Home Australia Ann Moyal (1926-2019), Generous Helper of Scholars

Ann Moyal (1926-2019), Generous Helper of Scholars

27


by Mary W Maxwell, LLB

I have just learned of the death, in July, of a wonderful independent woman, Ann Moyal, who did a lot for Australian intellectual life and who was an enthusiastic supporter of scholars. Happily she made it to age 93.

Canberra was her home for decades and she loved it.

Many of her Canberra years were spent working on The Australian Dictionary of Biography.  Someday she will be written up for that book, but there is a mandatory wait for 15 years after an Aussie passes away.

Let me walk you through Dr Moyal’s bibliography. Her best known book, Breakfast with Beaverbrook, is about her the years she spent in England. She was a secretary for the Canadian media man, Beaverbrook, and often dealt with Churchill. Two other books reflect her fascination with communication: Clear across Australia, a History of Telecommunications (1985), and Women and the Telephone in Australia (1989).

She was an important historian of Australian science, unaffiliated with any facullty. Her diverse items include: Invention and innovation in Australia: the historian’s lens (1986);  A woman of influence: science, men & history (2014), and The clever country: scientists in Australia (1996). Sha also write the story of her husband’s work: Maverick mathematician: the life and science of J E Moyal.

Ann’s book Platypus (2002) was well received and she followed up in 2008 with Koala. I recall her telling me that although she was grateful to the Smithsonian for making a big deal about Playpus, and bringing her to Washington to receive praise, she reckoned some of her more controversial stuff would better have got the attention.

Many scholars in Oz owe Ann a salute. She was very generous with her time and encouragement of others, especially women. She would network for you and take you seriously. Ann suggested that I form an Adelaide branch of her Independent Scholars Association in 1998.  I told my husband George I was not going to do it.  He said “You will do it.” (See, it’s not only women who encourage women!)

Here is a typical exchange of emails in recent years:

Dear Mary,

What a lovely message! It gave me great pleasure. Thank you for your generous words.

I must assume that you spend much of your time in the USA; as for writing multiple books I would say you are phenomenally active!

This past six months have been unlovable for! me as I have been on high cortisone doses to cure an eye problem; the treatment proving far worse than  the ailment and energy has ebbed!  But I do hope, when spring comes that you may be a visitor here; it’s a beautiful space I have and a spare room, so I look forward to seeing you here at last.

Good luck with your new book. Mine was launched at the Portrait Gallery about 3 weeks ago; its only illustration being its cover of a rather glamorous young woman [herself] painted in England countless years ago which the National Portrait Gallery holds.

Love to you and good wishes.

[Reply to Ann]

Hi, maybe I told you this before but in 2012 I was showing off the Nat Gallery to a Canadian visitor and I told the front desk they should have a photo of Ann Moyal, whereupon they ran and fetched the portrait from their store.

(They did similar for pix of Bert Flugelman and John Robin Warner, nobel prize winner — he was George’s student.)

So sorry about your eye. I’ll come over and kill someone for you. That seems to be my specialty.

I don’t have Internet and am using a restaurant.

Lov M

Australia for the Australians  New Thoughts on the “Lucky” Country

When writing this obit for Ann, I searched GumshoeNews archives as I was sure I had done an article about Moyal’s adventure in 2014.  I see that in fact I published it “abroad” in Rumor Mill News. So here it is now, where it belongs, in Australia.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of “The Lucky Country” by Donald Horne. Recently, Prince William said that Australia is a lucky country, but that’s not what Horne meant. The original 1964 book says, in effect, “Aussies, wake up, you are riding on MERE LUCK. Your leaders are second-rate. Go on, put a little effort into it.”

Last week, at the beautiful National Library in Canberra, the Independent Scholars Association of Australia held a re-think of The Lucky Country. The first speaker, Julia Horne, did her late father proud, encouraging everyone, anyone, to put more imagination into seeing where the country could head. You go, girl!

Science was a main theme. Ann Moyal’s book, “A Bright and Savage Land,” is a truly exciting record of how ordinary folks in colonial Australia produced science, without benefit of — I hate this word — “funding.” Boys tinkered around, making discoveries and inventions. No reason they can’t do it today; the human brain hasn’t changed. Why be intimidated by words like “nano-technology”? Bring it all back to the human level, I say!

Ian Lowe, ex-Griffith professor, stepped up to the podium and noted that “Science is not a body of knowledge; it is a process.” By the way, Lowe thinks that Donald Horne’s reference to second-rate leaders in 1964 would be a compliment compared to what we have now.

A comparison between poet Judith Wright’s critique of Australia and Horne’s Lucky Country was offered by Joy Wallace and John O’Carroll, who charmingly read their speech in tandem. They are faculty at the (mostly online) Charles Sturt University.

Pat Anderson, chair of the Lowitja Institute, gave a retrospective of her own life as an Aboriginal child in Darwin, and mentioned the exhilaration of finding out, in the Sixties, that other groups were working for justice, too. (Have you noticed that the concept of justice is becoming a museum piece?). Pat observed that all the statistical gains by indigenous people since the Seventies are presently making a fast track backwards (except university enrollments). She wants the Northern Territory to have bilingual schooling, so the teachers can tell the kids, in their own language, “You can have a thrilling future if you bother to get educated!” Yay!

As for Horne noticing that we are situated close to Asia, daughter Julia explained that Dad had married a Brit after the war and went to live in England until 1958. Bringing back new insights to Sydney, he boldly urged his countrymen, “Have a look at a world map. See where you are!”

This theme of Asian Australia wasn’t developed at the conference. But it needs to be! The ethnic mix of the Canadian city of Vancouver has been more than 50% Chinese for years, and in Adelaide I can gauge from the number of Chinese students who are winning Permanent Residence, that this city, too, will have a Chinese majority one day.

So let’s get on with it and discuss how the values of East and West can be compared, and merged. There’s no percentage in reiterating that being an Aussie is defined by the events of the Eureka stockade or, God help us, Gallipoli. Also, we’ve got African and South American Australians now. Better get their input.

In 1961, when editor Donald Horne removed the phrase “Australia for the white man” from the masthead of The Bulletin, an indignant 25% of the subscribers promptly cancelled their subscription. Ha. Did they think their indignation was going to stop the demographics?

Note: I’m not suggesting that current immigration policy boils down to demographics. Policy boils down to policy, and that boils down to me and thee.

At the Independent Scholars meeting, David Headon gave a paper entitled “Nation without a Mind.” It was a pro-republic speech from a devotee. Actually, he yelled the whole thing; a new form of oratory, quite enlivening! Headon took aim at Quentin Bryce, our recent Governor General, for accepting the title of Dame. “She should have imitated Deakin and many others who refused a knighthood. This island continent is not Pommie HQ, thank you very much.”

To me, it seems that anyone who wanted Oz to become a republic, but allowed the bamboozlement of the 1998 referendum to take place, deserves what he or she got. (Incidentally, why would anyone trust the ballot-counting in Scotland’s recent vote for non-Independence?)

If you really want to be a republic, if you want to have leaders who aren’t tenth rate, and if you don’t like being ‘designed’ by a remote World Government, better do what Julia Horne suggests: Use your imagination!

Or to put it in the Australian idiom, and we can only pray that Australia will not lose its marvelous idiom:

“Don’t be a wanker, Mate. Why not tip the bastards out? Just use your bloody imagination!”

SHARE

27 COMMENTS

  1. Two corrections. First, the date of her work with Beaverbrook. Patricia Clarke, writing at “Obituaries Australia” ( oa.anu.edu.au), says:

    Ann Moyal was born Ann Veronica Hurley at Northbridge, Sydney, on 23 February 1926. After graduating BA Hons from University of Sydney in 1946 she was awarded a scholarship to London University. In 1954 she became research assistant to Lord Beaverbrook working on his book Men and Power 1917-1918 published in 1956. [But she may have worked for Beaverbrook before that?]

    Clarke also gives Ann’s year of birth as 1926. I thought it was 1925, but I changed it to 1923 in the title of my article, as I was copying it from what I took to be a reliable source. At the moment I do not have any of Moyal’s books to hand. I will correct it for the record after I ascertain. Apologies.

  2. Thank you Mary as always–you validate me- from a different perspective.
    ‘Pat observed that all the statistical gains by indigenous people since the Seventies are presently making a fast track backwards (except university enrollments). She wants the Northern Territory to have bilingual schooling, so the teachers can tell the kids, in their own language, “You can have a thrilling future if you bother to get educated!” Yay!”

    Arrgghh Mary–what to say–Coming from a white dominant western christian linear perspective rather than a culturally spiritual philosophical perspective. Not to mention the evil colonial intent managed through ‘politics”– “if you bother to get educated” They will only be educated when the tjukura step back.

    “This theme of Asian Australia wasn’t developed at the conference. But it needs to be! The ethnic mix of the Canadian city of Vancouver has been more than 50% Chinese for years, and in Adelaide I can gauge from the number of Chinese students who are winning Permanent Residence, that this city, too, will have a Chinese majority one day.”

    another aargh–arrggh arrgh ” Darwin Port now owned by Chinese.
    Adani –India– Pine gap –US– well UK Tavi has a lot to answer for and everything now run by/driven by Serco.
    Bless you Mary

    • M’dear, I don’t ken the word TJUKURA. But I sense that you mean “Whites out, please.” I am pretty sure there will never be a whites-out policy or an Asians-out policy on this continent.

      Think about your Roma ancestry in Europe — where did they come from? Where did your Anglo ancestors come from? Every group has moved around — does that not also include the various indigenous groups within Australia? Strong tribes could have ousted weak ones.

      Diane, you have imbued me with the notion that Aboriginal spiritual culture — and knowledge – is superior. That much I can buy. And maybe other ancient groups, too, had direct primal awareness of aspects of nature that i am utterly ignorant of. (Did you notice in yesterday’s comments that the Vedic scriptures were appreciated by “our” top physicists?)

      Mind you, I’m aghast at foreign ownership of the port of Darwin. And the word Serco sends shivers down my spine. I always thank you for spotlighting Tavi, the best kept secret of the 20th century, and I don’t just mean you have revealed Tavi in Oz, Diane.

      • Tjulkara mispelt sorry. –no not whites out– more working together–shoulder to shoulder– shared vision- shared language- Anangu in front—-grassroots–bala-ga-lili–a reciprocity that enables everyone to be valued heard–at the table–a different language

  3. SERCO. Further to Diane’s comment. Here is an Absolutely Unabashed statement by SERCO. Don’t miss at 1.42 when they say “The Australian Navy trusts us.” In some countries they claim to run “Justice.” THIIIIINK ABOUT IT. Justice by Tavi, the home of MK-Ultra. OMG OMG OMG.

  4. Why do you refuse to acknowledge that the so-called “1998 referendum” was nothing more than a failed attempt to obfuscate the legal status of the extant government ?

  5. SERCO is pure evil with their sinister movements, methods, influence and control.

    Abel Danger and SERCO

    https://www.abeldanger.org/kelly-23-sercos-faculty-of-pedophiles-lists-of-clinton-bilderberg-key-to-ron-brown-crash/

    https://livestream.com/abeldanger/events/3145449/videos/55336656

    https://ukgovernmentwatch.wordpress.com/abel-danger/
    You have to scroll down for awhile

    https://www.abeldanger.org/paddock-serco-death-pool-betting-an-in-depth-conversation-with-david-hawkins-jason-goodman/

  6. Re Ann Moyal would love to locate a History of Telecommunications (1985), and Women and the Telephone in Australia (1989).
    My Grandmother ran the Teesdale Post Office in 1948 for a couple of years she was influential in setting up a Tavistock Node in Geelong.

    Memories flow–I remember spending time with her after school

    Laying out the cables—another aarrgghh–communications–phone tapping–bugging -cyber security-mass surveillance–Telstra G5 –and jobs for some family members

  7. Here is an oddment re Julian. (I went to an Assange “candle planting” tonight at Concord State House. Nobody kicked us off the grass, in fact I don’t think NH has “security.”). Mazing.
    .

    Note: I’m sure Ann Moyal won’t mind this encroachment. She was quite the stand-up-for-academic-freedom lady at Griffith Uni, which involved a controversy. I forget the details but hardly anyone supported her. Hiram Caton did, tho. Thanks to both of them!

  8. 1 The pol sci answer to Maxwellian multiculti delusion was given by Lee Kwan Yew:

    https://infoproc.blogspot.com/2005/08/lee-kuan-yew-interview.html.

    So one sees how the recently. elected ethnic LNP Chinese MHR for Chisholm asked at an induction whether ASIO could vet all people wanting to come and see her.

    Good luck with Gumshoe once Adelaide has a Chinese majority, and surely one is forgetting the Indian influx, not forgetting that Indians and Chinese have always been the best of friends (irony: off).
    By the way, does Mary imagine that a non-white majority will have any interest in voting for the social welfare provision of her children/grandchildren? or will it be their own fault as they occupy, like her, the land of the saintful Adam Goodes:-))?

    On this topic of social welfare, see Paul Craig Roberts

    https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2019/09/07/the-end-of-white-america-is-now-assured/

    2 The nat sci answer to said universalist hallucinations of population increase in a drying country, with the Goyder 300mm rainfall line heading Mary’s way at 1km per year, is Glikson’s post at Arctic News.

    3 The pithy answer, that however does not mention the contribution played by Migrants in Economic Growth (e.g. bush-bashing to create new housing for LNP and ALP crony property developers in outer Melb./Syd/Adel.) is:

    “The hypocrisy of the left:

    Whites are oppressors
    Non-whites are victims
    But race doesn’t exist
    Yet we love racial diversity
    And celebrate the differences
    Because we’re all the same
    So, let’s destroy diversity
    By mixing all together ….
    But only in white countries “

    • No No Scotus, you misread me. I am for closed borders everywhere — as I do not see how morality can function in a society of strangers.

      But who cares about that? Decisions are being made to mix cultures. I was saying you can’t stop it. The Natives in 1788 could not stop Captain Cook and we natives now cant stop nearby Asian countries.

      i also agree that Oz’s physical environment needs protection. Remember Tony Ryan’s cry about Melville Bay?

      What is your proposed method for avoiding the inevitable? I’m dying to hear it. Could you have stopped the Norman conquest? This is going to be good.

      By the way, I don’t approve of the dole as paid by govt.

      You say:
      “The hypocrisy of the left:

      Whites are oppressors
      Non-whites are victims
      But race doesn’t exist
      Yet we love racial diversity
      And celebrate the differences
      Because we’re all the same
      So, let’s destroy diversity
      By mixing all together ….
      But only in white countries “

      I defo don’t say whites are oppressors, tho you may want to consider the Cherokee March or the Opium Wars as a teeny bit oppressive. I nevah say non-whites are victims. I never say LGBT’s are victims. Ain’t never been called a Lefty before. Wow.

      • @Mary. Thanks for clarification. And” how morality can function in a society of stranger”, excellent, yes indeed.

        (looks like I am the lefty, at least on Economics, as I support the payment of dole; Rand and Ron Paul are stuck in their small-town Norman Rockwell myths, notwithstanding their great effort at non-US-interventionism.

        .I concede your Cherokee March and Opium Wars like I concede black African chieftains selling their own people to white slave traders as a matter of course as intertribal war captives and the Muslim massacres of infidels when invading India (Mughals). Macchiavelli 500 years ago, “Il Principe”: : “People are bad unless Necessity makes them good.”

        “Decisions are being made to mix cultures”: otherwise known as: 30 years of economistic neoliberalism and the ascendancy of the finance sector (cf. the pending Fed bill in Aust. banning cash and similar in India, Sweden, Italy, France etc; also the Aust. bail-in law of 2018.) allow the current power grab of very few families in the USA and elsewhere. Hence I would rather say: culture is ignored, an assiduous Korean shopowner is identical for economists to a Fijian drugpusher or Sydney white soclalite. They are all aggregate Demand and boost GDP.

        Via their politician puppets to 1. import unrestricted future debt slaves for banks and 2. (less so due to advancing AI and robotics which are cheaper than workers): low wage workers.

        Re “inevitabilty of conquest”: In 1788, superior Brit-tech and organisation beat stone-using tribes (ABC parlance: “First Nations”) with no overall tactical/strategic coordination.

        In 1066, things were more even, Saxons held out for decades in the northern hills.

        My solution to country-shopping welfare migrants (Arab, Black in the EU and USA) and Chinese/Korean overclass in Adelaide or Vancouver or NY)?:

        as we see in the USA, the latter are increasingly fractious about the former, cf. current legal clash over who gets to attend Ivy League.

        It was not a white but an ethnic Chinese who recently was convicted in NSW for tearing a burka off a female of the Religion of Peace at UNSW.

        Hence: the fight between MENA colonisers in Aust. and Chinese/Indians esp. in Melb. Syd/Bris is preordained, also because it will be a class war in 2 high birth rate MENA cities: Chinese dentist versus Sudanese Centrelink.
        Indian/Chinese relations are going to depend on India/China relations.

        Sorry can’t be more specific. However, an elephant in this room (cf role of Walter Lippmann d. 1993 in respect of White Australia) is Prof Kevin McDonald’s dictum: “Multiculturalism is a post holocaust Jewish survival strategy”. So the near future of Israel will rebound on that, no doubt.

        (Judge Bromberg, who just gave the embattled “Sri Lanka scam” family a 2 week stay, was the one who convicted Andrew Bolt on clause 18C, Bromberg having emigrated here at age 11 from Israel.)

        As Adelaide rainfall in 10 years will be that of Port Pirie (278mm), [source: Adelaide BOM, a lecture I attended and heard with my own ears], Nature will have the last word.

      • So, let’s destroy diversity
        By mixing all together ….
        But only in white countries “

        You hit the nail on the head Mary!

        Do We Need Mass Immigration?
        http://www.civitas.org.uk/pdf/cs23.pdf

        The folly of mass immigration
        https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/folly-of-mass-immigration/
        Small ethnic communities enrich a culture, but large ones will ruin it. Pro-immigrationists do not understand the implications of creating an indistinguishable global melting pot. [Reposted from openDemocracy, May 2003]
        There are two ways to tackle serious social problems: evading them by linguistic trickery, or confronting them openly and honestly. One is easy, though it merely postpones the day of reckoning. The other is difficult, but it alone holds out the promise of a solution.

        The Epochal Challenge of Mass Immigration
        https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2019/09/the-epochal-challenge-of-mass-immigration/

        The Ethnic Predicaments of the Shrinking White Majority
        https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2019/09/the-ethnic-predicaments-of-the-shrinking-white-majority/

        21 Big Pros and Cons of Immigration
        https://vittana.org/21-big-pros-and-cons-of-immigration

        • “You hit the nail on the head Mary!” Holy shite! It was not I who said Destroy diversity by mixing.

          Mix will happen, tho. I mixed my way into Botany Bay (albeit on Qantas), and so did you, O Hoover grad.

          Today’s migrations are planned transmigrasie as pioneered by Stalin, it seems. Like the 5g genocide type thing. Spoil everything! Spoil beauty. Spoil childhood. Spoil relationships. Spoil privacy. etc.

          Arrest Cheney today. Got to start somewhere.

  9. You can have a thrilling future if you leave school at 14 and escape the ‘mind benders’ before they get too strong a grip and become a free thinker. I did, and my wife did and she never went to high school. To see what that can achieve, type in ‘Acacia Woodmaniorum , Greg, Simon and Richard – Wikipedia.’ Cheers, Kevin.

      • As the original intention of State-controlled learning was to undermine language/culture I’d argue that teaching techniques are really only the periphery of the problem.

        Personally I’m convinced that the “better late than early” approach to any form of FORMAL learning is far more sound:
        https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1196833.Better_Late_Than_Early A child who isn’t pushed or pressured is guaranteed acquire more knowledge in two years than one who spends 12 years in a standard classroom situation

        Another major factor is that putting 30-odd babies and toddlers under the care of one or two adult with whom they have no personal relationship is bound to stunt their cognitive development but this has now become the norm.

C'mon Leave a Reply, Debate and Add to the Discussion

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.