Defence, c.1920-1941

Component identifier:

Subseries 32-1

Content Summary:

These papers relate basically to the work of the Cabinet subcommittee and the organisation it worked through, the Australian Defence League (ADL). There are letters and telegrams from Ministers of Defence, particularly G. A. Street, concerning the expenses of the ADL, the lines of responsibility between the subcommittee, the branches of the ADL, and the Army Recruiting Secretariat, and the strength of the Army. Other letters are from branch secretaries of the ADL, the Director-General of Recruiting Norman Whitefield, State Recruiting Committees, Pauline Grieve of the ADL Women's Auxiliary, other groups which supported the recruiting drive, and others such as Percy Deane.

This subseries also includes press statements, notes and drafts for speeches and broadcasts on defence, newscuttings including an album on Mussolini, Hitler, Great Britain defence preparations and Hughes recruiting rallies. The few items on the Defence of Australia League include a draft constitution, some correspondence, notes on the strategic importance of air defence and statistics on army numbers, an open letter to Hughes from Sir Thomas Henley, and the League's pamphlet Australia's defence.

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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