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Books
The Inner Circle Line : The Melbourne suburban rail line that disappeared
Jeff AtkinsonThis book tells the story of the development of Melbourne's suburban rail lines, and in particular of the ill-conceived inner circle line that ran through the inner northern suburbs from 1888 until its final closure in the 1970s. It tells of the political events that led to the line being built, the life and death incidents that occurred along the line when it was in operation and, after it had closed, the struggle of a residents' group to have the land and station building converted into facilities for community use.
ISBN: 978-0-6484288-3-1
$15Carlton Voices
Margaret Rich (Editor)Carlton Voices is an edited and illustrated collection of stories which reflect the immense diversity of our local history. It consists of researched articles as well as reports of interviews with people with a wide range of ages and ethnic backgrounds. Each "voice" describes its own Carlton in colourful detail. A Chinese family whose patriarch arrived here in 1855 experienced decades of discrimination which continued into World War 2. A woman who lives next door to the house where she was born almost 95 years ago remembers tearing up newspaper to use in the lavatory in the days when toilet paper was a luxury. The heyday of Italian Carlton is recalled by the children of the charismatic founder of the Australian Festival of Italian song.
ISBN: 978-0-6484288-0-0
$15The Stockade : Carlton's forgotten prison and the people who inhabited it
Jeff AtkinsonOne hundred and fifty years ago, the site of what is now the Carlton North Primary School was a prison - a low security gaol for petty offenders. Known as the Collingwood Stockade (the name 'Carlton' was not yet in use) it opened in 1853 and operated for 13 years until 1866, when it became an asylum for the insane, and later a school. This book tells the story of the Collingwood Stockade and the people who inhabited it – individuals who served their sentences there breaking up stones for 'road metal', warders, some of whom gained a notorious reputation, and the Superintendents who ran the place. The book resurrects a long forgotten aspect of Carlton's past – and gives a vivid picture of the penal system in Victoria at the time of the gold rush.
ISBN: 978-0-6484288-1-7
$15Walking along Rathdowne Street : 100 years of shopping, services and stories in North Carlton
Margaret RichWalking along Rathdowne Street examines the changing use of the shops and some other buildings in Rathdowne Street, North Carlton, between Princes Street and Park Street, from the early 1870s. This study traces the gradual change from a vibrant shopping strip supplying the everyday needs of people who lived nearby, through the commercial doldrums of the mid 20th century and into the gentrification phase which has resulted in the Rathdowne Street of today. Stories of the lives of some of the shopkeepers are included. The study is organised by street number and a profile of some 150 buildings is provided.
$15
Carlton Girls born and bred : The story of Ruth Bailey … and her mother … and her grandmother … and her daughters
Margaret RichRuth Blackburn's childhood home was a stone's throw from the Carlton Gardens. Born in 1941, she had an Anglo-Australian home life typical of the times while revelling in the cultural mix provided by her primary school, a mix ranging from newly-arrived Jewish refugees to established Chinese families from Little Bourke Street. Far from experiencing the helicopter parenting of today, she roamed freely around Carlton and into the city. Later, now Ruth Bailey, she moved into the Palmerston Street house which had been her grandparents' home and where she was to live for the rest of her life. As a young mother she sat on the veranda while bulldozers consumed the adjacent "slums", an area of historic streets, shops, pubs and terrace housing deemed no longer fit for human habitation, in order to replace them with high rise flats. From her memories, recorded in 2010 for the Carlton Community History Group, there emerges a colourful personality with impressive powers of recall who paints a vivid picture of the evolving Carlton she loved so much.
ISBN: 978-0-6484288-2-4
$15
Booklets
Through the eyes of a child : A street in Carlton 1939-45
Paintings & Commentary by Des NormanDes Norman (1930-2015) has been a noted artist and educator in Melbourne for over five decades. As a painter of narrative subjects, he has examined many aspects of Australian life. In this work he has returned to his childhood in World War 2 Dorrit Street Carlton, to recover and share a particularly formative Australian experience.
$20
John King : The story of the only member of the Burke and Wills expedition to cross Australia from south to north and return to Melboure alive
Marian TurnbullIn the Melbourne General Cemetery in Carlton lie the graves of Burke, Wills and King the three explorers who successfully completed the crossing of the continent from Melbourne to the Gulf of Carpentaria in 1861. But John King was the only one to return alive. This book tells the story of his childhood in Ireland during the famine, his career as a soldier in the Indian Mutiny, and the meeting which brought him to Melbourne and the role as assistant in the Burke and Wills Expedition. Courageous and resourceful, he survived the disagreements, disasters and privations of the journey to the Gulf, and was found in 1861 by a relief party, ragged and emaciated, living with the Yandruwandha Aborigines near Cooper's Creek. He was feted like a celebrity on his return to Melbourne, but he never recoverd his health.
$5
The Troublesome American : The story of Charles Ferguson, foreman on the Burke and Wills Expedition
Jeff AtkinsonThis book was published to mark the 150th anniversary of the Burke and Wills Expedition, which started and ended in Carlton. It was from Royal Park that it departed - and it is in the Melbourne General Cemetery in Carlton that the remains of both Burke and Wills and the sole survivor John King lie. The book focuses on one member of the expedition, a controversial one who also happened to be American. At the time of the gold rushes in the mid nineteenth century there were several thousand Americans in Australia, most of them on the Victorian goldfields. But few were involved in more historic events than Charles Ferguson of Aurora County, Ohio, the subject of this book, who as a young man was personally involved in both the Eureka Stockade and the Burke and Wills Expedition. This book focuses primarily on the latter, and tells the story of Ferguson's role as foreman for the expedition, his difficult relationship with the expedition's leader, Robert O'Hara Burke, and the controversy that he stirred up when he returned to Melbourne after being sacked by Bourke.
$5
Some Women of Davis Street : 1891 and 2008
Judith BiddingtonWhy Women of Davis Street? A chapter in They Are But Women : the Road to Female Suffrage in Victoria looked at some women who lived in Davis Street and who signed a 'monster' petition in 1891 calling on the Victorian Government to grant votes to women. Women were finally granted the right to vote in 1908. So in 2008 it seemed appropriate to talk with women currently living in Davis Street and examine their attitude to the achievement of that goal. This booklet uses, and gratefully acknowledges material from They Are But Women, about the lives of some women who signed the petition and then explores the perceptions of current residents of the street about the effects of that right. It also raises the question of when we should celebrate the centenary of the granting of that right. It was November 1908 when the legislation was passed, March 1909 when it was granted Royal Assent and gazetted, yet it was not until the election of 1911 when women could first exercise that right.
$5
Publication Cost (Australian dollars) Postage (within Australia) Postage (overseas) The Inner Circle Line $15 per book $6 for 1-2 books (same or different titles) Contact us for quote Carlton Voices $15 per book $6 for 1-2 books (same or different titles) Contact us for quote The Stockade $15 per book $6 for 1-2 books (same or different titles) Contact us for quote Walking Along Rathdowne Street $15 per book $6 for 1-2 books (same or different titles) Contact us for quote Carlton Girls Born and Bred $15 per book $4 for 1-2 books (same or different titles) Contact us for quote Through the Eyes of a Child : A Street in Carlton 1939-45 $20 per book $6 for 1-2 books (same or different titles) Contact us for quote John King $5 per booklet $4 for 1-3 booklets (same or different titles) Contact us for quote The Troublesome American $5 per booklet $4 for 1-3 booklets (same or different titles) Contact us for quote Some Women of Davis Street $5 per booklet $4 for 1-3 booklets (same or different titles) Contact us for quote Note: Parcel postage rates apply for larger orders. Contact us for a quote.
Publication Sales
Retail Sales
Selected book titles are available from the following outlets:
Note: Retail prices may be higher than those stated above.
- Carlton Library, 667 Rathdowne Street, North Carlton
- Royal Historical Society of Victoria Bookshop, 239 a'Beckett Street, Melbourne
Mail Orders (Within Australia)
Publications can be ordered direct from the Carlton Community History Group. Payment can be made by cheque, money order or direct bank deposit in Australian dollars. Please send your payment, including the additional postage cost to:
Publication Sales
Carlton Community History Group
PO Box 148
North Carlton Vic 3054
Australia
Direct Deposit to:
Commonwealth Bank Account No: 10198637 (BSB 063-014)If paying by direct deposit, please email order details and date of deposit to CCHG.
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Carlton Chronicles
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CCHG Newsletter
No. 1, April 2016 No. 2, July 2016 Sport and Recreation in Carlton No. 3, October 2016 Trams in Carlton No. 4, January 2017 Jewish Carlton No. 5, April 2017 Crime in Carlton No. 6, August 2017 Hotels in Carlton No. 7, November 2017 The Anti-Conscription Campaign of 1917 No. 8, February 2018 Carlton's Forgotten Railway Line No. 9, May 2018 State Education in Carlton No. 10, August 2018 Carlton's Squares No. 11, November 2018 Bakeries in Carlton No. 12, February 2019 Melbourne General Cemetery No. 13, May 2019 Larrikin Gangs in Carlton No. 14, August 2019 Trades Hall No. 15, November 2019 Cabs and Omnibuses No. 16, February 2020 Dairies and milk distribution in Carlton No. 17, May 2020 Carlton's Courthouse No. 18, August 2020 The Carlton Rifle Company No. 19, November 2020 Cinemas in Carlton No. 20, February 2021 Drummond Street's historic treasures No. 21, May 2021 Garages in Carlton No. 22, August 2021 The fight for a park No. 23, November 2021 Banks and Banking in Carlton No. 24, March 2022 Bougainville Barracks
Free Downloads
Carlton Footballers Who Fought and Died in the Wars
Judith BiddingtonA book called Fallen : The Ultimate Heroes details the lives and military careers of footballers who fought and died in the Boer War and World Wars 1 and 2. We have selected eight of the 115 in the book who played for Carlton to look at. Their names are Wilf Atkinson, David Gillespie, Tom McCluskey, Fenley McDonald, Mathew Stanley McKenzie, James Pender, Alfred Williamson, and James Park.
The Confectioner of Nicholson Street : S.T. Nunquam
Susan CroweFor many decades, residents of North Carlton woke to the fragrance of peppermint emanating from a confectionery factory in Nicholson Street. The two-storey, red brick building on the corner of Newry Street was built for Stanislav Techitch Nunquam, manufacturing confectioner, in 1916. This is the story of a man whose adopted surname means "never" in Latin.
The Cuisinier From Brittany : François Moriniere
Susan CroweThe death of Eleanor Isabelle Jessie Moriniere in 1918 marked the end of an era for land ownership in Carlton. Her father, François Moriniere, was the original owner of a crown allotment running from Station Street through to Nicholson Street, south of Princes Street. The land, together with five houses, a shop and a factory building, stayed in the Moriniere family for more than 50 years.
For Honour or Money : Australia's First Intercolonial Handball Match
Susan CroweIn November 1873, Victoria issued a sporting challenge to New South Wales to play Australia's first intercolonial handball match. New South Wales accepted the challenge "for either money or honour" but, in the spirit of sportsmanship, they agreed to play for honour only. The three-day competition was held at a handball court at the rear of the Loughrea Hotel in Elgin Street, Carlton, in January 1874.
For King and Country : Benjamin Moy Ling
Susan CroweWith the outbreak of World War 1 in 1914, young men from all over Australia answered the call to fight for king and country. But for Benjamin (Ben) Moy Ling, Australian born and the son of a Methodist minister, the path to war service was not an easy one. Ben made several attempts to enlist in the Australian Imperial Force (AIF). However, he was rejected as unfit on the grounds that he was "not substantially of European origin & descent". Ben was finally successful in enlisting on 4 May 1917, when the embargo on his non-European origin was lifted. He was quoted as saying: "If Australia is good enough to live in, it is good enough to fight for. I hope to live in it again after the war".
Fun and Games at Lincoln Square
Margaret RichLincoln Square, in Swanston Street Carlton, has seen it all. This leafy green space close to the CBD, site of a Bali Memorial and reserved for public use since 1853, has survived attempted road incursions, locked gates, gang warfare, a gruesome murder and a recent take-over by skateboarders.
Lucie Moy Ling : A Woman of Her Times
Susan CroweIn Melbourne on 13 April 1874, in the Year of the Dog, a baby girl was born to James and Kim Moy Ling. Little did her parents know that their daughter, Lucie Sophia Kim Oie, would live for more than a hundred years and bear witness to times of great political, economic and social change. Lucie grew up in a loving family and was well respected by the Methodist Church community, yet she was declared an alien in the country of her birth. As a teacher in the Victorian Education Department, she was denied the same employment and retirement entitlements as her male counterparts. On a personal level, she knew the joy of being a wife and mother and also the pain of losing loved ones. This is her story.
The Mystery Man of Dorrit Street
Susan CroweThe artist Des Norman, who died on 13 September 2015, grew up in a small street in Carlton, where everyone knew each other by name. But there was one man who remained a mystery to most of the residents of Dorrit Street. As painted by Des Norman, the mystery man appeared well dressed in an overcoat and bowler hat, he was slightly stooped and he walked with a stick. Des recalled that the man lived on the east side of Dorrit Street, towards Grattan Street, and he thought that he was an exile from his homeland.
Des Norman's painting has inspired a line of research to discover the identity of the mystery man. The story begins with his birth in France, followed by migration to New Caledonia, then across the sea to Sydney, overland to the goldfields of Kalgoorlie, by ship again to Launceston in Tasmania and finally to Dorrit Street in Carlton. Along the way, the mystery man works as a cook and café proprietor, he is involved in crime (both as victim and alleged perpetrator), he gets married (at least twice) and divorced, and he ends up buried in an unmarked grave in Melbourne General Cemetery.
Free download (PDF 644 Kb)
Nurse Basser's Hospital
Susan CroweEllen Forehan sat, pen poised, and contemplated the document placed before her. Her husband Jeremiah had died a few weeks ago, on 29 November 1890, and in his will he appointed her executrix of his estate. She was now to sign an affidavit that would grant her probate of her husband's estate, valued at 1,231, 16 shillings and one penny. An official of the Supreme Court of Victoria had read and explained the document to her, and he believed that she had fully understood the content. In his presence, Ellen made her "X" mark on the affidavit. Ellen Forehan, the woman who could not sign her own name, later went on to become matron of Rosedale House private hospital in Carlton.
Otto Jung's Bible
Margaret RichIn August 2015 CCHG received a request for help in tracing the provenance of an 1827 French edition of the New Testament. An inscription on the inner cover suggests that it had been owned by Otto Jung since 1852 and the label of a Paris bookshop is at the back. Inside the book, where presumably it has been for a century, is a used and opened envelope posted from Lorne and addressed to Otto Jung at 1 Rathdown Street, Carlton.
Free download (PDF 320 Kb)Our Daily Bread
Susan CroweHave you ever wondered what went into a loaf of bread in the good old days before food labelling? In the 19th century, bakers had a list of permitted ingredients to choose from, as defined by the Bakers and Millers Statute of 1865. But not all bread was as wholesome as prescribed by the Statute. This article looks at bread contaminants and prosecutions of Carlton and North Carlton bakers.
Free download (PDF 264 Kb)For more information on bakers and bakeries, read our November 2018 newsletter.
A Russian Visitor : Aleksandr Leonidovich Yashchenko
Judith BiddingtonThe travel diary of 34 year old Aleksandr Leonidovich Yashchenko records the impressions of a Russian educationist and natural scientist who visited Australia for 3 months in 1903. He landed in Fremantle on the 2nd of July 1903 and sailed for Canada in October of that year. He visited places in Western Australia, South Australia, Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland and travelled by coach, train and tram, and ferry on the Murray River, as well as on foot.
This short piece centres on part of Yashchenko's visit to Melbourne, time spent at what appears to be the Faraday Street School (SS 112) in Carlton, the home of the first practising school in 1880 and associated with every branch of teacher training until its closure in December 1972.
Free download (PDF 280 Kb)The Scarlett Woman of Pitt Street
The story of Ada Scarlett, actress and publican of the Football Club Hotel in Pitt Street Carlton.
Susan Crowe
A Tale of Two Terraces : Rathdowne Terrace Carlton
Susan CroweThe story of two terraces – one a narrow laneway of small cottages and the other an opulent terrace of two-storey houses – that shared the same name "Rathdowne Terrace". This article explores the origins and history of the two terraces, who built them, who owned them and who lived there.
The Trades Hall : Part of our History
Judith BiddingtonThis article centres on the role of the Trades Hall in Carlton and its connection with the fight for regulated working conditions, particularly the Eight Hour Day. It was built after a successful union campaign in 1856. Appropriately, the building on the corner of Victoria and Lygon Streets is now diagonally opposite the Eight Hour Day monument and is classified by the National Trust and included in the Register of Historic Buildings as Building No. 781.
Free download (PDF 500 Kb)
Westray Villa : From the Orkney Islands of Scotland
Susan CroweWestray Villa in Canning Street, North Carlton, was the home of the Cormack family from the 1880s through to 1960. To explore the origin of this house's name, we travel back to a remote island off the coast of Scotland and follow the journey of a young woman who made a life-changing – and almost life-threatening – choice in the mid-19th century.
Free download (PDF 270 Kb)
Women and War : Two Case Studies
Judith BiddingtonAs we commemorate Australia's participation in wars, we need to see what role women played. Women are part of all societies, but when those societies are under stress the roles that women traditionally play can be either reinforced, questioned or even changed, temporarily or forever, and undoubtedly a state of war places a society under stress. So what happens in one town or suburb can be replicated in another. Both of the women cited as case studies in this article had some connection with Carlton and are therefore important to CCHG, but both also made significant contributions to many areas of Victoria.
Zoom Presentations
Growing Up in Carlton in the 1960s
Image: Courtesy of Rocca Family
Felice Rocca (kneeling), Les O'Rourke and Michael Rocca
Playing Cowboys and Indians outside the shopFelice Rocca, the Australian-born son of an Italian migrant family, shared photographs from his family album and his recollections of growing up in Carlton in the 1960s. Customers at the family's grocery shop in Rathdowne Street, North Carlton, enjoyed Italian products, but some Italians developed a taste for non-Italian food. Products like Mayfair corned beef, packets of tea and even Aussie vegemite were stocked alongside salami, antipasto and "La Gina" canned tomatoes.
Felice enjoyed "a boringly happy childhood" but had a foot in each of two cultures. The culture at home was that of peasant Italy, whilst the culture outside was British working class culture. There was even a little mild friction at the local Catholic Church between the Irish traditions about what children should wear for their First Communion (navy blue jackets with short pants) and the Italian tradition with boys in white suits and long pants. Felice's father was ambitious and learnt how to succeed in retail business in the new culture. The older generations of the family were semi-illiterate or illiterate. Felice, on the other hand, benefited from the opportunities available in 1960s Carlton and spent much of his spare time at the Carlton Library in Rathdowne Street.
http://www.cchg.asn.au/zoomcarlton1960s.mp4
Buses and Trams in Early Carlton
Photographer: A.K. Sewell
Collingwood-bound cable tram in Lygon Street, Carlton, in 1938Jeff Atkinson's presentation took us from the nineteenth century northern suburbs of Melbourne, with no public transport other than horse drawn carts, to the establishment in 1920 of the Melbourne Metropolitan Tramways Board (MMTB) and the introduction of the W class trams that still operate on the City Circle route. Public transport in Melbourne improved significantly in 1869 when a group of nineteenth century American businessmen saw an opportunity and introduced a horse drawn, fully enclosed omnibus service. The omnibuses were initially imported, then later constructed in Fitzroy. In a new development, and to achieve a smoother ride, the horses drew the vehicles along on metal rails. These were Melbourne's first trams. The Royal Park horse tramway ran until 1923, when public vandalism during the Great Police Strike with its rioting crowds destroyed the rolling stock and infrastructure.
It was Americans again who imported the new cable trams. Cable trams were introduced in the 1880s, with services along Lygon, Nicholson and Rathdowne streets. The new tram services were a boon to local businesses and encouraged shopkeepers to open along Rathdowne Street in North Carlton. One of the engine houses that produced the steam to drive the cable is still at the corner of Park Street and Rathdowne Street, North Carlton. Carlton had its first electric tram service in Lygon Street, north of Elgin Street, in 1916 and from the 1920s electric trams gradually replaced the less efficient cable trams. The last cable tram service ran from the city to Northcote in October 1940. Not all former cable tram routes were electrified and some, like Rathdowne Street, were replaced by buses. There was even a short-lived double deck bus service operating along Nicholson Street to Bourke Street in the city. Jeff was able to solve the mystery of why there were no electrified tramlines in the main Lygon Street shopping and restaurant precinct of Carlton and Carlton South!
A lively Q&A session followed, including interesting comments from a tour guide at the Melbourne Tram Museum in Hawthorn, and from a former Carlton resident on the pedestrian hazards of cable tram tracks left in Elgin Street long after the service had ceased.
http://www.cchg.asn.au/zoombusestrams.mp4
Book Reviews
Rosetta
By Alexandra Joel
Vintage Australia, 2017
Reviewed by Judith BiddingtonThis short review is just to encourage everyone to read an incredible book. It is a book about Rosetta Solomon, unknown to me before reading the book, and probably also unfamiliar to others. However, her experiences will ring bells for us all, as the chapters alternate between recreations of events in Rosetta's life and the author's research journey. That format itself is interesting, commanding and very clever.
It is very well written and includes details of settings in Australia and London which you will want to explore, some of which I have done. As a child I dropped pebbles from the roof of the Hotel Windsor, I also remember the incredible size of the baths in its bathrooms, on the few occasions my family stayed there, and today I know the streets of Carlton well. However the history of the First World War and of the period should probably be quite well known to most of us.
I don't want to reveal the story line but almost every situation rings true. An early admonition from Rosetta's mother that 'not everyone you meet is who they seem to be', is illustrated beautifully throughout the book. There are very well known people like Sir William Clarke, Nellie Melba and Helena Rubinstein, who feature in the book, and all are brilliantly captured in short phrases, as well are the central characters, many of whom are unlikely to be known to the reader.
But I do recommend it. The characters are fascinating and I'm making a collection of the intriguing descriptions from strands of spaghetti to 'wounded red roofs'.
People of the Risen King : A History of St. Jude's Carlton, 1866-2016
By Elizabeth Willis
Reviewed by Judith BiddingtonEvery time I regularly drive past St. Jude's church in Lygon Street, Carlton, I am amazed and impressed by the beauty of the building, not solid bluestone, which one might expect, but multi-coloured bricks, glowing in the light.
I will start by extensively quoting the foreword to this book written by the Reverend Dr. Chris Mulherin, recently the locum vicar. "The year 2016 was a transition year of humble achievements at St. Jude's: we lost a vicar, we have appointed another, we endured twelve months under a locum vicar, we all learned the meaning of 'sesquicentenary', and along the way we have given thanks to God for the 150 years that this church, in the heart of vibrant Carlton, has testified to the Christian faith. … It has been my privilege to occupy the vicar's (tattered, hydraulically dysfunctional) chair in this 150th year of the church's life. But despite the instability of the last year, like the Apostle Paul we do not lose heart because we know that we are people of the risen King. And it is auspicious that in its 150th year Elizabeth Willis has completed this fine history of St. Jude's."
If you read the book not only will you learn the history of St. Jude's but you will gain an insight into 'inner-northern Melbourne, our city and the world' (to quote the current St. Jude's vision statement). You will learn of the changing life and times of Carlton - its unsewered streets, the bulldozing of crowded slums, the waves of immigration, the housing estates and the Lygon Street traders - and also times of depressions and times of plenty, including the effect on the city of the world's richest gold rush. You will read of a changing Australia over generations; of the place of religion in Melbourne's life, of world wars and of denominational wars over conscription. And, of course, you will read of religion and Australian Anglicanism, of missions and evangelism, of different preaching styles, of different ministry philosophies, and of clerical attitudes and theological dispositions.
But you will also hear of the other work of an inner-city church named after the patron saint of lost causes and desperate cases. You will expect to read of a Sunday school and perhaps at the Children's Hospital and individuals who taught there, but you will be surprised at the range of other activities. The care for international students, the fluctuating attendances, shop owners shuttering their windows for the funeral procession of the first vicar, of open air services with Greek, French and Italian translation, and of people who were homeless and slept in the crypt, of soup and bread kitchens, a debt centre, mission work for the Chinese of Bourke Street, police breaking up a riot at a church meeting and the extraordinary gathering together of people who not only lived in the area, but from over one hundred different post codes.
Even as a committed atheist I have no hesitation in recommending this book, it offers so many insights into the life and times of the suburb I value so highly and it also taught me much about the church itself and the admirable work it did, and continues to do.
Dr. Judith Biddington, CCHG
People of the Risen King is available for purchase at Readings in Lygon Street, Carlton
An Unqualified Success : Alan Percy Fleming
By Peter Golding
Reviewed by Judith BiddingtonWhat do a teacher, soldier, journalist, trade commissioner, senior bureaucrat, a parliamentary and national librarian, a spymaster, a counter terrorist and a prisoner of war have in common? It would appear that the range of skills and talents required by these activities were encompassed in a man called Allan Percy Fleming in the course of his 89 years – he lived from 1912 to 2001. According to Peter Golding's thoroughly researched book, Fleming taught for a while at his old school Scotch College, then embarked on a career in journalism, first on the Melbourne Argus and then Brisbane's Courier Mail, where he was a leader writer. At the outbreak of World War 2 he enlisted as a private in the AIF, rose to the rank of lieutenant-colonel, was decorated, wounded twice, captured and escaped. He went back to journalism, then got a job to reorganise Australia's defence intelligence, became a trade commissioner in Paris to represent Australian international trade negotiations and then switched to become the Commonwealth Parliamentary Librarian, then the National Librarian. After he 'retired' he set about establishing Australia's first counter terrorism organisation.
How did the son of a gripman on Melbourne's cable trams, whose broken, troubled family saw him separated from his mother and sister, and living with his father and a step-mother, and going to school at Lee Street North Carlton Primary, manage to be prepared for all his subsequent occupations? It seems he owed a lot, not just to his natural talents, but to the support of two great teachers, William Arthur Empy at Lee Street, North Carlton, and William Still Littlejohn at Scotch College.
This small exchange between the German Field Marshall Rommel and prisoner Allan Fleming, should be enough to encourage everyone to read about him.
Rommel to Fleming:
"You know you Australians are very good fighters … But we will win the war. You will not win the war."
Fleming to Rommel:
"I'm sorry, sir, but I don't think you will win the war … We will win the war. To help us we have a secret weapon."
Then he turned around and pointed at the XXXX bottle of beer.I highly recommend this book. It is fascinating and informative about local conditions in North Carlton, as well as the experiences of a young boy at school and of soldiers during wartime. It is also utterly Australian.
Dr. Judith Biddington, CCHG
An Unqualified Success, by Peter Golding, was published by Rosenberg Publishing Ltd in 2013.
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