Australian Institute of International Affairs, 1928-1961

Component identifier:

Series 69

Content Summary:

The Australian Institute of International Affairs (A.I.I.A.) was formed in 1932 to replace the Australian state branches of the Royal (formerly British) Institute of International Affairs. The Institute and its predecessors organised discussions and published papers on world politics, Commonwealth affairs, etc. and Copland's interest in economics had led to a strong interest in such subjects by the early 1920s.

The first part of Series 69 documents Copland's connection with Victorian groups of the British Institute of International Affairs and Royal Institute of International Affairs. There are membership tickets, correspondence with Keith Officer, L. Curtis and Tristan Buesst, circulars, financial statements, and a paper by E.L. Piesse for a 1928 Royal Institute of International Affairs meeting titled 'The Freedom of the Seas'.

The remainder of the series divides between A.I.I.A. Victorian Branch papers and later items. The former is a mixture of agenda, lists of members, circulars, copies of the Austral-Asiatic Bulletin and some correspondence with F.W. Eggleston, the Victorian Branch Chairman when Copland was a member of its Executive Committee in 1938. The latter consists of some correspondence about the Institute in 1961 with Professor G. Greenwood and N. Dickens, some copies of Australia's Neighbours and a copy of Copland's A.I.I.A. sponsored Roy Milne Lecture at Hobart in 1957 called 'Australia and the changing world in Asia'.

(The Institute also constituted the Australian National Group of the Institute of Pacific Relations.)

Immediate source of acquisition:

Lady Copland presented the personal papers of Sir Douglas Copland to the National Library in September 1973. Additions to the collection were received from the Copland Family between 1977 and 1981.

Names:

Copland, D.B. (Douglas Berry), 1894-1971

Access and use