Brady as journalist and editor

 
Containers:
Box 19-21
Component identifier:
Series 6
Content Summary:

The 1890s was perhaps Brady's best known and influential phase, for it was then that he contributed to the Bulletin and became involved with the Bulletin School of writers. He also contributed to the Sydney Morning Herald at this time.

During the following years, Brady edited several magazines and contributed to dozens more. In 1892, after the Maritime Strike, he was editing the Australian Workman. From 1901 to 1903 he was proprietor and editor of The Grip, in Grafton. In 1904 he became the editor of the Australian Worker, the journal of the Australian Workers' Union. Among other periodicals he edited were Arrow, and Bird o' Freedom.

Brady moved to Melbourne in 1907 and became editor of the Native Companion, in partnership with the publisher Lothian. This literary magazine unfortunately terminated in December of that year.

Following his settlement at Mallacoota, Brady undertook freelance journalism and regional correspondence. Some of the many newspapers and magazines to which he contributed poems and articles, often under pen-names, were The Weekly Times, Argus, Smith's Weekly, Bank Notes, Sunday Times ('Owl'), Labor Call ('Scrutator'), The Lone Hand, Australian Clothing Trades Journal, Table Talk, Tramway Record and Walkabout.

(a) General papers. Brady's negotiation regarding the fore-mentioned periodicals are documented by the correspondence in this subseries, which consists chiefly of letters to and from editors, publishers, proprietors, contributors and critics, and which occasionally overlap in topic with Series 2 and 7(a), particularly in connection with the birth and death of Bohemia, Creeve Roe and Oscar Mendelsohn's Focus, and the production of political magazines. Correspondents include R.S. Ross, Keith Murdoch and Senator D. Cameron. The rest of this subseries is made up of contributions by readers (Brady's own articles have been incorporated in Series 7(f) or 8(d)), agreements, notes, cuttings, circulars, rejection/acceptance slips, miscellaneous items and a scrapbook of cuttings, photographs, letters and notes entitled 'Grafton and the Clarence River; the Grip; opening up of the Dorrigo'.

(b) Commonwealth Press Agency. Brady took over the Commonwealth Press Agency from William Bede Melville, a Bulletin paragraphist, whom he encountered in Sydney one day in 1903. The business was established in Elizabeth Street and continued until a short time after he moved to Melbourne in 1907, transferring its base there. There is an article by Brady about this enterprise in Series 8(d). Under the scheme, Brady sent a weekly 'Sydney letter' (covering the news of the week – sport, theatre, commerce) to various country newspapers in return for advertising space, which he filled at 15% commission, hiring a canvasser to sell the space to advertisers.

The correspondence is mainly from interested newspaper proprietors and is in chronological order, followed by a Certificate of Registration, circulars and agreements, accounts, receipts, advertising rates and notes.

(c) Farewell dinner, 1906. When Brady was to leave for Melbourne, Roderic Quinn and Bertram Stevens arranged a farewell by his journalist friends, to take place on 20 November 1906. A small group of waterstained letters record the replies of the invited guests, who included Gerald man Thompson, Frank Fox and J. Le Gay Brereton.

Names:
E. J. Brady

Access and use

Parent Restrictions:
Please refer to the collection's catalogue record for the access conditions (http://nla.gov.au/nla.cat-vn2252801).
Parent Terms of Access:
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.
Location of this collection:
Parkes Place
Canberra ACT 2600, Australia
Contact: