Family papers, 1868-1964
- Component identifier:
- Series 10
- Content Summary:
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This series mainly comprises correspondence between Latham and various members of his family. Where Latham's letters to his family deal entirely with public affairs, such as many of his letters written in 1918-1919, they have been placed in the appropriate series but where they are concerned with private family matters they have been placed in this series.
Latham's mother, Janet Scott, migrated to Australia from the Orkneys, Scotland, and married a tinsmith, Thomas Latham, on 2 March 1876. The first papers are a few letters written to Janet Scott by John Houston referring to mutual friends in the Orkneys (1868-1891). The earliest letters received by J. G. Latham were written by his brothers and cousins, Russell and Ethel Fenton, on his tenth birthday in 1887. There is a small amount of correspondence between Latham and his mother when he was teaching at the Hamilton Academy (1897-1898) and when he was holidaying at Mt. Gambier (1901). There are a few other letters from his mother written shortly before her death in 1912.
Latham married Ella Tobin on 19 December 1907 and there are a great many letters which they wrote to each other over the next fifty years, particularly when Latham was overseas in 1918-1919, 1926, 1941 and 1956. Most of the other family letters date from about 1910 onwards. The correspondents include Latham's father, Thomas, who died in 1938, his brothers Bertram, Leslie and Alan, his sister Elsie, his children Richard, Freda and Peter, his cousins the Fentons, and his English cousins the Greigs. There are not many letters written after 1943.
Apart from the letters of Ella Latham, the largest group of letters were written by Latham's eldest son Richard. They date from 1916 to his death in 1943. Like his father, Richard went to Scotch College and Ormond College at the University of Melbourne. He was President of the Students Representative Council and in 1931 was Victoria's Rhodes Scholar. He studied law at Magdalen College, Oxford, and was elected a Fellow of All Souls' College, Oxford. He lectured in law at Oxford and at King's College, London, and wrote several articles on constitutional law. He travelled widely and was in Spain during the Civil War. He joined the British Foreign Office shortly before the War, but later enlisted with the RAF and became a navigator. His plane was lost on a flight to Norway in 1943. Richard Latham wrote regularly to his mother and fairly frequently to his father right up to his death, and he kept his parents' letters. They provide a detailed record of English political and intellectual life in the 1930s, as well as of Richard's personal affairs.
In addition to the correspondence, the series contains documents, manuscripts, newscuttings, publications and photographs. There are typescript copies of documents concerning the Scott Family; certificates awarded to Richard Latham; manuscripts, speeches and a cutting book (c.1917) of Richard Latham; articles by and obituaries of members of the family in the Australian Intercollegian (1928), Melbourne University Magazine (1928), Victorian Historical Magazine (1938), Golden Jubilee of Ivanhoe Methodist Church (1940), Reveille (1944), and the Medical Journal of Australia (1950); a few cuttings concerning Janet and Richard Latham; an album and photographs, including many of Richard and Freda Latham; and the tributes by the Commonwealth Parliament on the death of Sir John Latham, 11 August 1964.
- Immediate source of acquisition:
- The bulk of the collection was presented to the National Library by Sir John Latham in December 1963, a few months before his death. In November 1974 the Library purchased some further papers from a secondhand book dealer. They comprised family letters and photographs, some diaries and papers relating to the High Court. These papers have been amalgamated into the original collection.
Contents
Access and use
- Parent Restrictions:
- Available for research. Not for loan.
- 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:
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Parkes PlaceCanberra ACT 2600, Australia
- Contact: