Guide to the Papers of Allan Martin, 1954-2002

Summary

Collection number:

MS 9802

Creator:

Allan William Martin

Extent:

13.09 metres and (51 boxes + 23 index card boxes)

Language:

English

Preferred citation:

Items from this collection should be cited as '[Title or description of manuscript item], Papers of Allan Martin, National Library of Australia, MS 9802, [box number and series and/or file number]'.

Availability:

Available

Access conditions:

Available for research. Not for loan.

Background

Content Summary:

The papers of Allan Martin fall into two groups: personal papers, mostly dating from the period 1975-2000, and research materials and indexes that he compiled while writing the biography of Robert Menzies. The personal papers comprise correspondence, notes, drafts of articles, reviews and photographs. Among the correspondents are Manning Clark, John Hirst, Ken Inglis, Peter Ryan and Geoffrey Serle. The research materials comprise copies of personal and official papers, parliamentary debates, newspaper articles, journal articles and other sources on the life of Menzies, together with extensive card indexes.

Biographical Note:

Allan Martin was born in Forbes, New South Wales, on 27 August 1926, the son of a schoolteacher. He was educated at country schools and served briefly in the Royal Australian Air Force. He then attended the University of Sydney, where he studied history under Stephen Roberts. After gaining his MA, he enrolled as the first doctoral student in history at the Australian National University. He gained his doctorate in 1956, with a thesis on nineteenth century New South Wales politics.

Martin lectured at the University of New South Wales (1955-58), the University of Melbourne (1959-64) and the University of Adelaide (1965-66), before being appointed the foundation Professor of History at La Trobe University in 1966. He was Dean of the Faculty of Humanities in 1970-71. His early publications included Parliamentary factions and parties: the first thirty years of responsible government in New South Wales, 1856-1889 (1966), co-written with Peter Loveday, and Essays in Federation (1969). Throughout most of these years he was engaged on a major biography of Sir Henry Parkes. To gain more time for researching and writing, he returned to the Australian National University in 1973 and in 1975 became a Senior Fellow in History in the Research School of Social Sciences, where he stayed until his retirement in 1991. He was a Visiting Fellow in the Law Program in 1992-93. Henry Parkes: a biography was published in 1980.

In 1983 Martin was asked by the Menzies Family to write a biography of Sir Robert Menzies, a task that was to occupy most of his time for the rest of his life. Volume 1 of Robert Menzies: a life appeared in 1993 and Volume 2 in 1999, one of the great Australian political biographies. He wrote several other shorter works on Menzies and had a strong interest in the art of biography.

Martin was a Fellow of both the Australian Academy of the Humanities and the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia. In 1998 he was made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM). He was awarded, posthumously, the Centenary Medal in 2003.

Martin married Jean Craig in 1955 and they had two sons. Jean Martin, who was Professor of Sociology at La Trobe University, died in 1979. In 1983 Allan Martin married Beryl Rawson, who was Dean of the Faculty of Arts and subsequently Head of the Department of Classics at the Australian National University. He died in Canberra on 31 May 2002.

Immediate Source of Acquisition:

Allan Martin carried out much of his research on the life of Robert Menzies in the National Library and became closely acquainted with its reading rooms and staff. In 1998 he acknowledged a debt to his friends in the Manuscript Room 'who over months, nay years, took it in their stride that I had become something of a permanent fixture in their hallowed precincts'. It was therefore appropriate that in 2001 Martin should lodge his extensive research materials and indexes on Menzies in the Library. They now form series 10-13 of the Martin Papers. In 2003 his wife Beryl Rawson presented the correspondence and other files that form series 1-9 of the papers.

Arrangement:

The research materials on Robert Menzies were arranged and indexed in the most meticulous way by Martin and his research assistants Patsy Hardy and Pam Crichton. That arrangement has been maintained by the Library. The papers received in 2003 were in a filing cabinet in Martin's home and were filed in several sequences, mainly by date or alphabetically but in places erratically. All files have been kept intact, but the order of files has to some extent been imposed by the Library.

Conditions Governing Access:

Please refer to the collection's catalogue record for the access conditions (http://nla.gov.au/nla.cat-vn3297610).

Conditions Governing Use:

Copying and publishing of unpublished manuscript material is subject to copyright restrictions. For such material, written permission to publish must be obtained from the copyright holder(s). Copying of unpublished material for research purposes is permissible 50 years after the death of the creator of the material.

Preferred citation:

Items from this collection should be cited as '[Title or description of manuscript item], Papers of Allan Martin, National Library of Australia, MS 9802, [box number and series and/or file number]'.

Location of this collection:

National Library of Australia

Parkes Place

Canberra ACT 2600, Australia

Contact:

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