Cirrus@Austlit

'Josiah Symon arrived in South Australia from Scotland in 1866 just before his 20th birthday. His baggage included two boxes of books, references praising his primary school teaching and a few English pounds. In 1934 he left an estate valued in modern terms at $22 million.

'Symon acquired his wealth as the acknowledged leader of the Adelaide Bar for 30 years, by investments in shares and property in London and Australia, and through his highly regarded vineyard and winery.

'Knighted for contributions to the federal cause, Symon served in the House of Assembly (1881-1887) and in the Australian Senate (1901-1913) and was, briefly, both a State and a Commonwealth Attorney-General.

'He headed a large family, owned an estate and working farm and was also a philanthropist, a bibliophile, Shakespearean scholar, president of cultural societies and a sought-after public speaker.

'His contemporaries knew him as a major figure, but he is now mainly remembered, if at all, as a reactionary and a master of vituperation. To restore balance requires recognition that this largely self-made Scot, composed of many allegiances and contradictions, took principled stands which placed him ahead, alongside and behind his times.' (Publication summary) 

'Conservative or liberal? A new book about the former prime minister rejects the old binary in favour of two other strands of thought' 

'Andrew Sharp Peacock, for so long “the coming man” of Australian politics, has died in the United States aged 82.'

'In 1968 the new Prime Minister, John Gorton, appointed Ainsley Gotto, aged 22, as his principal private secretary.  Ainsley became one of the most talked about young women in Australia.  Hitherto, no woman had been so close to the centre of power, and certainly none was known publicly to be so close.

'Ainsley refused to see herself as a role model for secretaries and said she could not understand what the Women’s Liberation Movement was all about.  She thought her performance in the job answered the senior public servants, conservative Liberal politicians and some business leaders who considered it inappropriate that ‘a mere girl’ should exercise ‘power and influence’. 

'In November 1969, when Dudley Erwin was dumped from the Gorton ministry, he memorably and wrongly identified the cause of his removal: ‘it wiggles, it’s shapely and its name is Ainsley Gotto.’ Ainsley became a celebrity, renamed in the tabloid press as ‘Miss Wiggle’ or ‘The Wiggle’.

'Leaving Gorton in 1972 Ainsley took several jobs in what she called her ‘afterlife’. Remaining obsessively private, Ainsley was a great networker in a national and international setting, and her diaries are full of meetings with the rich, the powerful, the titled and the very interesting. Yet, although Ainsley’s connections, sharp mind and social skills opened many doors, she needed more than her ‘unique experience’ of government to replicate the excitement and fulfilment of her years with Gorton.

'This book describes and explains Ainsley’s rise from a typing pool and shows how the Gorton years provided her with many opportunities but ill-equipped her to take advantage of them and probably cost her lasting personal happiness.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'For more than thirty years, Tom Hughes, a scion of a notable Sydney family of high achievers, was one of Australia’s top barristers, renowned, respected and sometimes feared for his dominating presence in the courtroom. Equally at home in all jurisdictions, his theatrical style, command of language and forensic skills filled public galleries, exposed witnesses, persuaded juries and ensured that judges paid attention. An icon of the Sydney and Australian Bar, he appeared in a raft of celebrated cases, became the subject of many media profiles and was, from the 1970s to the 1990s, the country’s most expensive advocate. In addition to published material, the book draws on a huge trove of personal records, including fee books, intimate diaries, autobiographical jottings and private correspondence, supplemented by interviews with Hughes, his family, friends and colleagues. Using these sources, the book provides insights into a many-sided character – telling the story of how Hughes and his immediate forebears embraced more of their English than their Irish heritage while becoming distinctively Australian. It also offers a personal perspective on several decades of Australian political, social and legal history.' (Publication summary)

'When I was an undergraduate, some years ago, I read a comment on biography by Sir Lewis Namier, the magisterial historian of eighteenth century British politics. Namier thought that someone embarking on a biography was no better qualified for the task than a woman who applied for the position of minding children and said in support of her application that she herself had once been a child. No doubt with the advancement of so many academic disciplines and the multi-skilling of so many academics, Namier’s dismissal of biography is now out of date for most biographers. But not so in my case. When, therefore, I was commissioned to write a biography of Sir John Gorton (2002), a chapter on Sir Robert Askin (2006) and a long entry on Harold Holt in the Australian Dictionary of Biography (1996), I realised that my immediate problem was myself. Very simply, my qualifications, let alone my experience, did not equip me for the task.'  (Introduction)