson in the Kew Garage workshop working at lathe, c1922, Frances Derham collection 1988.0061, University of Melbourne Archives, OSBA/918

For those who have ever done research, have you experienced the wonder of discovering something unexpected in an unlikely place that stops your heart? I’ve had a few experiences like this through the course of discovering Alice’s story but what I’m about to tell you was the most arresting:

Alice’s eldest sister was Frances Derham, an expert in child art and education. Frances’ archival collection is stored at the University of Melbourne, and I knew from the descriptive list that there Alice material also existed there, as well as private letters etc. written by Alice and Frances’ father, JTN Anderson to their mother, Ellen Mary. Every few days I would take myself off to the Baillieu Library, having ordered a few boxes from the repository—until the staff took mercy on me and gave me permission to visit the repository directly, where I had immediate access to any one of the 100 or so boxes in the collection and didn’t have to walk miles for a car park.

The repository is a bleak single story brick building in a semi-industrial area of Brunswick. Inside is a mishmash of 19th-century antiques and 1980s office furniture. I sat in a room too small for the ancient leather-inlaid boardroom table as men in industrial grey overcoats wheeled out box after box of material. Many researchers had gone before me, rustling up information on Frances Derham, her husband, Alfred Derham, her (and Alice’s) father, JTN Anderson etc. but I believe I was the first to dig around for material specifically connected to Alice.

The treasure I discovered happened to be in a random bag of material containing mementoes of Alice’s brother, Stewart, who had accidentally drowned in 1913, aged 20. There was a photo taken a few days before he died, a piece of red ribbon from his Royal Garrison Artillery uniform—things that had been collected but possibly not touched since they had been put there by a grieving family a hundred years ago. It was in this bag that I discovered two tiny, carefully folded, pieces of paper wrapped around what turned out to be a miniature photograph of Alice in a car. I gently opened the layers, sensing that I was the first to do so and knowing I was not the intended recipient. The writing was Alice’s. Love poems. One famous, written in ink; the other in barely legible pencil, almost a whisper, an original composition from Alice to a secret lover who probably never received them. Alice was 29 when she died suddenly in tragic circumstances. Publicly, Alice was never romantically connected to anyone.

Loretta Smith is an author currently researching and writing a biography of Alice Anderson. Alice Anderson was the first woman garage proprietor in Australia and the sister of Frances Derham, whose papers are held at UMA.

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