John West book launch

In June, the Council sponsored the Sydney launch of a new history of the Rev. John West

A new history written by a former member of the Australian Press Council, Patricia Fitzgerald Ratcliff, The Usefulness of John West: Dissent and Difference in the Australian Colonies, was launched in Sydney at a Council-sponsored event in June. The book centres on the achievements in Tasmania, and elsewhere, of one of Australia's early newspaper pioneers, the Rev. John West. West co-founded The Launceston Examiner and was subsequently the first 'editor' of The Sydney Morning Herald. The book is both a scholarly examination of West's contribution and a labour of love for Ms Ratcliff who has spent twenty years researching West's history.

The book was launched thrice: in Tasmania by the Administrator of the Commonwealth of Australia; in Sydney, at the NSW State Library, by Paul Brunton, the Library's Senior Curator; and subsequently in Canberra by Professor Emeritus Campbell McKnight. Over a hundred people, including a number of the Rev. West's descendants, were on hand to hear Brunton's remarks.

Brunton began by noting the mysterious absence until now of a substantial scholarly work on John West in the 130 years since his death. This was despite the fact that West, who came to Australia in December 1838 aged 29 and spent the remaining 35 years of his life here, had wide influence in both Tasmania and NSW.

"He spearheaded the successful anti-transportation movement, co-founded and contributed to one newspaper, The Launceston Examiner, and later edited for 20 years, a second, The Sydney Morning Herald ...; provided the intellectual framework for Federation in a series of remarkable essays as early as 1854; designed our first national flag which still exists and is beautifully illustrated in this book and is one of the great hidden treasures of Australia; published in 1852 a respected and influential history of Tasmania, perhaps the first serious history ever written in Australia; and, as well, was a Congregational minister passionate about that cause and a dynamic speaker and agitator against many of the injustices of the time."

Brunton argued that the publication of this book, which he saw as "monumental - monumental in its historical sweep; monumental in its grasp of the context in which West operated; monumental in its scholarship and monumental in its physical form" meant that West could no longer be ignored by historians of the period.

"Monumental could be construed as a code word for dull," he said, "but dull it is not. Patricia has spent twenty years researching this book but it is clear on almost every page that it is the product also of her long and thoughtful life meditating on just those problems and issues which had beset her hero, John West, such as freedom of conscience, justice, and human dignity ... It is her imaginative sympathy and insight which makes the book so vital."

Brunton's noted that, among the issues dealt with in the history is the separation of church and state, once again a hot topic because of recent events, at that time, at Yarralumla. He also praised Ratcliff's knowledge of the landscape of Van Diemen's Land (as Tasmania was called when West first arrived there) - "not only ... the physical landscape but the mental, intellectual and emotional landscapes. And within these landscapes she brings her cast of characters to life."

He was impressed by the sweep of history in the book which he saw as placing things in context, not only the Tasmanian picture and the 'Australian' picture but the big picture of British colonialism as well. And by the book's examples of some "magnificent invective", noting that "no-one writes more vituperatively of their colleagues than ministers of the cloth when they have fallen out with them. Ministers of the crown in full flight in Parliament by contrast are mild and inoffensive". And also by the book as a very fine piece of publishing: "one of the most handsome publications I have seen. It is beautifully designed and printed. The illustrations are superb and, what is so unusual, fully described in a separate appendix".

Observing that the launch was being sponsored by the Australian Press Council, which upholds the responsibility of the press, Brunton referred to the Rev. West's article on the value of a free press in the first issue of The Examiner, 12 March 1842.

He concluded: "Patricia Ratcliff could never be accused of speaking with 'a false delicacy', when injustice, or even the latest balmy development application in her beloved Launceston is lodged. The purblindness of Hobart bureaucrats, 'blundering functionaries' certainly but 'well-meaning' never, Patricia would say, also receive a deft swipe in this book but that is a purely local matter on which it would be foolhardy of me - and indeed dangerous- to comment.

"More importantly, she has given us a big book on a big subject and a big man - a man who also had no 'false delicacy' about speaking out but whose essential charity and respect for human dignity - his enlightenment - is abundantly clear through Patricia's pen - it is that bigness of heart which characterises both author and her subject."

A right of reply

In her response, Patricia Ratcliff noted the attendance of quite a few descendants of John West many of whom had never before met each other as they are from different branches of the family. She acknowledged the "patronage" of the Australian Press Council, the generosity of the State Library of New South Wales, and the support of John Fairfax Publishing in enabling her to realise her project, to have the uniqueness of John West acknowledged in New South Wales.

It all started in 1980, she said, when she was awarded $485 from the Australian Literature Board for fares to pursue John West in the NSW State Library. At the library, a "Canadian librarian" helped her locate John West's home in Sydney, Westborne.

In 1987, as an informed member of the public, "I walked John West's footsteps to the Australian Press Council bearing the late news of his journalistic value, expressed in his first editorial of The Launceston Examiner ... I tabled that editorial and Press Council members were invited to review where they were at. It remains the exemplar of good journalism and is reproduced entirely in my book."

She spoke of the Launceston launch of the book, which was a huge success, the largest gathering ever seen in Launceston for such an event. And of The Examiner's annual John West Memorial Lecturer which, as a founder of the Historical Society in Launceston in 1988, she helped to established and has continued to organise. Among the many distinguished Australians who have been John West Memorial Lecturers she noted Professor Henry Reynolds, Professor Manning Clark, Justice Michael Kirby, Professor Geoffrey Blainey, Sister Veronica Brady and John Lyons (then the editor of The Sydney Morning Herald). And, next year, Paul Brunton is to be the lecturer.

Ms Ratcliff referred to the tripartite launch process of her book, "Three auspicious occasions to honour a man of many parts, whose national significance has hovered around the margins of history. And whilst some interest is maintained in some places, John West is not yet the national figure he ought to be."

She saw echoes of John West's time in contemporary Australia and detailed some of his achievements. What she saw in the 1980s as the parochialism of the metropolitan newspapers reminded her of the parochialism of the 1840s' Sydney Town which "energised John West into forming the first inter-colonial political association. It was he who organised the Australasian League in Launceston in 1851".

She argued that it "was John West's destiny to disenthrall his fellow colonists, and address the qualities prevailing in 'the Australias', as he called the colonies. This he did by fashioning a new Australian identity, expressed by the design of the Australasian League banner, the precursor to our flag. Exemplifying a release from the subservience of our colonial status. An independent Christian Liberal he used his pulpit, and the columns of newspapers, to educate, persuade and inspire.

"West would be very pleased with the existence of the Press Council. Its genesis is not in government, but in private enterprise. He would be pleased about that. And he would be very pleased with its most recent Charter of a Free Press."

Ms Ratcliff referred to a Tasmanian review of her book, by Professor Emeritus Michael Rowe who described John West as "the highest spirit, who stood for social and personal virtue" and urged the audience not only to read her history but to seek out John West's essays on federation published fifty years before Federation. She also encouraged other historians to follow and flesh out the John West story during his time in Sydney.

"It is time John West was accorded his appropriate place in history," she concluded. "The Sydney Morning Herald wrote in 1852, reviewing his history of Tasmania, 'We congratulate our sister colony Tasmania upon the possession of such a man as Mr West'. I leave you, Sydneysiders, with the charge of honouring his contribution to our nation from the desk of that metropolitan newspaper. I have covered the provinces."

Patricia Fitzgerald Ratcliff, The Usefulness of John West: Dissent and Difference in the Australian Colonies, The Albernian Press, Launceston, 2003, ISBN 0 9581850 5 0

JACK R HERMAN

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