Richard Hooppell (Dick) Long: bush poet, pacifist, anti-conscriptionist and ‘Red Flag Martyr’*

*The Brisbane Worker (20 March 1919) used this term to refer to Dick Long and the suffragette Jennie Baines, both of whom were convicted of flying the Red Flag at the Yarra Bank on 10 November 1918.

 Image of Dick Long in prison. Part of Image H81.256/2, courtesy State Library of Victoria Picture Collection.

For many years I’ve been interested in a Melbourne-based group that was active in the first few decades of the twentieth century – the Free Religious Fellowship. It was led by Fred Sinclaire and its members included Eleanor Moore, Vance and Nettie Palmer, Louis Esson, Hilda Bull, William Fearn Wannan senior, Frank Wilmot (Furnley Maurice), Dick Long, Maurice and Doris Blackburn and many others who are known for their work in promoting Australian culture and for their interest in left-of-centre causes and politics.

You can read Chris Wade’s excellent article ‘Practical idealists: the Free Religious Fellowship, the Great War and conscription’ in the June 2017 edition of the La Trobe Journal here.

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Many members of the Free Religious Fellowship became involved in the far left, including the woman I was researching and writing about over a decade ago – Doris McRae, a teacher, peace and social activist whose early involvement with the Free Religious Fellowship helped shape her future interests.

Doris McRae in 1947, when she was Vice-President of the Victorian Teachers' Union.

If you’re interested in finding out more about Doris McRae, you can download my PhD thesis, A biography of Doris McRae, here. Doris was a secondary school teacher who was a student at the University of Melbourne during the first years of World War One and was involved in anti-war actvities through her membership of the Student Christian Movement. She stayed with the peace cause throughout her long life. She, too, has a connection to Coburg – In the 1930s she taught at Coburg High School and as a member of the High Schools Branch of the Victorian Teachers’ Union returned to the school regularly in the 1940s, as Coburg High was the ‘home’ of the High Schools Branch. In many ways she saw the school as her spiritual home and her memorial service was held there in 1988, the eulogy given by the then newly appointed Minister for Education, Joan Kirner.

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And now, my adventures into the influence of WW1 on the Melbourne suburb of Coburg have led me to look again at one of the key players in the Free Religious Fellowship – Richard Hooppell(Dick) Long. Long and his sister Minnie Isabel (Belle) were members of the Victorian Socialist Party and the Free Religious Fellowship and their home at Sandringham was a meeting place for rebels of all kinds.

Dick Long wrote poetry and was a regular speaker on the Yarra Bank. He spoke against war, against conscription and for freedom of speech. 

Argus, Monday 11 November 1918. Note that the paper was published on Armistice Day and even though they wouldn’t have known that yet, rumours of impending peace were rife. The offence took place the day before the armistice was signed.

 

Argus, 12 November 1918.

Some of Long’s poetry made it to The School Paper, for example, ‘The Merry Shearer’ and ‘The Boobook Owl’, both published in 1926 well after his much publicised gaol terms at the end of the war. A number of his poems were about the war – ‘To the War-Singers, ‘The Peace Treaty’ are just two.

Despite his pacificism and his mild demeanour, Long upset the authorities by waving the red flag (literally and figuratively) as he spoke at the Yarra Bank. For his efforts he was gaoled a number of times. According to an interview he did with his friend, the poet Marjorie Pizer, at the end of his life, in December 1918 he was placed in solitary confinement for 21 days in the Model Prison at Pentridge even though it was supposed to have been abolished. He was sent to Sale Gaol where he continued to write poetry which was published in Fellowship and in the Socialist newspaper and also found himself in Melbourne Gaol where he wrote poetry from his ‘Red Flag Café’. 

Rosa Lawrence in Labor Call, 12 Dec 1918.

Truth, 16 November 1918.

Brisbane Truth, 14 September 1919.

The Socialist, 17 October 1919.

The Richard Long papers in the State Library of Victoria’s Manuscript Collection provide a picture of what his life in prison was like. I began this research originally because there are three photographs in the State Library’s Picture Collection that are identified as Dick Long's shed at Pentridge Prison. The photos captured my imagination and I began my research, but soon discovered that they were taken at Melbourne Gaol so they are not really within the scope of this blog. However, I think you’ll agree that they provide an intriguing insight into the prison life of this ‘Red Flag Martyr’ and deserve their place in this blog.

Semi-enclosed corrugated iron shed or workshop showing tables with ornaments, [Melbourne Gaol, 1919]. Image H81.256/1, courtesy State Library of Victoria Picture Collection.

Two men and two women seated at table in corrugated iron shed, [Melbourne Gaol, 1919]. The photograph shows R. H. Long at left, with visitors R.S. Ross, Mrs Amy Barren and Mrs Violet Miller. Image H81.256/2, courtesy State Library of Victoria Picture Collection. While in Melbourne Gaol in 1919, we are told that Dick ‘got on well with his jailer and with the Governor who allowed Socialist Sunday School to be held each week … Dick was held in the yard for condemned murderers and built a little shack in the garden. He and his visitors used to sing the ‘Red Flag’ to the annoyance of the Police.’ (Marjorie Pizer’s notes and Guardian, 15 January 1948)

Interior of corrugated iron shed showing socialist posters on wall, believed to be at Pentridge Prison, Coburg [but actually taken at Melbourne Gaol], 1919. Image H81.256/4, courtesy State Library of Victoria Picture Collection. The Common Cause (31 July 1948), writing about Dick after his death, said that he was ‘a craftsman and versatile artist in many fields’ and that he ‘turned his hands to drawing, painting, decorating, growing plants and his “cell” was a “showplace” of the gaol.’

This ‘Red Flagger’ died in August 1948, just months after Marjorie Pizer had talked to him about his life. The obituary she wrote appeared in the Tribune on 4 August 1948:

Sources:

Fellowship: organ of the Melbourne Free Religious Fellowship, State Library of Victoria

Records of the Free Religious Fellowship, MS 11878, State Library of Victoria, Manuscript Collection

Papers of Richard Long, MS 15927, Box 4834/3, State Library of Victoria, Manuscript Collection.

Australian Dictionary of Biography entries for Doris McRae, Jennie Baines and Dick Long

State Library of Victoria Pictures Collection

Woman Voter, 27 October 1914

Brisbane Worker, 20 March 1919

Argus, 10 May 1919

Brisbane Truth, 14 September 1919

Other newspapers articles as outlined above and retrieved from the fabulous TROVE collection

Reason in Revolt website

Chris Wade, ‘Practical idealists: the Free Religious Fellowship, the Great War and conscription’, La Trobe Journal 99, March 2017, pp 95-107. Available online.

Marjorie Pizer and the Pinchgut Press 

Ramsay Mailer of ‘Hethersett’ Convalescent Hospital, Burwood

Ramsay Mailer, 1928, taken from a photograph of the Australian Board of Control for International Cricket Matches, Sydney. (Sydney Morning Herald, 21 September 1928)

Ramsay Mailer was the middle son of pioneering Coburg couple Robert and Isabella Mailer of ‘Glencairn’, Moreland. Born in 1866 in what was then known as Pentridge, Ramsay Mailer was too old to serve during World War One, although his younger brother David who was 41 at the time of his enlistment, spent three years at the Front.

Educated at Scotch College and Melbourne and Edinburgh Universities, Ramsay Mailer was a cricketer of some note. He was also a doctor, specialising in ‘nervous diseases’. In 1910 he married Minnie Jane Meares and the couple settled at ‘Hethersett’ in Burwood, a grand home with extensive grounds, including its own lake stocked with fish.

Punch, 9 March 1916, p.21

An anniversary program for ‘Hethersett’, dated Sat 23 September 1916. Inside the program is a list of players and synopsis of scenes. On the verso of programme are hand inscribed autographs including Ethel Wigg, and a stamp encircling the words ‘Hethersett / 1915-16’. Image H2009.103/80A . Courtesy State Library of Victoria.

Nurses and soldiers by lake in grounds of Hethersett Private Hospital, Vic. Image H2009.103/31. Image courtesy State Library of Victoria.

Soldiers and nurses on verandah, Hethersett Private Repatriation Hospital, Burwood, Vic. Image H2009.10347. Image courtesy State Library of Victoria.

From 1915 to the end of 1917 Ramsay Mailer and members of his family ran the 30-bed ‘Hethersett’ Voluntary Military Hospital in what had been his home. ‘Hethersett’ looked after psychological cases such as shell shock and fatigue, little understood conditions at the time. The staff, under the leadership of his sister-in-law Catherine Mailer, were volunteers. The atmosphere was less formal than a hospital and more in the style of a home away from home. 

Unidentified soldiers and nurses, Hethersett Private Repatriation Hospital, Burwood, Vic Image H2009.103/44. Image courtesy State Library of Victoria. 

Soldiers and nurse relaxing in cane chairs, croquet mallets on lawn behind them, Hethersett Private Repatriation Hospital, Image H2009_10377. Image courtesy State Library of Victoria. 

And some not so good images from Punch, 9 March 1916:

‘Hethersett’ closed at the end of 1917, having been a haven for nerve-shattered returned soldiers for two and a half years. It had been financed by Ramsay Mailer and members of his wife’s family. (His brother-in-law was also a doctor specialising in nervous disorders.) By the time it closed they were being sent surgical cases and neither they nor their hospital was equipped for that, so they closed what had been an amazing philanthropic enterprise.

In 1938 Presbyterian Ladies College bought the site and its junior school moved there in 1939. 

Ramsay Mailer practised in Collins Street for many years and was also a breeder of cattle and sheep at his Shepparton stud farm. Described at the time of his death in 1943 as a philanthropist and slum abolition campaigner, he founded the Victorian Slum Abolition League and worked hard to better the lives of children, especially those living in industrial areas. He established the Opportunity Clubs for Boys and Girls. A talented cricketer, he was Melbourne Cricket Club President when he died and the Victorian Cricket Association patron.

Age, 18 April 1939. Ramsay Mailer at the time of his appointment as patron of the Victorian Cricket Association.

Ramsay Mailer and his brothers were also key figures in the early history of the Coburg Cricket Club. You can read about it here.   

The Club has an interesting photo gallery, too and the very first photo is of a prize awarded to Ramsay Mailer in 1892.

If you are interested in the Mailer family’s involvement in the Coburg Cricket Club, the Coburg Library Local History Room has two copies of Don Hudson’s History of the Coburg Cricket Club 1856-2006 which you can consult at the library.

More on Ramsay Mailer and cricket

Finally, I have just been sent some information from Greg Mackie on the cricketing interests of Ramsay Mailer and his brother David:

Ramsay played District First XI cricket for South Melbourne in 1894/95 (5 games), Fitzroy 1895/96 (3 games) and Coburg (who were a District 1st XI team in those days, between 1905-06 (12 games)).

David Mailer played two games for St. Kilda in 1895/96 and 67 games for the MCC between 1898/99 and 1910/11.

One of the Victorian Cricket Association’s main trophies, on display in their board room in Jolimont, is the Ramsay Mailer Shield. As well as the roles already mentioned, Ramsay was also a member of the Australian Cricket Board for twenty-two years.

Ramsay Mailer is also mentioned extensively in Robert Coleman’s 1993 publication Seasons in the sun: the story of the Victorian Cricket Association (published by Hargreen). There’s a copy at the State Library of Victoria, if you’re interested in reading it.

Thanks, Greg, for this extra information.

Sources:

Victorian Birth, Death, Marriage indexes

Age, 16 October 1915

Table Talk, 25 November 1915

Punch, 9 March 1916

Punch, 9 August 1917

Argus, 3 March 1917

Argus, 8 December 1917

Argus, 29 December 1943

State Library of Victoria image collection (State Library of Victoria has 54 images relating to ‘Hethersett’ available online for download. Use the search term ‘Hethersett Private Repatriation Hospital (Burwood, Vic.)’ in the SLV catalogue.)

Dr Greg McKie OAM ASM JP BJ

James Alfred Larwill, husband of Katie Mailer of ‘Glencairn’, Moreland

2nd Lieutenant James Alfred Larwill served with Aust Flying Corps. Image P0048.010. Image courtesy AWM. This was taken on 6 May 1919 when he arrived home. He’s on the left and Lieutenant John Rutherford Gordon MC is on the right.

Brisbane-born 2nd Lieutenant James Alfred Larwill served with the Australian Flying Corps. He embarked from Melbourne in June 1917 and returned in May 1919. After the war he attended the University of Melbourne’s Medical School and graduated in 1925. In that year he married Katie Mailer, younger sister of Holton Mailer. He had a practice in Geelong and lectured at the university in histology and embryology from 1945 until his sudden death in 1951. His wife Katie died in 1979 aged 82.


Sources:
Victorian Birth, Death, Marriage indexes
National Archives of Australia, WW1 service records
Australian War Memorial image collection

The Graves brothers of Coburg and Essendon

The Graves family lived at ‘The Grange’, Harding Street, Coburg (not to be confused with ‘The Grange’ at 39 Belgrave Street) but early on in World War One they moved to ‘Benalta’, Nimmo Street, Essendon, so the three sons who served are remembered as volunteers from both places. (Lenore Frost has written about them on her website The Empire Called And I Answered and they are remembered on the Coburg Town Hall Honour Board.)

Eric Ivo Graves was a doctor who served with Holton Mailer in the 11^th Field Ambulance. Like Mailer, he was an old boy of Carlton College and in 1919, on his return from the war, he married Holton’s sister Ada. He died little more than a decade later, in 1931.

11th Field Ambulance Officers at Mitcham Camp, South Australia, prior to embarkation. Commanding Officer, Lieutenant Colonel M.H. Downey, front row centre, Captain J.A. Love, back row centre, and Captain J.G. Sweeney, front row 2nd from right. Harold Frank Dunstan is second from left seated, Geoffrey Wien-Smith is in the back row, far right. Background information provided by Guy Dollman: 11th Field Ambulance officers; AWM roll number 26/54/1; embarked from Adelaide, South Australia on board HMAT A29 Suevic on the 31 May 1916. The eight men in the photo are: Michael Henry Downey (Green Hill Road, Parkside, SA - front middle); Harold Frank Dunstan (Helen Street, Croydon Park, SA); Eric Ivo Lowther Graves ('Benalta', Nimmo Street, Essendon, Victoria); John Alexander Love (Strathalbyn, SA - back middle); Melrose Holtom Mailer (Craig Rossie Avenue, Moreland, Victoria); John Francis Steart Murray (Goodwood Road, Clarence Park, SA); James Gladstone Sweeney (Nottingham Terrace, Glandore, SA - second from right in front); Geoffrey Wien-Smith (Clare, SA). Image PRG 280/1/18/84. Image courtesy State Library of South Australia.

Eric Graves’ brother 2807 Bombardier Hubert Stanley Graves, Division Ammunition Column, embarked in October 1914, served on the Gallipoli Peninsula and died of wounds in France on 13 December 1917.

Studio portrait of 2807 Battery Quartermaster Sergeant (BQMS) Hubert Stanley Graves, 12th Field Artillery Brigade. BQMS Graves, an auctioneer from Coburg, Victoria, enlisted in August 1914 aged 27. He died on 13 December 1917 of a bomb wound, resulting from an accident. Image courtesy AWM. Image P10789.001.

Another brother, 2155 Private Richard Reginald Ryres Graves, 5^th Infantry Battalion, was an old boy of Coburg State School, and also of St Thomas Grammar School, Essendon. He embarked in June 1915, served at Gallipoli and later served in the 12th Brigade AFA in France. He died in 1943 aged 48.

Sources:

Victorian Birth, Death, Marriage indexes

National Archives of Australia, WW1 service records

Australian War Memorial image collection

State Library of South Australia

TheEmpire Called And I Answered website 

World War One Memorial Gates at Coburg Primary School

On the afternoon of Friday 10 November 2017, before the Old boys book was launched, the most amazing commemorative gates were launched at Coburg Primary School. Like the book, the gates were funded by the ANZAC Centenary Local Grants Program. They were created by local artist Margaret Christianson and you can see more of her marvellous artwork on her website and her Facebook page.  

If you haven’t already seen the gate, make sure you take a stroll down Elm Grove and take a look. Elm Grove runs between Bell Street and Urquhart Street and ends at the Glass Den Café, where, if you’re like me, you might just be forced to have a coffee! Or make your way through the former Pentridge Prison site to Pentridge Boulevard where you will find the Boot Factory Café – another favourite haunt of mine. 

 Peter Khalil MP, Member for Wills, speaking with Coburg Primary School Principal Jane Hancock. Peter officially 'launched' the gates.

Kelvin Thomson, President of Coburg Historical Society and former Member for Wills, with the creator of the gates, Margaret Christianson.

Principal Jane Hancock speaking at the gate ceremony.

Cheryl Griffin speaking at the gates ceremony.

Me making my speech at the gates ceremony. In the background you can just see the house I lived in from 1962 to 1968 - 512 Sydney Road, Coburg. It was then the Coburg Methodist parsonage. It's now part of Peppertree Place.

Past-President of Coburg Historical Society, Malcolm McIlvena about to present copies of  The old boys of Coburg State School go to war.to Coburg Primary School.

The creator of the gates Margaret Christianson.

Margaret Christianson with Augustino from Coburg Primary School who helped make sure the gates were hung 'just right'.

Images sourced from:

Peter Khalil, MP for Wills’ Facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/PeterKhalilMP

Coburg Historical Society’s Facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/CoburgHistoricalSociety

Coburg Historical Society’s website. https://coburghistoricalsociety.wordpress.com/

This is the speech I gave when the gate was launched by Peter Khalil MP on Friday 10 November 2017 at Coburg Primary School:

Almost one hundred years ago a tree planting ceremony was held at the back of the Infant School (now the junior campus of Coburg Primary School) in the presence of local politicians and a group of visiting French dignitaries.

On that day (23 October 1918), an avenue of trees was planted in memory of 35 of the old boys of the school who died during World War One.

Over time the footprint of the school grounds changed and in the early 1960s the Soldiers’ Avenue disappeared when the carpark closest to the Leisure Centre was built.

It was not completely forgotten, however, and in May 1991 a memorial plaque was placed in the Infant School grounds.

Last year, Grades 2 to 6 students took part in an art project run by artist-in-residence Kelly Gatchell Hartley in which the avenue of trees was re-discovered and re-imagined through their art work.

And now, as a permanent memorial to the old boys who served and died, local artist Margaret Christianson has created these beautiful gates that give each of the 35 old boys who were remembered in the original avenue of trees a new place in the school’s history.

I hope that every day as you come through the gates, you stop and look at the wonderful tribute Margaret has created. I hope you think, too, about those boys who once sat in the same classrooms as you and me (I attended 484 Coburg, too) and played in the playground just like you and me. We are all part of the history of School number 484, so these young men who fought in that long ago war are as much a part of our story as anyone living today.

Cheryl Griffin, 10 November 2017