A CRITICAL BIOGRAPHY OF EDWIN JAMES BRADY - Mallacoota ...

Similarly Brady states that Archibald “has no doubt influenced the work of Christine
Stead, Beatrice Grimshaw, Miles Franklin, Ethel Pedley and Mrs. Aeneas Gunn.” 1
This may be true, but there is no indication of how this occurred, nor any suggestion
that Archibald edited them, gave them specific assistance or in any way persuaded
them along literary lines.
As in the case of Brady’s other works, in spite of glaring weaknesses there are some
redeeming features. There is much background material which thrown light upon the
society and times in which Archibald lived. It is interesting to read of the transport
problems which existed in Sydney as far back as the turn of the century, with “puffing
billies” queued up along Oxford Street “while passengers perched on the roofs of
‘buses jeered and suburban fathers in stalled cars, purple with rage, shook their
newspapers and cursed authorities.” 2 And Sydney had considerable health problems
too, with outbreaks of typhoid, smallpox and bubonic plague which necessitated a
long-overdue clean-up by the authorities. 3
133
There are many interesting glimpses of people of the time with whom Brady was
closely associated – people like Livingstone Hopkins and Phil May, the two imported
cartoonists who did much to assist the popularity of Archibald’s paper; they were
forever grateful for the cartooning possibilities of Henry Parkes who, “heavy and
homely, with white beard and leonine mane, walked silk-hatted and frock-coated
along a Sydney street, looking as wise as Socrates and responding, in what he
considered the grand manner, to the salutations of the crowd.” 4 There are many good
anecdotes too, such as the one where a visitor told Parkes his new portrait was not
life-like because his hand was in his own pocket. Or the one about Daley and Gray
driving a hearse around town with a copy of the Daily Telegraph as guest of honour.
And especially the tale of the two Bohemians (one of whom was Daley) who dressed
up as Bishops when a congress of those worthies was in town. They went from pub to
pub, dancing, singing and cavorting with barmaids, the result being that eventually
every bishop who attended the congress had to establish a cast-iron alibi to the
satisfaction of his superiors! There are many such tales, some more literary, as when
Daley wrote a poem on the collar of Quinn’s shirt, selling it, complete, to Archibald,
without the owner’s consent; of James Edmond’s walking tour to Brisbane with an
itinerary calculated so carefully that he had an hour to wait to catch the boat back to
Sydney. All of this is good fun but when there unfolds a story or an item where
accuracy is important, one tends to doubt. One of Archibald’s fellow-workers on the
Herald was George Walstab who, we are told, “is credited with having written a
chapter of For the Term of His Natural Life for the Australian Journal when his
friend Marcus Clarke was indisposed.” 5 This is difficult to verify, for although this
novel was first published as a serial in the Australian Journal, H.M. Green has a
documented account that it was Clarke’s first serial, Heavy Odds (originally Long
Odds) to which Walstab contributed. 6 It might well be that Brady was trusting to
hearsay or that his memory played him false, but he does not build up in his reader
any great confidence in his attention to detail.
1
P. 113.
2
P. 33.
3
Eustace Tracey claimed that Brady invented the guard which was placed over the hawsers of boats
anchored in harbour to prevent the entry of rats. The claim cannot be verified.
4
P. 39.
5
P. 27.
6
The History of Australian Literature, p.224. Green cites S.S. Simmons who has gone into the
matter in some detail in Marcus Clarke and the Writing of “Long Odds, (Melbourne, 1946).