Allan William Martin 1993
Photography by The Australian National University The Allan Martin Lecture

History Program
Research School of Social Sciences
The Australian National University

The Inaugural Allan Martin Lecture was delivered by Dr Inga Clendinnen in the Coombs Lecture Theatre, The Australian National University on 4 May 2004. It was the first of an annual series to honour the late A.W. Martin (1926-2002). The lecture series will bring a distinguished scholar whose work is relevant to Allan's intellectual, institutional and social interests to the History Program, Research School of Social Sciences, The Australian National University for at least a week to give a public lecture and one or two seminars of a more specialized kind, and to be available to staff, graduate students and other scholars in the Canberra area to discuss current intellectual developments. The History Program might, from time to time, combine the Annual Lecture with a small conference to which people from beyond Canberra might be invited. The Lecture will take place in April or May each year.

The Lecturer will be selected by a committee comprising the Head of the History Program, Research School of Social Sciences, a postgraduate student of the History program, and a former staff member or student. In choosing the Annual Lecturer, the committee will attempt to balance national and international scholars and scholars at different stages of their careers.

The Lecture will be an occasion for a reunion of current and former staff, students, and visitors of the History Program.

The Lecture will be associated with a brief summary of the scope of Allan's historical interests and activities to illuminate his professional activity over a period of fifty years.

Allan William Martin 1926-2002

Allan Martin was an intellectual, institutional and social pioneer whose career as a historian spanned the second half of the twentieth century. When most Australians went to England for their postdoctoral work, he chose the fledgling Australian National University, where he was the first doctoral student in History in the Research School of Social Sciences, graduating in 1955. When few historians wrote about Australia, his thesis focused on nineteenth-century New South Wales politics; and he insisted on the importance of cross-disciplinary work when this was unfashionable. His first major book, Parliament Factions and Parties: The First Thirty Years of Responsible Government in New South Wales (1966), was written with his longtime friend and collaborator, the political scientist Peter Loveday; and he edited The Emergence of the Australian Party System (1977) with Loveday and political scientist Robert Parker.

After serving his apprenticeship at the University of New South Wales, the University of Melbourne and the University of Adelaide, Allan Martin accepted the Foundation Chair in History at La Trobe University in 1966, at the same time as his wife Jean Martin became Foundation Chair in Sociology. The department he established at La Trobe was distinguished by its global reach, establishing strong programs in North and South American History as well as the more usual British and Australian fields. He and Jean Martin again moved together when he returned to the Research School of Social Sciences as a Senior Fellow in 1973 and Jean took up a position as Professor of Sociology. After Jean's death in 1979, Allan married Beryl Rawson, a distinguished Professor of Classics, providing once again a model of intellectual partnership to younger scholars.

Allan Martin became fascinated by the individuals who created and changed the political system, and his work increasingly became biographical. Beginning with the article, 'William McMillan: A Merchant in Politics' (1955), Allan subsequently wrote about two major lives of Australian politicians, Henry Parkes: A Biography (1980) and Robert Menzies: A Life, 2 vols (1993, 1999). He provided biographical material for the use of the profession in Members of the Legislative Assembly of New South Wales (1959) and a number of entries in the Australian Dictionary of Biography and Dictionary of National Biography, and his Letters from Menie: Sir Henry Parkes and His Daughter (1983) made those valuable social documents more widely available. He came as close as he ever would to autobiography in his article on 'The Country' in Australians from 1939 (1987).

Allan Martin was an innovative teacher whose most influential work was often in graduate and honours seminars. His only article on teaching, in Teaching History, is still much sought after. He reflected on his experience at La Trobe in an edited volume on Universities Facing the Future (1972) and contributed a chapter on Menzies and the Murray Committee to Ideas for Histories of Universities in Australia (1990), edited by F.B. Smith and P. Crichton.


Bibliography

Allan William Martin
1926–2002

Academic Record:
1948 BA (Hons I in History), University of Sydney
1949 Dip Ed, University of Sydney
1952 MA (Hons I, History), University of Sydney
1955 PhD, Australian National University
1967 Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia
1983 Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities


Positions held:
1955-58 Lecturer in History, NSW University of Technology
1959-64 Lecturer, Senior Lecturer in History, University of Melbourne
1965-66 Reader in History, University of Adelaide
1966-73 Foundation Professor of History, La Trobe University
1975-91 Senior Fellow, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University (formerly Senior Research Fellow)
1992 Associate Director, Research School of Social Sciences
1992-98 Visiting Fellow, Law Program, Research School of Social Sciences


Fellowships:
1957 Nuffield Dominion Travelling Fellow (London School of Economics)
1968 Australian-American Foundation Award (Yale University)
1973 University of Melbourne Senior Research Fellowship


PUBLICATIONS
Books  
1959 (with P. Wardle), Members of the Legislative Assembly of New South Wales, ANU Social Science Monograph 16, Canberra: Australian National University, 249 pp.
1966 (with P. Loveday), Parliament Factions and Parties: the First Thirty Years of Responsible Government in New South Wales, Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 207 pp.
1969 (ed.), Essays in Australian Federation, Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, xi + 206 pp.
1976 (with P. Loveday and R.S. Parker, joint editor and contributor), The Emergence of the Australian Party System, Sydney: Hale and Iremonger, xviiii + 536 pp.
1980 Henry Parkes: a Biography, Melbourne: Oxford University Press, xiii + 482 pp.
1983 (ed.), Letters from Menie: Sir Henry Parkes and his Daughter, Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, xix + 192 pp.
1987 (with A. Curthoys and T. Rowse, editor and contributor), Australians from 1939, Sydney: Fairfax, Syme and Weldon, 474 pp.
1993 Robert Menzies: a Life, vol.1 1894-1943, Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, xiiii + 440 pp.; pb. 1996
1993 (ed., with Patsy Hardy) Dark and Hurrying Days: Menzies' 1941 Diary, Canberra: National Library of Australia, x + 177 pp.
1999 Robert Menzies: a Life, vol.2 1944-1978, Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, xx + 596 pp.
2007 The 'Whig' view of Australian history, and other essays, J.R. Nethercote (ed), Melbourne University Press, Carlton, xv + 271 pp.


Articles, Chapters, Pamphlets
1953 'Economic Influences in the "New Federation Movement"', Historical Studies 6. 21: 64-71.
1954 'Free Trade and Protectionist Parties in New South Wales', Historical Studies 6. 23: 315-23.
1955 'William McMillan: a Merchant in Politics', Journal and Proceedings, Royal Australian Historical Society, XL. iv: 1-28.
1956 'The Legislative Assembly of New South Wales, 1856-1900', Australian Journal of Politics and History, 2. 1: 46-67.
1958 'Henry Parkes and Electoral Manipulation, 1872-1882', Historical Studies 8. 31: 268-80.
1958 ’Electoral Contests in Yass and Queanbeyan in the Seventies and Eighties', Journal and Proceedings, Royal Australian Historical Society, 43. iii.
1962 'Pastoralists in the Legislative Assembly of New South Wales, 1870-1890', in A. Barnard (ed.), The Simple Fleece, Melbourne: Melbourne University Press: 577-91.
1962 'Sir Henry Parkes and Public Education in New South Wales', in E.L. French (ed.), Melbourne Studies in Education, 1960-61, Melbourne: 3-47.
1964 Henry Parkes, Oxford (Great Australian series), Melbourne, pp. 30.
1968 (with P. Loveday), 'The Politics of New South Wales, 1856-89. A Reply', Historical Studies, 13. 50: 223-32.
1971 'A Note on the Attempted Assassination of the Duke of Edinburgh, Sydney 1868', La Trobe Historical Studies, 1. 1: 23-42.
1972 (with R. Goldman), 'La Trobe: a Case Study of a New Australian University', in W. Roy Niblett and R. Freeman Butts (eds.), Universities Facing the Future, London: Jossey-Bass: 220-34.
1972 Victoria, One Society?, Meredith Memorial Lecture, La Trobe University, Bundoora, 16pp.
1973 'Australia and the Hartz "Fragment" Thesis', Australian Economic History Review, vol. 13, no. 2: 131-47.
1973 'Henry Parkes: in Search of the "Actual Man Underneath" ', Historical Studies, vol. 16, no. 63: 216-34.
1974 ’Parkes, Sir Henry', Australian Dictionary of Biography 5: 399-406.
1976 'Henry Parkes and the Political Manipulation of Sectarianism', The Journal of Religious History, vol. 9, no. 1: 85-92.
1977 'Drink and Deviance in Sydney: Investigating Intemperance 1854-5', Historical Studies, vol. 17, no. 68: 342-60.
1979 'The Changing Perspective on Australian History', in W.S. Livingstone and W.R. Louis (eds), Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands since the First World War, Canberra and Austin: University of Texas Press: 9-31.
1980 'A New Middle Class? A Note on the 1950s', Australia 1939-1988: A Bicentennial History Bulletin, no. 2: 15-32.
1982 'The "Whig" View of Australian History: a Document', Teaching History, vol. 16, no. 3: 7-25.
1983 'Australian Federation and Nationalism', in R.L. Mathews (ed.), Public Policies in Two Federal Countries: Canada and Australia, Canberra: Australian National University: 27-46.
1983 'The Rural Reconstruction Commission, 1943-7', Australian Journal of Politics and History, vol. 29, no. 2: 218-36.
1984 'Elements in the Biography of Henry Parkes', in James Walter and Raija Nugent (eds), Biographers at Work, Institute for Modern Biography, Griffith University, Brisbane.
1985 'Vietnam and the First Vietnamese Refugees', in J. Ly and F. Lewins (eds), The First Wave: the Settlement of Australia's First Vietnamese Refugees, Sydney: 1-19.
1986 'Henry Parkes', in L. Kramer et al. (eds.), The Greats: the 50 Men and Women Who Most Helped to Shape Modern Australia, Sydney: Angus & Robertson: 103-108.
1987 'Politics', in G. Davison, J.W. McCarty and A. McLeary (eds), Australians 1888, Sydney: 383-401.
1987 'The People' and 'The Country', in A. Curthoys, A.W. Martin and T. Rowse (eds), Australians from 1939, Sydney: 59-76, 99-117.
1987 'Fighting the War', in A. Curthoys, A.W. Martin and T. Rowse (eds), Australians from 1939, Sydney: 20-4, 26-8.
1987 'H.C. Coombs', 'R.G. Menzies', and 'Henry Parkes', in G. Aplin, S.G. Foster and M. McKernan (eds), Australians: A Historical Dictionary, Sydney: 93-4, 266-68, 313-14.
1989 'R.G. Menzies and the Suez Crisis, 1956', Australian Historical Studies, no. 92: 163-85.
1990 'Parkes and the 1890 Conference', Papers on Parliament 9, 18pp.
1990 'An Australian Prime Minister in Ireland: R.G. Menzies, 1941', in F.B. Smith (ed.), Essays in Honour of Oliver MacDonagh, Canberra: Australian National University and Cork: Cork University Press: 180-200.
1990 'R.G. Menzies and the Murray Committee', in F.B. Smith and P. Crichton (eds), Ideas for Histories of Universities in Australia, Canberra: Australian National University: 94-115.
1993 'Writing about Robert Menzies', The Sydney Papers 5. 4: 52-61.
1995 'Menzies the Man', in S. Prosser, J. Nethercote and J. Warhurst (eds), The Menzies Era: A Reappraisal of Government, Politics and Policy, Melbourne: Hale and Iremonger: 17-32.
1995 'New Light on the Petrov Affair: Evatt's Absence from the House', Quadrant 39. 6: 46-50.
1998 'Lyons, Joseph Aloysius', in G. Davison, J. Hirst and S. Macintyre (eds), Oxford Companion to Australian History, Melbourne: Oxford University Press: 404.
1999 'Speech is of Time', in A. Gregory (ed.), The Menzies Lectures, Melbourne: Sir Robert Menzies Lecture Trust: 274-93.
1999 'The Politics of the Depression', in R. Manne (ed.), The Australian Century: Political Struggle in the Building of a Nation, Melbourne: Text Publishing: 80-118.
2000 'Sir Robert Gordon Menzies', in M. Grattan (ed.), Australian Prime Ministers, Sydney: New Holland: 174-205.
2000 'Menzies', Australian Dictionary of Biography 15: 354-61.
2004 'Menzies, Sir Robert Gordon (1894-1978)', Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford: 37. 831-35 (incl. 'Dame Pattie Marie (Pat) Menzies (1899-1995)').
2004 'Parkes, Sir Henry (1815-1896)', Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford: 42. 774-76.


Reviews, including: 1967
'Australian Dictionary of Biography, vol. 1, 1788-1850, A-H (1966)', in Historical Studies 12: 584-86.


ALLAN MARTIN MEMORIAL SERIES
Available from History Program, Research School of Social Sciences, ANU.
2004 In Search of the 'Actual Man Underneath': A.W. Martin and the Art of Biography, Inga Clendinnen, Pandanus Books in association with the History Program, Research School of Social Sciences, ANU, Canberra, 33pp.
2005 Writing histories of difference: new histories of nation and empire, Catherine Hall, Pandanus Books in association with the History Program, Research School of Social Sciences, ANU, Canberra, 41 pp.
2006 Labor's Part in Australian History: A Lament, John Hirst, Pandanus Books in association with the History Program, Research School of Social Sciences, ANU, Canberra, 41pp.