Guide to the Papers of R. Selkirk Panton, 1901-1991

Summary

Collection number:

MS 5808

Creator:

R. Selkirk Panton

Extent:

2.21 metres and (13 boxes + 2 folios)

Language:

English

Preferred citation:

Items from this collection should be cited as '[Title or description of manuscript item], Papers of R. Selkirk Panton, National Library of Australia, MS 5808, [box number and series and/or file number]'.

Availability:

Available

Access conditions:

Available for reference. Not for loan.

Background

Content Summary:

The collection contains material from three main stages of Panton's life: 1926-1940, derived from Panton's pre-war life in Europe; 1940-1944, during the period of his internment by the Germans in Denmark; 1945-1951, his return to active reporting, including attendance of the Nuremberg war crime trials and reporting on the Korean War. Other papers concern the journalistic and charity work he undertook following his return to Australia in 1952 and draft materials for planned autobiographical works.

The papers include press collects and cuttings, diaries, correspondence, diaries, draft and manuscript material, notebooks, photographs, tourist maps and guides, and ephemera such as holiday souvenirs.

The file added in 2004 contained further materials for Panton's intended autobiography and was placed with the existing autobiographical materials in File 73.

Biographical Note:

Ronald Selkirk Panton was born in Pymble, New South Wales, on 11 May 1907, the son of Charles S. Panton, a journalist and newspaper editor in Sydney and Melbourne and later General Secretary of the Federal Viticultural Council.

Panton left school at 14 with the ambition of following his father to become a journalist, although his first jobs were as an office boy and initial attempts at freelance journalism resulted in limited success. He considered working his passage to England, but was pre-empted when his father offered his two sons a return fare to England and ?100 for expenses.

Panton used the money to fund a bicycle tour of Britain and the Continent, then in September 1927 joined the Berlitz Language School in Berlin where he taught English to, among others, senior members of the Reichsbank and Reichspost. In 1929 he was commissioned to open a Berlitz School in Breslau. In Berlin he met Sefton (‘Tom') Delmer, soon to become Berlin correspondent for the London Daily Express, who helped Panton gain his first full-time journalistic position as the assistant Berlin correspondent, commencing in September 1929. The same year he met his first wife, Natalia Snessarev (also known as Natasha), a White Russian and daughter of the editor of Novo Vreme; they married the following year. In 1933 Panton became the Express' correspondent in Vienna, returning to Berlin in 1935 when he was made Bureau Chief. Throughout the 1930s he gained many front-page leaders and ‘scoops', reporting the rise of the Nazis, the Greek anti-monarchic coup of 1935, the surprise marriage of Prince George and Princess Marina, and the murder of Austrian Chancellor Dr Engelbert Dollfuss. He attended all three meetings between Neville Chamberlain and Adolf Hitler, and met Hitler, Hermann Göring and other senior Nazi officials socially.

Panton and his wife left Germany for neutral Denmark in November 1939 in order to establish a news service based there, but they were interned in April 1940 following German occupation of the country. Their son, Ronald Nicholas Charles Jens (‘Kolya'), was born shortly afterwards. In either February or March 1945 they were repatriated to Britain and Panton became a war correspondent attached to the US First Army. He was present at the first link-up of American and Russian forces and reported on the Potsdam conference and the surrender of Admiral Dönitz. He was the only Australian journalist present at the Nuremberg war crime trials and one of two British journalists to be present at the executions. He was later present in Berlin throughout the Blockade of 1948-1949.

In December 1950 Panton went to South East Asia to head a team of Daily Express reporters covering the Korean War. He had divorced from Natasha earlier that year. He returned to London the following year and in 1952 returned permanently to Australia, bringing with him his recently-married second wife, Hungarian-born Katalin (‘Kitty') Helena Agnes Pugh (née Eperjesy) and her daughter, Coral. In Sydney Panton became a foreign affairs columnist for the Sun and held a regular commentary program for commercial radio broadcaster 2UE. He also became involved in charity work for such organizations as the Westminster Abbey Appeal, Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust Fund, United Nations Appeal for Children and the Deaf and Blind Children's Appeal. From 1958 until his retirement in 1966 he was the Readers' Digest book editor and worked for the University of Sydney Post-Graduate Medical Foundation. He became public relations officer for the Royal Blind Society in 1971. He died in Sydney on 2 February 1975.

Immediate Source of Acquisition:

The papers were donated to the Library in 1977 by Joan Provis, sister of Ronald Panton. A small quantity of material was added in 2004 by Panton's son, Ronald N. Panton.

Arrangement:

With the exception of Series 7 (photographs) and some of the miscellaneous material and notebooks in Series 4 and 5, the papers seem to have been filed by Panton himself. The files were organised into series by the Library. Of the sorted material, most items were ordered by type and chronology; the few individual items out of date sequence have been left in their original position within the files.

The arrangement also appears to have been made to facilitate the writing of an autobiography and a book concerning Panton's experiences of the war and immediate post-war period. For instance, the file entitled ‘Book' (File 74) contains a one-page handwritten life chronology for Panton which includes some descriptive titles which also appear as titles of subject files.

Similarly, File 73 contains a much lengthier, typewritten chronology of significant personal, historical and news events on which Panton reported in his letters and Daily Express articles. The chronology covers the period 1907-1950 with a lacuna from 1947-1949 and the years 1939-1945 dealt with very briefly. Copies have been placed with the appropriate year's correspondence/cuttings files, although the originals include handwritten annotations and minor corrections. Some parts of the chronology for the years 1928-1939 draw heavily on the Panton's letters to his parents, and were typed-up separately with the handwritten heading ‘Letters'. Many of the Series 2 correspondence/cuttings files for the years 1927-1940, and a few other files, include small, handwritten notes, which likewise constitute rubrics of interesting, colourful and noteworthy events.

Indexed terms

Names:

R. Selkirk Panton

Conditions Governing Access:

Please refer to the collection's catalogue record for the access conditions (http://nla.gov.au/nla.cat-vn1398825).

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 R. Selkirk Panton, National Library of Australia, MS 5808, [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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