No Fizz, Fizz, Fizz: Champagne Mathieu at the opening of the National Library of Australia

Yesterday, August 15, was the 55th birthday of the National Library of Australia, which was opened in 1968 by Australian Prime Minister John Gorton. A Greek-styled monument, the birthday cake as it is affectionately known, was the first building opened along the banks of the recently completed Lake Burley Griffin.

^{David Reid, National Library of Australia, c. 1968, nla.gov.au/nla.obj-136761196/view.}

I was procrastinating over the thesis in the Library a couple of months ago and I came across a scrapbook of press cuttings regarding the Library’s grand opening. One of the Librarians caught me and, enabling my procrastination, in a good way, suggested I pen a blog post for the Library’s 55^th birthday, which I did.

The anecdote that did not get included, which I absolutely love, is the story of Hungarian-French artist and designer, Mathieu Matégot and the “grog” controversy. Canberra is no stranger to ‘grog controversies’, but I think this just pips the ‘Duke of Gloucester / Joseph Lyons’ anecdote at the post.

Mathieu Matégot took on the commission to create tapestries for the Library’s foyer. The Three Tapestries took two years to create and were placed in pride of place in the foyer. Arts correspondent for The Australian, Laurie Thomas thought the tapestries’ positioning was not to the advantage of the foyer or the visitor, “they too, are powerful”, though “splintered” and discombobulating when one “become[s] conscious, far too conscious, of things like sheep’s heads and pineapples”. (The Australian, 15 August 1968, page 9.)

^{Trilogy of Tapestries pinched directly from the National Library’s website.}

However, the tapestries themselves were not the controversy of the day.

“A diplomatic row blew up today over a champagne party in the new National Library”, wrote Claudia Wright of Melbourne’s Herald. It appears that the French cultural attaché, Monsieur Henri Souillac, had organised a champagne reception in the foyer for Monsieur Matégot and his tapestries. However, the Library’s chairman, Sir Archibald Grenfell Price, decided “at the last minute” that the event would be “no liquor”.

“A champagne row”, led Melbourne’s The Sun report of the opening.

“Not today”, the French contingent were told as they arrived at the National Library with a car full of ice-cold French champagne, despite Monsieur Souillac’s exclamation, “it is for M. Matégot to meet the press”! (Courier Mail, ‘Honours to the French’, 16 August 1968.)

^{Mr Henri Souillac, French attaché, Mathieu Matégot and unknown gentleman.}

“You could call it a storm in a teacup – but it was really a champagne glass, and the champers was French.”

However, that did not stop the French from having a great opening, enjoying the formalities before moving their party to another venue in the capital where they could “pop, pop, pop” all night long.

A photograph of Matégot appeared in the Herald on 17 August with the caption: “French painter Mathieu Matégot downs a meat pie, [an Australian delicacy he loved], with champagne at his non-party before the opening.” As the saying sorta goes, ‘when life gives you lemons, make champagne and eat a meat pie’!

The National Library at night, c. 1968 – nla.gov.au/nla.obj-136760768/view

_{* Inspiration for champagne references is and always will be Edward Woodward’s version of Champagne Charlie, from his 1975 album, Edwardian Woodward, an Elliott Family favourite.}

Don’t Keep History A Mystery: Vincent Lingiari and the Wave Hill Walk Off

I came across a scrapbook of press cuttings for the National Library of Australia’s opening months (on this day, 15 August 1968) and it got me thinking about other significant anniversaries that occurred around this time.

Seven years and one day after the National Library of Australia opened the doors to its new building on the banks of Lake Burley Griffin, Vincent Lingiari and Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam met at Wattie Creek and with speeches and the symbolic gesture of a handful of soil, a nine-year protest about workers rights and sovereignty reached its conclusion. (Photograph by Mervyn Bishop in the National Library of Australia; nla.gov.au/nla.obj-153513023/view.)

On 23 August 1966, Lingiari and 200+ Gurindji men, woman and children, left the cattle station of Lord Vestey at Wave Hill and began the long walk to Wattie Creek. On this anniversary of the gathering at Wattie Creek and in the year in which Australia will have a chance to acknowledge all First Nations peoples with The Voice Referendum, it seems fitting to reflect upon the Wave Hill Walk Off and bring my 2019 post to the fore.

You can read more from Thomas Mayo on Vincent in his book, Freedom Day, and his books for young and old about the Uluru Statement from the Heart and The Voice Referendum.

And as I did with the post from 2019, I want to leave Vincent Lingiari with the last word; words so appropriate as the country thinks about The Voice Referendum and whether they will be voting yes or no.

“Let us live happily together as mates, let us not make it hard for each other.
…We want to live in a better way together, Aboriginals and white men, let us not fight over anything, let us be mates.”

At Last: Lake Burley Griffin’s Inauguration Day, 1964

On 17 October 1964, Australia’s Prime Minister, Sir Robert Menzies stood atop the little hill at Regatta Point, outside the exhibition building, after a drought-thwarted attempt the year previously when the Queen came to visit, to finally declare Canberra’s Lake Burley Griffin open. 

^{The Queen with Prince Philip on the terrace of the exhibition building at Regatta Point, Canberra looking at the Lake Burley Griffin that isn’t quite a lake yet thanks to drought in the ACT and NSW regions, c. 1963. Photo from ArchivesACT.}

The lake was the central feature of the National Triangle area in Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony Griffin’s award-winning design for the new Federal Capital City of Australia’s new Commonwealth. However, following quickly on from the Griffin Plan being confirmed as ‘The Plan‘, the world was plunged into war, a Great Depression and another world war, so all development plans for Canberra, as the Commonwealth of Australia’s Federal Capital City was named in 1913, were halted as resources were re-directed to more pressing needs.

Inauguration Day, 17 October 1964

Alas, Her Majesty could not be present, but it did not deter Menzies from venturing out on a lovely Saturday morning to officially inaugurate his 30-year-old pet project. It was a long-time coming and not without a few hiccups along the way; a theme that Menzies referred to a few times during his speech.

“The creation of this lake is the result of a pretty long struggle. I remember being very much in favour of it in the late thirties, but I was a humble, miserable out-voted Attorney General at that time and there were powerful forces arrayed against me because there was a golf course…” 

First of all, Menzies “humble”? Okay; if he says so. And prioritising a lake over golf? What was he thinking? I am assuming the golf course in question is the Royal Canberra Golf Links.* Given the grumbles from Canberra residents since 1927 about the lack of amusements in the new capital city, we can understand why the pollies felt the golf club came first. They were obviously not water-hobby enthusiasts. (Lisa refers you to her blog post about Ernest Tristram Crutchley.)

^{Spy the ‘Royal Canberra Golf Links’ bottom middle, lakeside. From a 1966 brochure produced by the National Capital Development Commission titled ‘Creating a Setting for Lake Burley Griffin’.}

Menzies also mentioned the machinations of “evil men”, (insert gasps of horror at the thought of such creatures in our Federal Parliament), thwarting his lake project. 

“I wouldn’t like to go into the details of it, but at least twice during its history, having been abroad, I found when I got back that evil men had been at work and that something was being taken away from us and I had to be the humble instrument of providence to restore it.” 

One of the “evil men” was Menzies’ Treasurer Harold Holt (later Prime Minister Holt, 1966-1967). Following HMQEII’s ‘Hello I’m Your New Queen’ tour in 1954, Menzies was determined to rid the land around Parliament House of grazing sheep and get Canberra its lake: 

“I have always believed… that you can’t have a great city unless you have water in it.” 

Before he popped over to London to make more home movies of his hobnobbing with Her Maj, (he was a big fan), Menzies gave Treasurer Holt the cash to get the lake built. However, Holt had other ideas and directed the money elsewhere.

A discussion upon Menzies’ return got the project underway; a “discussion” I imagine that went a little like that between Melchett and the Queen in Blackadder II in which Melchett agrees elephants are orange, not grey, upon being asked pointedly, “Who’s Queen?”.

And Holt didn’t object to the lake for too long; in his personal papers held in the National Archives is a cuttings book in which is pasted a 1966 newspaper article from the Kings Cross Newspaper declaring: ‘Holt swims Lake Burley Griffin’.

In addition to the “evil men”, by the time the lake was carved into the heart of the city, a drought had hit the area and there was insufficient Molonglo River water in the Scrivener Dam to ‘fill her up’. (Lake BG features the water of the Molonglo River.) This turned the lake site into a breeding ground for “odours” and mosquitoes, or mossies (pronounced mozzies) as we call them Down Under. Menzies gave credit where it was due and admitted it was not his “ uttered imprecations” that rid the area of the mossies nesting in our muddy lakebed; no, the disappearance of the mossies was down to “the skill of the Commission” – the Commission being the National Capital Development Commission whose Lake BG Team are still skillfully keeping the lake clear of pests and pongs in the guise of the National Capital Authority.

Menzies’ inauguration speech for Lake BG is an utter delight. I enjoyed the full speech via the transcript first, which includes the points of “(laughter)” from the crowd; obviously doing their civic duty by showing appreciation for the PM’s ‘jokes’. Reading it again during lockdown has re-invigorated my appreciation of Lake BG, so it seems the perfect opportunity to wander down there and use it just as Menzies hoped we would; as an ‘amenity of life’ that would help us “forget all about politics”. Good plan! I’ll see you lakeside!

* Does it freak you out when your browser history just sends you answers to questions you have been pondering? During my Insomnia-Induced-Google in the wee small hours of this morning, my browser had, at the top of the feed, a Canberra Times article from January 2021 by Greg Blood all about the ‘sporting history under Lake Burley Griffin‘. The golf club that Federal ministers deemed more important than Menzies’ lake was in the Acton area with a few other less-than impressive sporting grounds/fields. Thank you Google and thank you Greg!

Further reading 

Menzies’ Lake Burley Griffin Inauguration Speech, 17 October 1964 – available via PM Transcripts website managed by the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. 

Listen to the speech via the National Library of Australia, here. 

View ‘The Canberra Lake Spring-time Sixty-Four’, which features some footage from inauguration day, via the National Film and Sound Archives YouTube Channel, here. 

Sunken Stories of Old Acton website, here.

The Plodding Historian: Research Assistant

I have just completed my first job as a self-employed research assistant and realised that I should have been offering this service to my fellow academics for the past year with all our crazy lockdown, no travel for you, #CoronaChaos. My sincerest apologies, first of all.

My only excuse is that I have been so busy trying not to meltdown with the sudden relevance of my long-awaited, long-avoided PhD thesis. From about November 2019, I had been plotting and planning to make 2020 my year of thesis completion, returning to comfortable underemployment and leaving myself a few days a week to get my flow on and finish the blasted thing / Magnificent Octopus. I stockpiled toilet paper (I’ll come back to that!), laundry liquid, girly essentials (I’m in my 40s, which requires a lot of serums and potions), chocolate, gin and foodstuffs a grown-up is supposed to have. And into Officeworks to print all the chapters written, half-written, Shirley-Planned, and the study cleaned and organised in readiness for the writing and screaming.

20 March 2020 – #WTF2020 Began

That is the date I set for my returning to comfortable underemployment for Thesis Completion 2020, but by which time most of the world went into lockdown and working/schooling from home, Zooming and staying in PJs all day (not much of a change for me on that front to be honest) became a global reality.

So my loo roll stockpile; while the world went crazy buying up toilet paper, I was sitting in My Little Flat (MLF) watching the news and, on this topic only, feeling very smug as my Thesis Writing Isolation preparation meant I had lots and LOTS. I did intend for my 320 rolls to last me until well into the mid-year, but once Canberrans were allowed to visit each other, in small numbers, I was bribing my way into my siblings’ homes for what I called an ‘Eight Rolls Roast’.

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While I’m on my #SparklingIsolationToInsanity, an honourable mention and thank you to The Canberra Distillery and their medicinal Blood Orange Gin, which I consumed rather a lot of over the course of #WTF2020. And thank you to the Canberra & Region Visitors Centre for stocking it commensurate with my imbibing. (No W & C, I wasn’t drinking it all myself! I did share.) Cheers and gin-gin!

The ‘Suddenly Relevant Thesis’ Meltdown

Despite what my blog suggests, my thesis is not about Canberra, the Commonwealth of Australia or our Federation history. Back in 2006, I began work with my long-suffering supervisor, Professor Susan Broomhall, on the history of poverty and poor relief in sixteenth-century France, with my PhD to be Paris-focussed.

Over the years, as I have delved intermittently into all my lovely primary sources gathered during Indiana Jonesing* research trips to Paris (in those days when international travel was possible), my thesis has come to focus on the reform of the largest charity hospital in Europe, the Paris Hôtel-Dieu. (I will write about it once I’ve conquered the technological nightmare that is Appendix G and have my Appendix A chronology of VIP events and “stuff” completed; aka the appendices that will help me remember what the flippin’ heck my thesis is all about and, what was the original and groundbreaking point I was trying to make?)

_{Paris’ Hôtel-Dieu c.1550 map by messieurs Truschet and Hoyau. This is the best map of sixteenth-century Paris. High resolution version available at the excellent Old Maps of Paris website.}

So. One cannot write about the reform of a charity hospital for the poor in the sixteenth century without mentioning the prevalent horror of plague, pox and pestilences; hence my almost-meltdown last year as I experienced first-hand what my Parisian poor went through; albeit in the comfort of MLF, and with Zoom and my Aged Aunt #1’s streaming services to keep me connected, entertained and distracted, and with the certain hope that the world’s genius scientists would come up with a vaccine to make us safer and prevent year after year of death counts beyond comprehension.

Now nearly the end of July 2021 (how??!!) and the thesis is still a work in avoidance/progress, but progress was made last year (and slowly but surely still is) thanks to my Study Buddies Shanan and The Favourite Niece, who forced me from MLF into the lovely Main Reading Room of the National Library of Australia to suffer, I mean, work in companionable silence. Completion for 2021, not sure, as I have an iron in the fire, but I turn 50 in 581 days, so I can guarantee it will be completed and submitted before then!

Research Assistant Extraordinaire Available for Hire

The point of this blog post was to let my fellow academics know that, in what will no doubt be a never-ending saga of lockdowns and travel restrictions, if you need the services of a Canberra-based researcher, I’m here and available for hire. I can’t do “love jobs”, but I can / will / do negotiate “mates rates”.

The Plodding Historian is here for you. You can reach me here or email me at lke73historian@gmail.com. My bona fides can be assessed via or my Academia.edu or LinkedIn profiles.

Please note that I have managed to get thesis-related papers published across the course of the 5,623 days that has been my PhD Journey to date. I just keep getting distracted. If you want to avoid a similar never-ending journey, I advise you read my 6 February 2020 blog post or let me take you to the Hotel Kurrajong or the Tipsy Bull for a little Auntie Lisa Chat over a G&T or two.

In the mean time, stay safe, stay home (if you’re NSW!), watch your loo roll stocks and if you’re hitch-hiking on your Aged Aunt’s streaming services, logout and get on with your research!

* Indiana Jonesing is Lisa-speak for my, what I call, raiding of the archives! Order up, photograph, repeat.

Reflections on My Method

Discussion on The Twitter a couple of weeks ago between historians about our research methods led to the sharing of this LRB article by historian Keith Thomas. Just read it. Love it!

Reflecting on his words about my own Plodding Historian-ingness: I’m a product/beneficiary of both The Old and The New. Aided by technology and digitisation, I can find and gather materials easily and curate my own archive of goodies – Raider of the Archives, I dub my researcher self, all very Indiana Jones, without the boulders, Nazis and, ARGH!!!, snakes, thank the gods. I can type up my notes, store and easily access vaguely remembered quotes via a quick keyword search on the laptop. One source per Word document, bibliographical details atop, page numbers meticulously recorded in brackets after each bullet pointed or indented quote/extract/Lisa-pontification-on-a-point.

But…

I think better with a pencil / favoured-pen in hand and paper to jot the great thoughts and record the notes. (And fortunately, no matter how frantically I pen my notes, my writing always remains legible, unlike poor Keith.) All my VIP notes or photographed/digitised sources are printed – one-sided. There are also copious notebooks, not one-sided, because VIP info & quotes are extracted onto paper, one-sided, for literal cutting and pasting. (I am never without a dinky pair of scissors and sticky tape.) My apologies to Mother Nature for all the paper-usage, but if it helps, once a project is complete, the paper notes are digitised and the piles of paper sent to recycling.

And thanks to my lovely friend, Shirley-now-Ariel, after a disaster that was my first history essay, an incoherent mess of scattered thoughts and bad research method that led to an unprecedented Footnote Disaster, I have in my Historian’s Methodology Arsenal, The Shirley Plan from which the above developed. When Keith Thomas wrote about his pooling of research into a plan that enabled writing his histories, it reminded me of The Shirley Plan for my dissertation. This was the apotheosis of Shirley Planning! Five weeks to collate and organise 15 months of research and brilliant ideas, if I do say so myself, into a coherent and very detailed Shirley Plan that enabled the writing of the dissertation in just two weeks. (Maybe if I had taken an extra week, I would have scored those three marks I needed for a First. But we historians don’t dwell on what ifs.) It may be old school, it could be done another more 21st-century-techno way, but it worked, and still works, for me. Whenever I don’t take time to Shirley Plan my writing, madness and tantrums ensure. Every time I pull the DSP from the shelf it is to remind myself that taking the time to collate my research and organise my thoughts into a Shirley Plan is a vital and invaluable part of my method. Besides, look at it. The printed version of my DSP is a thing of beauty, if I do say so myself.

Just a little Sunday Morning Reflection I felt compelled to share as I get ready for a busy week of research and writing. Possibly on the thesis, but given my recent declarations of Thesis Recommencement have led to disaster – abdications, a spectacularly broken ankle, unemployment, fires, plague and, brothers and camels falling off cliffs – I declare no such hope or intention for the safety of not just the self, but the world!

Remember that tomorrow is Towel Day. Grab your towel, stay safe at home, wash your hands, settle down with your research and note-taking tools and, under no circumstances, no matter how trying, DON’T PANIC!

On this day: Protest at Parliament House Opening – 9 May 1927

When working at one of Canberra’s cultural institutions, I came across this marvellous photograph of a chap named Jimmy Clements on the steps of Parliament House, (the Old one).

NAA: A3560, 3108. Jimmy Clements photographed by official Commonwealth photographer for Canberra, Jack Mildenhall, on the steps of Parliament House on the day it opened, 9 May 1927.

This chance encounter with the ‘chap with the cheeky smile’, as I think of him, got me researching how this photograph came to be taken. Being a historian, one can’t just leave historical mystery alone, particularly when one has a thesis to avoid. What I found would make Jimmy and his mate, John Noble, the main characters in my favourite story from Parliament House’s opening day, which was on this day – 9 May – 93 years ago today.

As regular readers of my little blog will know from other posts, Canberra became the capital of the new Commonwealth of Australia in 1908, got it’s name on 12 March 1913 and finally became the home of our Federal Parliament on 9 May 1927 with the opening of its brand new home, Parliament House by the Queen’s Mum and Dad, aka the Duke and Duchess of York.

The Duke and Duchess of York on the steps of Parliament House with other dignitaries for a right-royal opening ceremony, 9 May 1927. NLA: 6342124. That’s Dame Nellie Melba on the far left. She popped along to sing the National Anthem, then God Save the King. Apparently there was a battle-royale between the Dame and the sound man. He kept placing the microphone directly in front of her and she would move it further away proclaiming that she had song in the biggest and best Opera Houses around the world and had no need of a microphone to be heard.

Jimmy ‘King Billy’ Clements and John ‘Marvellous’ Noble were Wiradjuri men who lived on an Aboriginal mission near Gundagai in New South Wales, which is about 160km from Canberra. John in particular, and his ever-present canine companion, had been visiting regularly since work began on the Federal Capital and was especially familiar to those whom he gave boomerang lessons. In 1921, during one of his visits, he was snapped by official Commonwealth photographer for Canberra, Jack Mildenhall; John and his dog resting under a tree observing the goings-on of all this city building was a familiar sight and a now iconic image of Canberra’s early history.

John ‘Marvellous’ Noble and his dog having a little rest under the shade of a tree in Acton, 1921. NAA: A3560, 419.

So with the imminent opening of the new Parliament House, whose construction they had been watching with interest, John and Jimmy, and dog, set out from their mission in early April arriving in time for opening day on May 9^th. Donning their best suits, they made their way to Parliament House and stood with the crowds on the east side of the building (left in photo below).

Opening Day in Canberra for our gorgeous new Parliament House, Theo E. Cooper. NLA: 14256a

As police moved through the crowds of on-lookers dressed in their ‘Sunday best’ they spotted John and Jimmy among them. The constabulary approached and attempted to move the men, and dog, on, but as reported in Albury Banner and Wodonga Express on 13 May, these onlookers, to whom John and Jimmy were well-known, rallied in their defence.

Photographer Sam Hood. State Library of NSW, DG ON4/5389

Photographer Sam Hood, State Library of NSW, DG ON4/5388

“Immediately and distinctively the crowd on the stands rallied to his side. There were choruses of advice and encouragement to do as he pleased. A well-known clergyman stood up and called out that the aborigine had a better right than any man present to a place on the steps of the House of Parliament.”

As suggested by Jimmy’s smile in the first photograph, he must have been quite a character and was happy to take up the clergyman’s suggestion; Mildenhall took his photograph on the steps of Parliament House after the opening ceremony. John was a more quiet, reserved man and didn’t want his photograph taken, so there aren’t many of him at the opening apart from the a few candid shots appearing in the newspapers and this one he agreed to pose for with Jimmy after the ceremony.

Jimmy and John photographed on the east-side of Parliament House, 9 May 1927. NLA: PIC/6121

John and Jimmy’s attendance at the opening for the new Parliament House of the Commonwealth of Australia was an important moment in Australia’s history, particularly for Australia’s Indigenous peoples. The was a purpose for their attendance and it was to stage a peaceful protest to remind the Australian Parliament that their new home was on Aboriginal land.

On 9 May 1927, John ‘Marvellous’ Noble and Jimmy ‘King Billy’ Clements staged the first land rights protest to Parliament in Canberra. Sixty-one years later, when our Parliament got its bigger house on the hill, although both long gone, the spirits of John and Jimmy were unmistakable.

Aboriginal protestors at the opening of Parliament House, 9 May 1988. NLA: PIC P1733/1-26

Further Reading and Viewing on John and Jimmy:

Whispers in the Corridor, short documentary on Jimmy and John from Museum of Australian Democracy, 2017.

National Archives of Australia VRROOM education resources on John and Jimmy.

2019 article from South Coast Register on John ‘Marvellous’ Noble by Nicolette Pickard.

The Plodding Historian’s favourite stories about Old Parliament House:

Read my guest blog post published today (9 May 2020) on the National Library of Australia’s website.

As well as the battle with the sound man, my other favourite stories about Parliament House’s opening day on 9 May 1927, apart from John and Jimmy’s protest, involve Dame Nellie Melba. This blog post on the Museum of Australian Democracy website cracks me up every time I read it. I love this woman!