Hancock: Some reminiscences

Country and Kin Calling? Keith Hancock, the National Dictionary Collaboration, and the Promotion of Life Writing in Australia

“…He wrote to all the professors of history and economic history, and all specialists in Australian history, inviting them to a conference in August 1957, together with nonacademic historians (including journalist-historians Malcolm Ellis and Brian Fitzpatrick, Catholic archbishop and historian Dr Eris O'Brien and military historian Gavin Long), to discuss how to 'advance the study of Australian history'. 46 Ellis was one of the few attending who had both written biography and reflected on Australian biographical practice. He had published biographies of pastoralist John Macarthur, Governor Lachlan Macquarie and architect Francis Greenway.…”