Start Date
3-10-1999 1:00 PM
End Date
3-10-1999 1:30 PM
Description
When, on New Year's Day 1952, Sir John Ferguson, the eminent bibliographer and Industrial Commission judge, wrote to his friend and colleague, M.H. Ellis, the anticommunist historian, he evinced sentiments with which many labour historians would agree. Ferguson knew of EIlis's practice of collecting left-wing literature, especially pamphlets published by the Communist Party of Australia (CPA). Ferguson was concerned that these should be preserved, perhaps, he suggested, as part of his large collection of Australiana lodged at the National Library of Australia. If Ellis acceded to this request, Ferguson advised, future students of 'sociology' would have access to a 'large body of material covering every period which may touch his thesis, e.g. the I.w.w. campaign .. .in N.S.W. was Lang right'.1 No doubt influenced by ongoing displays of personal regard from H.L. White, the National Librarian, Ellis's pamphlets did end up in Canberra, though not as part of the broader Ferguson collection, but as a holding in their own right2 • M.H. Ellis was rarely inclined to share the limelight.
Malcolm Ellis: Labour Historian? Spy?
When, on New Year's Day 1952, Sir John Ferguson, the eminent bibliographer and Industrial Commission judge, wrote to his friend and colleague, M.H. Ellis, the anticommunist historian, he evinced sentiments with which many labour historians would agree. Ferguson knew of EIlis's practice of collecting left-wing literature, especially pamphlets published by the Communist Party of Australia (CPA). Ferguson was concerned that these should be preserved, perhaps, he suggested, as part of his large collection of Australiana lodged at the National Library of Australia. If Ellis acceded to this request, Ferguson advised, future students of 'sociology' would have access to a 'large body of material covering every period which may touch his thesis, e.g. the I.w.w. campaign .. .in N.S.W. was Lang right'.1 No doubt influenced by ongoing displays of personal regard from H.L. White, the National Librarian, Ellis's pamphlets did end up in Canberra, though not as part of the broader Ferguson collection, but as a holding in their own right2 • M.H. Ellis was rarely inclined to share the limelight.