‘The Attractions of Australia’: E. J. Brady and the Making of Australia Unlimited

Abstract

Edwin James Brady (1869–1952) is best known as a minor figure from the political and literary world of the 1890s and the author of Australia Unlimited, a book associated with government policies of agricultural expansion into marginal lands during the inter-war years. He occupies a paradoxical place in Australian environmental history being characterised as a figure that both celebrated Australian nature and contributed to its destruction. This article examines Brady's often contradictory views, explores the context in which he wrote Australia Unlimited, and considers its impact. It argues that for a book with such alleged influence, it in fact had little at the time, reflecting rather than shaping the world around it, and struggling to be a contemporary success.

Notes

¹Publishers’ Circular 4 October 1919, Edwin James (E. J.) Brady Papers, Ms 206/4/305, National Library of Australia (hereafter NLA).

²Publishers’ Circular 4 October 1919, Edwin James (E. J.) Brady Papers, Ms 206/4/305, National Library of Australia (hereafter NLA).

³Brady, Australia Unlimited, 16.

⁴Brady, Australia Unlimited, 14.

⁵Marilyn Lake, The Limits of Hope: Soldier Settlement in Victoria 1915–1938, (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1987), 24.

⁶J. M. Powell, Griffith Taylor and ‘Australia Unlimited’ (St. Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1993).

⁷J. M. Powell, Griffith Taylor and ‘Australia Unlimited’ (St. Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1993).

⁸‘Australia Unlimited? Environmental Debate in the Age of Catastrophe, 1910–1939’, Environment and History vol. 10, issue 3, (2004): 288.

⁹Stuart Macintyre, 1901–1942 The Succeeding Age (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1986), 198–199; See also Michael Cathcart, The Water Dreamers: The Remarkable History of Our Dry Continent (Melbourne: Text Publishing, 2009), 220.

¹⁰Tim Sherratt, ‘Atomic Wonderland: Science and Progress in Twentieth Century Australia’ (PhD thesis, Australian National University, 2003), 25–62.

¹¹See for example Tom Griffiths, Hunters and Collectors: The Antiquarian Imagination in Australia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 186; Brigid Hains, The Ice and the Inland: Mawson, Flynn and the Myth of the Frontier (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2002),130; Warwick Anderson, The Cultivation of Whiteness Science, Health and Racial Destiny in Australia (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2002),163–4; Melissa Bellanta, ‘Fabulating the Australian Desert: Australia's Lost Race Romances, 1890–1908, Philament, Issue 3, Offbeat (2004); Tim Sherratt, ‘Frontiers of the Futures: Science and Progress in Twentieth Century Australia’, Deborah Rose and Richard Davies, Dislocating the Frontier: Essaying the Mystique of the Australian Outback (Canberra: ANU E-Press, Canberra, 2005), 121–42.

¹²Tim Flannery, The Future Eaters (Kew: Reed Books, 1994), 359.

¹³William J. Lines, False Economy: Australia in the Twentieth Century (Fremantle: Fremantle Arts Press, 1998), 50.

¹⁴Lionel Frost, ‘From Dead Heart to Red Centre; Developing the Destination Image of the Australian Outback’, Department of Management Working Paper Series, Monash University, 2005.

¹⁵Examples of more subtle environmental histories include Tim Bonyhady, The Colonial Earth (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2000), 3; Geoffrey Bolton, Spoils and Spoilers (North Sydney: Allan and Unwin, 1992); Libby Robin, Defending the Little Desert: The Rise of Ecological Consciousness in Australia (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1998).

¹⁶Frost, ‘From Dead Heart to Red Centre’, 3.

¹⁷Sarah Jane Mirams, ‘Dreams and Realities: E. J. Brady and Mallacoota’ (PhD thesis, Monash University, 2010), 29–66.

¹⁸Brady to Lothian, 26 March 1909, Thomas Lothian Papers, Ms 6026, State Library of Victoria (hereafter SLV).

¹⁹The biographical details of Brady's life are drawn from Sarah Mirams, ‘Dreams and Realities: E. J. Brady in Mallacoota’.

²⁰ The Daily Telegraph, 4 September 1891.

²¹Bruce Scates, A New Australia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 21.

²²E. J. Brady, ‘Utopia Unlimited’, Ms ZA 371775, Mitchell Library (hereafter ML), Introduction.

²³William Morris, News from Nowhere (London: Kelmescott Press, 1898).

²⁴ The Grip, 10 August 1901.

²⁵Hugh McKay to Spencer Brodney 29 May 1908, Spence Brodney Correspondence, MS 6069, SLV.

²⁶E. J. Brady, Bells and Hobbles (Melbourne: George Robinson, 1911): E. J. Brady, The King's Caravan: Across Australia by Wagon (London: Edward Arnold, 1911), E. J. Brady, River Rovers (Melbourne: George Robertson, 1911).

²⁷Notes for advertising material for King's Caravan, Ms. 6026, SLV; John Foster Fraser's books included Round the World On A Wheel (London: Nelson, 1899); The Real Siberia: Together With An Account of a Dash through Manchuria (London: Cassell, London, 1904); Canada As It Is (London: Cassell, 1905).

²⁸Fraser, Australia: The Making of a Nation (London: Cassell, 1910), 76–9.

²⁹Brady, The King's Caravan, 58.

³⁰E. J. Brady, ‘Australia Unlimited’, The Bulletin 1910, Ms 206/10/3460, NLA.

³¹E. J. Brady, ‘Australia Unlimited’, The Bulletin 1910, Ms 206/10/3460, NLA.

³²Brady to Lothian, 26 April 1910, Ms. 6026, SLV.

³³Clement Baker, East Gippsland Border Association to Brady, 9 September 1910, Ms 206/52/Folder, NLA.

³⁴John C. Watson to E. J. Brady, 7 March 1906, Ms. 206/10/689; Shepherd, Sec to PM, to E. J. Brady, 4 Sept 1908, Ms. 206/10/690, NLA; See also, E. J. Brady to Lothian, 9 February 1910, Ms 6026, SLV.

³⁵ Australia Unlimited Prospectus, A659, 1943/1/3907, National Archives Australia (hereafter NAA)

³⁶ Australia Unlimited Prospectus, A659, 1943/1/3907, National Archives Australia (hereafter NAA)

³⁷ Australia Unlimited Prospectus, A659, 1943/1/3907, National Archives Australia (hereafter NAA)

³⁸George Robertson to The Hon. Minister for External Affairs, 14 February 1912, series A659; 1943/1/3907, NAA.

³⁹George Robertson to The Hon. Minister for External Affairs, 14 February 1912, series A659; 1943/1/3907, NAA.

⁴⁰Author's Statement re Australia Unlimited July 1918, Ms. 206/10/652-688, NLA.

⁴¹Andrew Garran, ed. Picturesque Atlas of Australasia (Sydney: Picturesque Atlas Publishing Company, 1886–1888).

⁴²Tony Hughes-D'Aeth, Paper Nation: The Story of the Picturesque Atlas of Australasia 1886–1888 (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2001), 26.

⁴³‘Australia's Future Yellow Peril Very Real’, The Advertiser, 25 October 1912.

⁴⁴See for example, ‘A Chiel Amoungst Us Taking Notes’, Northern Territory Times, 26 September 1912.

⁴⁵Brady to Norma Brady, Ms. 206/3/171, NLA.

⁴⁶Author's Statement, Ms. 206/10/652-688, NLA.

⁴⁷Alex Chisholm, ‘The Mallacoota Excursion’, Emu 3, (1914): 127.

⁴⁸Alex Chisholm, ‘The Mallacoota Excursion’, Emu 3, (1914): 127.

⁴⁹‘What The World Thinks about Australia Unlimited’, Ms. 206/Box 42/Folder 17, NLA.

⁵⁰ Geographic Journal 55, No. 6, (1920): 473.

⁵¹David Walker, Anxious Nation: Australia and the Rise of Asia 1850–1939 (St Lucia Queensland: Queensland University Press 1999), 99–112; John Williams, ‘Art, War and Agrarian Myths: Australian Reactions to Modernism 1913–1931’, in An Anzac Muster: War and Society in Australia and New Zealand, eds. Judith Smart and Tony Wood (Clayton: Monash Publications in History no. 14, 1992), 50–51.

⁵²See for example Millions Magazine front cover July 1 1921 in David Walker, Anxious Nation, plate 22.

⁵³Brady, Australia Unlimited, 120–1.

⁵⁴Brady, Australia Unlimited, 511.

⁵⁵Brady, Australia Unlimited, 110.

⁵⁶Brady, Australia Unlimited, 566–9.

⁵⁷Brady, Australia Unlimited, 511.

⁵⁸Brady, Australia Unlimited, 120.

⁵⁹Brady, Australia Unlimited, 120. See for example the chapter ‘Irrigation, Water Conservation and Drainage’, 649–54, 736.

⁶⁰Brady, Australia Unlimited, 316, 318, 751.

⁶¹Brady, Australia Unlimited, 820.

⁶²Brady, Australia Unlimited, 128.

⁶³Brady, Australia Unlimited, 128.

⁶⁴Brady, Australia Unlimited, 123.

⁶⁵Brady, Australia Unlimited, 123. Brady, The King's Caravan, chap. 26 ‘Rockhampton and the Yellow Peril’, 287.

⁶⁶ Herald, 17 June 1910.

⁶⁷Brady, Australia Unlimited, 112.

⁶⁸Walker, 76–7.

⁶⁹Kate Murphy, ‘Rural Womanhood and the Embellishment of Rural Life in Urban Australia’, eds. Graeme Davison and Marc Brodie, Struggle Country: The Rural Ideal in Twentieth Century Australia (Melbourne: Monash University E Press, 2005), 56–7.

⁷⁰Surveyor's Report 1917, Department of Lands and Survey, VPRS 440/PO, Unit 133, Public Records Office Victoria (hereafter PROV).

⁷¹Anita Brady, The Forests of East Gippsland: A History of Occupation and Utilisation (Melbourne: Department of Conservation and Environment, 1992), 56.

⁷²‘Soldiers’ Garden City’, Snowy River and Croajingalong Gazette, 15 August 1919.

⁷³Brady, Australia Unlimited, 350.

⁷⁴Brady, Australia Unlimited, 350.

⁷⁵Brady, Australia Unlimited, 352.

⁷⁶Brady, Australia Unlimited, 353.

⁷⁷Brady, Australia Unlimited, 253.

⁷⁸National Parks Association Pamphlet, Melbourne, April 1908.

⁷⁹James Barrett, ‘The Charms of Mallacoota’, Argus, 15 February 1908.

⁸⁰James Barrett, ‘The Charms of Mallacoota’, Argus, 15 February 1908.

⁸¹S. Mirams, ‘“For Their Moral Health”: James Barrett, Urban Progressive Ideas and National Park Reservation in Victoria’, Australian Historical Studies 2 vol. 33 (October 2002), no. 120, 247–8.

⁸²Brady, Australia Unlimited, 132–7.

⁸³E. J. Brady ‘Australia Unlimited; How and Why I Wrote It’ Introduction, ZA3173, ML.

⁸⁴E. J. Brady to E. Galbraith Forest Commission 20 October 1923, Ms. 206/Box 9/ Folder 11, NLA.

⁸⁵Petition to Premier T. Hogan, 30 January 1930, Rs.1176, Department of Sustainability and Environment, Victoria.

⁸⁶Petition to Premier T. Hogan, 30 January 1930, Rs.1176, Department of Sustainability and Environment, Victoria.,120.

⁸⁷E. J. Brady, River Rovers, 78.

⁸⁸Maitland to Brady, 6 September 1917, Ms. 206/10/1184, NLA.

⁸⁹Brady to A. Poyton MHR, 11 October 1920; E. J. Brady to Hon. W. A. Watt M. H. R. 16 June 1919; E. J. Brady to Atlee Hunt 9 September 1920, A659, 1943/1/3907, NAA.

⁹⁰Brady to W. Hughes 16 June 1919, A659, 1943/1/3907, NAA.

⁹¹Atlee Hunt to E. J. Brady, 10 November 1919, Ms. 206/10/1498, NLA.

⁹²B. S. Roach to E. J. Brady 14 June 1919, Ms 206/10/1420, NLA.

⁹³ Publishers’ Circular, 4 October 1919, Ms. 206/10/1509, NLA.

⁹⁴Brady to Captain Taylor, 16 December 1919, Ms. 206/10/1512, NLA.

⁹⁵Brady to Campbell, Ms 206/10/1541, NLA.

⁹⁶Sensational Book Offer, series A659; 1943/1/3907, NAA.

⁹⁷The Commonwealth Crown Solicitor, 9 February 1926, series A659; 1943/1/3907, NAA.

⁹⁸ The Snowy River and Croajingalong Gazette, 14 October 1920.

⁹⁹ The Snowy River and Croajingalong Gazette, 103.

¹⁰⁰Stuart Macintyre, A Concise History of Australia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 168.

¹⁰¹Stuart Macintyre, A Concise History of Australia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 61.

¹⁰²Stuart Macintyre, A Concise History of Australia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 123

¹⁰³E. J. Brady, Land of the Sun (London: Edward Arnold, 1924).

¹⁰⁴Tourist Brochure, Ms. 206/Box 54/Folder 12, NLA.

¹⁰⁵Nettie Palmer to Dowell O'Reilly, 25 August 1926, Papers of Vance and Nettie Palmer, Ms 1174, NLA.

¹⁰⁶‘Australia Unlimited’ in Motion Pictures Prospectus, Ms. 206/10/3836.

¹⁰⁷W. Wayne to Brady, 1 February 1929, ZA3173, ML.

¹⁰⁸Sarah Mirams, ‘Dreams and Realities: E. J. Brady and Mallacoota’, chap. 5 ‘Idle Lands for Idle Hands’, 169–92.

¹⁰⁹E. J. Brady and Leslie Rubenstein, Depression and Its Cure: The Gold Measure Theory (Melbourne: York Press, 1933): The Golden Key to Victory, Peace and Prosperity (Melbourne: York Press, 1942, Dreams and Realities (Melbourne: York Press, 1944).

¹¹⁰For example J. K. Moir Collection, E. J. Brady Material Box 2, SLV.

¹¹¹Brady to Nancy Brady, 11 December 1941, Ms. 206/3/540, NLA.

¹¹²E. J. Brady, Two Frontiers (Sydney: Frank Howard, 19944); with Leslie Rubenstein Dreams and Realities; ‘Australia Unlimited How and Why I Wrote It’, ZA 3173, (ML); ‘Life's Highway’ unpublished manuscript Ms. 206/4 (NLA), ‘Life's Highway’ extracts published posthumously in Southerly 13, no. 4 1951 to vol. 16, no. 2, 1955’.

¹¹³‘Life Highway’ draft material Ms. 206/4/87, NLA.

¹¹⁴Brady to W. J. McKell, 24 September 1944, Ms206/Series 13/Folio, NLA

¹¹⁵E. J. Brady ‘Faith in Australia’, Life Digest 3, no.1 April 1947.

¹¹⁶Brady to Rod Quinn, 1 March 1948, Ms. 12249, SLV

¹¹⁷Brady to Rod Quinn, 1 March 1948, Ms. 12249, SLV

¹¹⁸David Blackbourne, The Conquest of Nature: Water, Nature and the Making of Modern Germany (London: Pimlico, 2007), 11.

¹¹⁹David Blackbourne, The Conquest of Nature: Water, Nature and the Making of Modern Germany (London: Pimlico, 2007), 11.

¹²⁰ The Argus, 27 September 1927.