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First for Politics and International Relations Book Reviews

Review of:

Australian Dictionary of Biography: Supplement 1580-1980 edited by Christopher Cuneen, Jill Roe, Beverley Kingston, Stephen Garton
Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 2005
$74.95

Reviewed By: Craig Barrett
Reviewed in: Australian Journal of Politics and History
Date accepted online: 14/01/2008
Published in print: Volume 53, Issue 03, Pages 465-504
See all reviews for this journal

Book Reviews

The first volume of the Australian Dictionary of Biography (ADB) was published in 1966. Since that time, sixteen volumes have been produced, providing biographical information for over 10,000 notable Australians who died by 1980. The project is an ongoing one, with new volumes being compiled for those who have died since 1980.

This supplement includes five hundred new entries of people who were left out of the first sixteen volumes. The individuals included are of significance in well-established fields, such as convict history, and new fields of historical enquiry such as "women's history, Indigenous history and social and cultural history" that emerged since the ADB project first began. The supplement also includes an index of all entries in the sixteen volume series, which makes the volume particularly useful and a welcome addition to one's reference library.

There are a number of prominent Australians included in this volume that illustrate the value of a supplement. For example, one can find information on Eliza Fraser, who was shipwrecked off the coast of Queensland in 1836 and whose experience with the Aborigines there generated both local and international interest at the time. Fraser's story also inspired the artist Sidney Nolan and novelist Patrick White. Another example is that of Frances De Groot, furniture manufacturer and member of the proto-fascist New Guard, which was prominent in New South Wales in the 1930s. De Groot is most famous for opening the Sydney Harbour Bridge before the Labor premier of New South Wales, J.T. Lang, had a chance to do so. De Groot, on horseback, dramatically cut the ribbon with a sword. For years afterwards, "pranksters" would often disrupt the opening of roads and bridges in New South Wales by "doing a De Groot". And, perhaps most important of all, the brewer James Boag is given an entry.

The editors of the supplement, by drawing attention to people left out of the first sixteen volumes, ensure the work also provides a useful point of reflection on the entire ADB as a project. The ADB is an "institution" and the process of compiling it has its own history. In this sense the supplement not only provides more entries, but illustrates some of the major trends in Australian historiography over the last few decades.

The primary purpose of the ADB, however, is biographical information. For this reason alone the latest volume represents an informative and fascinating resource for anyone interested in Australian history and the people that make it come alive.