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

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At the age of eighty-one Brady confessed that life was still a mystery to him but he
affirmed his joy at having lived. To the end he was very much interested in world
affairs, particularly in the cultural. He gave support for a memorial to Roderic Quinn
and sent messages upon request to organisations which contacted him, such as the
Australian Peace Council and the Australian-Soviet Friendship League. He never
forsook the dream of a better society in which workers and under-privileged people
would be granted more of the material and cultural comforts of life. He expressed
sympathy with Hardy when Power Without Glory caused a furore in the press. He
was invited by Dorothea McKellar to join the Sydney branch of P.E.N. but gracefully
declined. He accepted with pleasure however, when the Fellowship of Australian
Writers elected him to Honorary Life Member “as a token of our respect and
appreciation of the contribution you have made to Australian letters over a lengthy
period”. 2 The only other such members at this time were Louis Lavater and Bernard
O’Dowd.
Even at the end of effective life Brady was concerned about the shape and quality of
the future society. He feared another world war but retained a strong faith in a future
where culture would be put before commerce, exhibiting that optimism which he had
retained to the end “if a pessimist, I would commit suicide”, he once said). He had
faith that the spirit of man, but its very nature, would survive every eventuality:
A New World, a World of Reason and Decency may be born in a whirlwind of
blood and fire. I believe it will be born out of the final agony, but that is
merely a matter of faith. 3
Brady died (22 nd August 1952) in the faith, not of conventional religion, but of
socialism. He refused burial by a priest and his wishes were adhered to, against some
opposition, when he was laid to rest in the midst of the tall trees which surround the
secluded cemetery at Mallacoota.
2 Secretary, F.A.W. to Brady, 3.11.1951, in National Library.
3 Brady to Muir Holburn, 27.4.1949, in Mitchell Library.