Australia’s First Fabians: Middle-class Radicals, Labour Activists and the Early Labour Movement by Race Mathews (Secondhand Book)

SECONDHAND BOOK

Foreword by Gough Whitlam

Many of Australia’s first Fabians are known as legislators, priests, jurists, men and women of letters, diplomats, feminists and educators, yet few are recognised as Fabians. Until this book, little attention has been given to Australian Fabian thinkers, activists and organisations, and their long-term influence on Australian political and intellectual life. This book recreates the lives of the first Fabians in Australia, their political ideas and strategies, and presents their visions for society in a lively and entertaining way. It also explains the similarities between the Fabian Society’s development in Britain and Australia. The book will fill a longstanding gap in Australian intellectual history and the history of early socialist movements in Australia.

The first Australian Fabian Society was set up in South Australia in 1891 by an expatriate London Society member, Charles Marson. A second society was set up in Melbourne in 1895 by Henry Hyde Champion and a third flourished under the leadership of Tom Mann, shortly after the turn of the century. Race Mathews – himself a prominent Fabian – illustrates that apart from their socialist affiliations, members of the various groups had in common such interests as theosophy, rationalism, women’s  suffrage, co-operative enterprises and working conditions. As middle class as their British counterpart, the Australian societies in Victoria and South Australia held lectures, wrote pamphlets and tracts, investigated the living conditions of the unemployed and ran for parliament with equal fervour. At their peak, the Australian organisations matched or improved upon the London model.

While there was no formal Fabian Society in Australia between 1910 and 1937, the author argues that its influence re-emerged in the period during and immediately following the Second World War and was particularly visible during the government of Gough Whitlam, from 1972 to 1975.

Specifications:

Condition: Good – very clean, minor fading to spine.

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Year: 1993

Format: Paperback

Pages: 284pp

ISBN: 0521446783

$45.00

1 in stock