4: Personal Despatches to Secretaries of State for Colonies, 1914-1917

Containers:

Box 1, Box 2

Component identifier:

Series

Content Summary:

Copies of 'Personal and Secret' or 'Personal and Confidential' despatches to Secretaries of State for the Colonies, May 1914 - December 1917. The Secretaries of State were LV Harcourt (1914-May 1915), A. Bonar Law (May 1915- December 1916) and Walter Long (December 1916-December 1918. These despatches were sent weekly, but some despatches have been filed in other bundles in this Series under subject headings. Some sections of the letters dealing with Australian politicians have been erased and pages have occasionally been removed from the letters; some letters are incomplete and files also include some drafts, duplicates and extracts duplicating portions of the despatches. The despatches being 'Personal' and compiled by Novar himself for the Secretary of State alone give comments and details of politics supplementary to the official despatches seen by other departmental officers (in Items 1573-2332) and are only given in these despatches and the personal letters (Items 999-1572). Enclosures are included. The subjects include: Australian Federal politics generally and WM Hughes, in particular; details of Novar's personal life and his relations with leading politicians; defence and the War; the 1914 double dissolution; the Pacific and Australia's relation with Japan; control of former German colonies post-war; wartime finance; New South Wales politics and WM Holman ; Federal-State relations; recruiting and conscription; the character of State Governors; Novar's reflections on his role as GG; wartime security and the Industrial Workers of the World (I.W.W.); Archbishop Mannix; and government shipping.

Comprises Items 524-998.

Immediate source of acquisition:

The papers were received in 1961 from Mr A.B.L. Munro Ferguson and the Trustees of the late Viscount Novar. Thirty photographs copied from the Novar albums in the possession of Mr Munro Ferguson were added to the collection in 1985. Subsequent additions include five illuminated manuscripts purchased from a dealer in 1990 and transcripts of extracts from Novar's diaries donated by Professor John Poynter in 1997. Six volumes of diaries, on long-term loan from Mr Ronald Munro Ferguson (great nephew of Lord Novar), were added to the collection on 12 January 2004. The diaries were kept by Lord Novar while he was Governor General of Australia between 1915 and 1920.

Access and use