Correspondence, 1918-1919

Component identifier:

Subseries 23-1

Content Summary:

This subseries comprises letters, cables and telegrams received or sent by Hughes and is in date order. They cover the war situation, Allied policy on the treatment of prisoners, the political scene in Australia, the problem of Birdwood's replacement as Australian Corps Commander, the raising of an additional 3-4000 light-horsemen, Japanese interest in nickel and iron ore in New Caledonia and copper in the New Hebrides, preparations for the Paris Peace Conference, and the opinion of the Australian Cabinet on various questions referred to it by Hughes.

The main correspondents are Sir Ronald Munro-Ferguson, George Pearce, C. E. W. Bean, W. A. Watt, H. S. Gullett, Keith Murdoch, Sir Ronald Anderson, General Monash, Annie Kenny, Walter Long, Lord Cecil, Theodore Roosevelt, Andrew Fisher, Sir Henry Wilson, Henry Lambert, Lloyd George, and E. A. Box. There are also some copies of Hughes' letters to Lloyd George, Alfred Milner, and Walter Long.

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)

Contents

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