Defence, 1915-1922

Component identifier:

Series 19

Content Summary:

The participation of Australia in World War I caused many changes in the organisation of her defences and evidence of some of them is included in this small series. There are some important letters, minutes and reports on defence policy (Navy Board, October 1915), the reduction of defence expenditure (General White, 1920), the German colonies in the Pacific (J. G. Latham, February 1918), the Council of Defence (George Pearce, March 1918), and the acquisition of guns (A. F. Everett, January 1922). The series also has letters, minutes and reports by Joseph Cook, Walter Massey-Green, Admirals Percy Grant and John Dumaresq, and a paper by the Air Council on the organisation of the Royal Australian Air Force (April 1922).

Immediate source of acquisition:

The W. M. Hughes Papers were presented to the National Library of Australia by Dame Mary Hughes in 1953. The collection was received in two consignments. One consisted of papers taken from the Perpetual Trustee Company comprising material from Hughes' Lindfield home and from his office rooms at the Commonwealth Offices, Sydney; the other came directly from Lindfield. Lists of the contents of both consignments are held in the Library's Manuscript Branch. With the agreement of the executors and the Library, much of the collection, was for a time, held at the Australian National University by Fitzhardinge. He was permitted sole access to the collection while writing the biography Hughes commissioned in 1951. Fitzhardinge's own papers documenting the writing of the biography are also held by the Library (MS 5400). The papers transferred to the Library in 1953 are by no means the total collection of Hughes' personal papers, although it is impossible to say what proportion has survived. (see Fitzhardinge, p.936).

Names:

Hughes, W. M. (1862-1952)

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