Guide to the Papers of Ian Turner, 1948-1979

Summary

Collection number:

MS 6206

Creator:

Ian Turner

Extent:

15.8 metres and (113 boxes + 14 folios)

Language:

English

Preferred citation:

Items from this collection should be cited as '[Title or description of manuscript item], Papers of Ian Turner, National Library of Australia, MS 6206, [box number and series and/or file number]'.

Availability:

Available

Access conditions:

Part available for research; part requires permission for research. Not for loan.

Background

Content Summary:

The collection comprises a large quantity of correspondence, consisting of letters from his family, academic and literary associates, friends, publishers, numerous organizations and reflects his wide interests. Copies of many of his own letters are included. There are drafts and background material relating to his own books: Cinderella dressed in yella; Sydney burning; In union is strength: a history of trade unions in Australia; The Australian dream; The depression of the 1930s; Peter Lalor; Industrial labour and politics: the labour movement in Australia, 1900-1921.

Academic material includes radio and university lecture notes, some student research papers, reports on theses and manuscripts, references and records concerning Monash University government.

Subject files are intensive, including research on Australian Aborigines, Australian history, the Australia Council, the Vietnam war, apartheid in South Africa, socialism, the Australian Labor Party, Broadsheet, Arena and Overland. There is a large quantity of pamphlets, ephemera and printed material dealing with these and numerous other subjects.

Biographical Note:

Ian Turner was born on March 10, 1922, at East Malvern, Melbourne, the son of Francis Turner, a wheat farmer, and his wife Nina, nee Lang. He was educated at Nhill State School, Geelong College (on a scholarship) and the University of Melbourne, from which he graduated in 1949 (LL.B., 1948; B.A., 1949).

In 1941 Turner was called up for service in the militia, later transferring to the Australian Imperial Forces. In the following year he joined the Communist Party of Australia. While in the A.I.F. he served as a driver with headquarters staff in Queensland and in New Guinea, where he was reduced in the ranks from lance corporal to private for insubordination. Later he became an acting corporal in the Australian Army Education Service, and was discharged from the A.I.F. in Melbourne in February 1945. He then returned to the University where he studied History and Politics under Max Crawford, Percy Partridge, and Manning Clark. After graduation he joined the railways as a cleaner and threw himself into the work of the Communist Party and the Australian Railways Union; he was sacked by the railways in 1952.

In 1958 Turner was expelled from the Communist Party after expressing opposition to the Soviet Union’s suppression of the Hungarian uprising of 1956. He then studied at the Research School of Social Sciences at the Australian National University, being awarded a Ph.D. in 1963. From 1962-1964 he lectured at the University of Adelaide, after which he moved to Monash University where he established himself as an inspiring teacher of Australian history in the radical nationalist tradition. He maintained a long association with Stephen Murray-Smith and the journal Overland.

Turner married Amirah Gust in 1948 and they had three children before being divorced. In 1968 he married Ann Barnard. He died in 1978 while playing beach cricket, on Erith Island in Bass Strait.

[Source: The Australian Dictionary of Biography, v.16].

Immediate Source of Acquisition:

The Library purchased the bulk of the collection from Dr Leonie Sandercock in 1979. Further papers were donated to the Library in several instalments between 1981 and 1996.

Indexed terms

Names:

Ian Turner

Conditions Governing Access:

Please refer to the collection's catalogue record for the access conditions (http://nla.gov.au/nla.cat-vn2594538).

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 Ian Turner, National Library of Australia, MS 6206, [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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