Russel Ward
Placeholder page. More detailed content in preparation.
Russel Ward (1914–1995) was nominally South Australian, although his father had taught in Queensland — at Thornborough College in Charters Towers — and Western Australia before being appointed principal at Adelaide's Prince Alfred College.
Ward had worked as a teacher before World War II, served in the Citizen Military Forces and the Australian Imperial Force during the War and returned to teaching after he was demobilised.
From there, an MA at Adelaide University, a scholarship to the Australian National University in Canberra, a study of early Australian folk songs led to his ... account of the waves of itinerant labourers in the bush and the outback, using the idea of mateship to explain their survival in harsh environments that subsequently appeared as The Australian Legend in 1958.
While his membership of the Communist Party of Australia — he joined in 1941 and left in 1949 — brought him to the attention of ASIO, and reputedly cost him an appointment as a lecturer at Wagga Wagga Teachers’ College, his academic career subsequently took him to the University of New England as a lecturer (1957-1967), professor of history and deputy chancellor (1981–89)..
He was made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for "service to literature, particularly in the field of Australian history" in the 1986 Queen's Birthday honours list.
Significant works:
Man Makes History (1952)
Felons and Folksongs (1955)
The Australian Legend (1958)
Australia (1967, later A Short History of Australian\)
A Nation for a Continent: The History of Australia, 1901–1975 (1977)
Australia Since the Coming of Man (1982)
Finding Australia: The History of Australia to 1821 (1987)
A Radical Life: The Autobiography of Russel Ward (1988)
Sources:
Beverley Kingston, Russel Braddock Ward (1914–1995), Australian Dictionary of Biography https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/ward-russel-braddock-29606
Wikipedia; Russel Ward https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russel_Ward
Made in RapidWeaver