Competencias Investigativas y su Implementación en el Aula

2 Labor Call 13 February 1930, p 10

5 See OS Green, Saletbe early years - and later, Sale. Southern Newspapers, n d , especially 1% ? k 176 and EjlidM Newnhain Sale: from settlement to city Sale Sale Historical Society,

4 Green, op cit. p 147 refers to his work as a bottle washer and Hardgraft in Labor Call 13 February 1930, p 10 to his job with the ironmonger The only business in Sale at that time which provided the unusual combination of hardware and funerals was L lensen and Co Enquiries in Sale failed to locate any company records which might have confirmed these accounts The companies no longer exist

A settled existence again allowed him time to exercise his impulse for self- expression. In one of his earlier efforts, he apparently offered the Bulletin the benefit of his views on the political situation in New South Wales. However, it was not published. Along with the manuscripts of many other aspiring writers, the only trace of its existence was a terse acknowledgement in the Correspondence’ column

F-A-y (Sale): See Bulletin of 23rd July last, Sir Henry Parkes - Imperialist and Republican'. Your letter is as long as a rabbis curse, but we will endeavour to struggle through it ere next Jubilee 5

It is not clear whether this temporarily discouraged his literary ambitions, but it did not appear to dull his passion for self-improvement.

On this occasion it took a more outgoing form than his commonplace book, He began to attend a Young Mens' Literary and Debating Society, established earlier that year by the local Presbyterian Minister, the Rev,George Connor It was a small group in the mould of many similar mutual improvement societies which provided both education and respectable entertainment for serious-minded young men. In an era when self-help and improvement were as much a mark of social virtue as of individual inclination, these societies played an important role in communities like Sale. In the absence of any other form of adult education, their meetings were occasions for earnest endeavour rather than idle amusement. They were places where young men could develop their skills and display their worthiness to assume community leadership. In its earliest years the Sale Young Mens’ Literary and Debating Society nurtured two future parliamentarians, James McLachian and Anstey. McLachlan, who was secretary of the Society when Anstey joined, was the Member of the Legislative Assembly for North Gippsland between 1908 and 1937.7 It is indicative *■* Bulletin 1 October 1887, p.6. This was an unequivocal rejection since Queen Victoria’s jubilee had been celebrated only four months earlier

6 Our Church in Gippsland' , section headed ‘1880-1892', typescript MS in historical records held at St Columba's Uniting Church. Sale I am indebted to Helen and Rob Cowie for hospitality and kindness in allowing me to see these records

•7

McLachian did not display the same unshakeabie attachment to the labour movement as Anstey In the elections of 1897 and 1900 he stood, unsuccessfully, as a Ministerialist candidate At his third attempt in 1908 he won as a Labor candidate and repeated the performance in 1911 and 1914 However, by 1917 he had turned Nationalist but retained the seat at that and the

3: The Young Promethean ₅₁

of the Society s importance that these two men, who were to be colleagues in the State Labor Caucus between 19Ü8 and 1910, began to develop their public speaking skills in the same group, Although accounts of Anstey's role in the Society tended to expand over the years in proportion to his political fortunes, it does seem to have been influential in at least two respects: he began to acquire oratorical skills so important in politicians at the time; and in Connor he found a mentor who encouraged his restless, inquiring mind,

In 1930, exercising a memory coloured by Anstey’s recent elevation to the ranks of Federal Cabinet, Hardgraft' recalled a young Promethean.

He proved a regular hair-raiser at the Debating Society by his fiery professions of democracy and his fierier protests against social injustice When the young sailor handled the subject of man's inhumanity to man his tense, ringing voice, pulsing with words of eloquence, electrified his audience, His clean-cut features aglow, and eyes burning with the fire of genius, he set out period after period thrilling with the magnetic power of oratory, and the dour

Presbyterians of Sale (it was in kirk) sat back and gazed in amazement at the oratorical power of the young Laborite, and in horror at his impiety in assailing the cant and callousness of the powers that be, or were.**

The evidence of his commonplace book lends weight to the claim about his passion for social justice. He may even have quoted passages from it during his fiery professions of democracy As to his magnetic power of oratory’, the evidence is less clear. With the benefit of hindsight, Hardgraft may well have accelerated the development of his platform skills. Anstey certainly made no such claim, With characteristic self- deprecating humour, he reconstructed a much less auspicious beginning. In later years he was fond of telling audiences about his first attempt at public speaking.

He dropped one evening into the meeting of the local Mutual Improvement Society. It was the night for impromptu speaking', and when it came to his turn the subject he drew out of the hat was spring subsequent election in 1920 In 1921 and 1924 he again survived, then as Independent Labour As if to confirm his role as Gippsland's own Vicar of Bray, he held the seat as an Independent from 1927 to 1937 See Colin A Hughes and BD Graham, Voting fo r the Victoria Legislative

Assembly, 1S90-1964, Canberra, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National

University, 1973 and Geoff Browne, Biographical Register o f the Victorian Parliament, 1900-84, Melbourne, Library Committee, Parliament of Victoria, 1985, p 144

knowledge, and after try in g hard to say som ething about the advisability or otherwise of having springs in hats or bonnets he found that everybody was laughing and so sat down.9 10

But this story may also have been tailored for an audience who could be expected to approve but not believe self-deprecating modesty. It is quite possible th a t the beginnings of his public oratory were much less impressive or amusing, The ch u rch records make no mention of such a flamboyant character.

Irrespective of the im pression he may have left on the Debating Society, its founder appears to have had a profound influence on A nsteys development. He often spoke of Connor as a sincere and valued friend' who invited him down to the manse, len t him educational books, and did ev ery th in g he could to keep him on the upward path' His gratitude was such th a t words could not express how much he felt he owed to th at Presbyterian m in ister.* 9 in many respects, the friendship m ight appear unusual given the difference in th e ir backgrounds. Although Connor was probably only about ten years older th an Anstey, he came from a comfortable New South Wales family, They sent him to school in Glasgow, from w here he w ent on to the universities of Glasgow and Edinburgh, taking an M.A. from the latter in 1878. After a period of study in Europe, he was licensed by the Presbytery of Edinburgh and commissioned to re tu rn to Australia, a rriv in g at Melbourne in 1882. He worked in Geelong and Bendigo, w here he was ordained the following year. From th ere he w ent to Brunswick and th en to Sale in September 1886.** Compared to Anstey s determ ined but undisciplined efforts, Connor had the benefit of an excellent form al education, even by the standards of his clerical colleagues. But despite the differences in th e ir class, education and religious views, they began to develop a lasting friendship. Perhaps Connor was impressed by Anstey s lively, n atu ral intelligence and his resolute self- improvement, Anstey, in tu rn , may well have found Connor encouraging, patien t of 9 Preston leader, 31 May 1913, p 2

10 Ibid

1* Fifty years of Presbyterianism in Sale’, p 11 Typescript in historical records, St Columba's Uniting Church, Sale

3: The Young Promethean

₅₃

his untutored learning and indulgent, perhaps even sympathetic, towards his views on religious hypocrisy, Indeed, there are some hints in the church records that Connor may have harboured a certain sympathy with Anstey's opinions on that particular matter. He certainly did not match the stereotype of clerical humbug that Anstey had transcribed from the Bulletin. But whatever the precise nature of their relationship, it remained warm for many years after Anstey had left the area. Some twenty years later he attended a Presbyterian social given to mark the Rev. and Mrs. Connor s silver wedding a n n iv ersary ^ As a prominent State parliamentarian who owed a great deal to Connor and the Debating Society, he was prevailed upon to address a few appropriate words to the children present, In doing so, he acknowledged his debt with a short homily on the virtues of self-improvement and how it had transformed a penniless lad into a public figure who was about to return to his place of birth in much better circumstances than when he had left. 13

During his time in Sale, Anstey began an even more enduring relationship with a local woman named Catherine McColl. Very little is known about Kate - as she was called - either before or after she married Anstey. Of all the aspects to his life, his relationship with Kate remains the most conspicuously silent; testimony perhaps, to a combination of her supposedly diffident nature compared with Anstey's overpowering personality and the customary reluctance of many working class men of the period to discuss in public their private lives, Only the most sketchy details survive of the forty-eight years they spent together as husband and wife, during which they raised two sons. Her parents, like so many other residents of Gippsland, were Scots emigrants. Her father, John McColl, was born at Glengarry in about 1825 and had come to Victoria as a young man. On 10 March 1854 he married Ann McLeod, a native of Inverness, atTarraville in South Gippsland. They had five other children 12 ‘Our church in Gippsland', section headed 1906-1913', op cit

13 Labor Call11 April 1907, p 2 Although Connor, as an old friend, may well have understood Anstey's stance on the Licensing and Gaming Suppression Bills during 1906, it is not recorded what the dour Calvinists of Sale thought about his epic tussle with Judkins, the arch-typical wowser during the recent state election On this incident, see chapter 5 below

before Kate, two of whom died in infancy. When Kate was born on 12 March 1865 the lamily was living in Sale where her father worked as a carrier.^4 However, beyond these meagre details about her family background, there is no evidence about her childhood, education, what she did as a young woman, or her courtship with Anstey.15 The only contemporary record of the relationship is Kate's claim that they were married in Melbourne in 1 January 1889.16

Nor is it clear when or why they left Sale. But whatever private reasons they might have had to move from Gippsland to Melbourne, they had every reason to expect that their chances would be better in the metropolis. As Serie observed,

Marvellous Melbourne ...was irresistibly attractive to the young men in the country towns who could see no prospects there to fit their talents ... Melbourne had the employment opportunities: men could earn much more there, take advantage of ever- opening opportunities, and enjoy the wide range of cultural and recreational pursuits,' 17 The reports of Melbourne s prosperous, bustling energy offered exciting

14 Birth certificate for Catherine Mary Bell McColl Government Statist Melbourne There is conflicting data in the certificates relating to Kate's life When she registered the birth of her two sons she gave her maiden name as McCoie on both occasions All other sources give her family name as McColl I have preferred the latter simply because it agrees with a much wider range of informants which include her father, the rate books for the Borough of Sale held by the Sale Historical Society, Anstey and their elder son Ward Although the difference may have resulted from an error of transcription, her information was unreliable in one other respect She claimed that Anstey was born in Brisbane

^ Apart from the occasional reference to her at minor public functions as an M P 's wife, there is virtually no record of her life with Anstey There is no picture of her in the more than one hundred photographs that belonged to their younger son Daron Nugent, op cit, who was able to interview Daron and a close family friend before they died ,was unable to elicit anything more than non-committal or vaguely patronising references to her My enquiries have met a similar response It is a matter for regret that for want of documentary, photographic or oral data, Kate Anstey must be largely absent from this biography of her husband

16 Birth certificates for Ward Eugene Anstey, born on 23 September 1889, Government Statist, Melbourne A search of the Statist's records for the period 1 January 1886 to 31 December 1891 revealed no record of a marriage between Francis George (Frank) Anstey and Catherine Mary Bell McColl (McCoie) There is no evidence in church records at Sale that they were married ihere, nor is there any notice of their marriage in the Age, Fitzroy City Press. Gippsland Mercury or Gippsland Times Despite the lack of any other official evidence about the status of the marriage, how or where it was celebrated, the fact remains that their partnership endured until Kate's death in 1937

17 Geoffrey Serie, The Rush to be Rich a history o f the Colony o f Victoria, JSSJ-1SS9 Carlton, Melbourne University Press, 1971, pp 293-94

3: The Young Prom ethean

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prospects. There would be work amid its booming industry and commerce, and many more avenues for self-im provem ent than those offered by a country clergym an and his debating society. The Centennial In tern atio n al Exhibition had proclaimed, for all the world to see, the vigor of M elbourne's industry and culture. If th at confidence was beg in n in g to sound a little hollow, the great metropolis of the south was still the place w here the colony's future was being shaped in business and banking chambers, throbbing factories and workshops, the Parliam ent and Trades Hall. The great issues of the day were being debated in the new spapers, at public meetings, in clubs, societies, pubs and on street corners. Anstey was fam iliar with the pulse of life in London and Sydney, and although cities m ight not provide the most salubrious conditions, they were the places w here people had a more lively and challenging social existence By comparison, Gippsland m ight have seemed dull and slow. To test his growing self-confidence he needed to be close to the centre of affairs, not at the frin g e. If he was going to make an y th in g of himself, Melbourne in the late 1880s was the place to do it.Is

Shortly after th e ir a rriv a l in Melbourne the Ansteys rented a single storey terrace at 18 Newry Street, North Fitzroy It was a modest dwelling of the type th at property developers of the time deemed suitable for a w orkingm an s family, But while it was small, it was not a slum like those th at cluttered the back streets of Collingwood and Fitzroy. In Newry Street w orkingm ens' terraces mingled with the more expensive semi-detached and free-standing homes of the lower middle class, and if the yards were small at least the streets w ere wide, Although noxious smells from the factories of Fitzroy and Coilingwood were an occasionally intrusive rem inder of th e ir proximity, some re lie f could be had in the open space of the Edinburgh Gardens little more th an two blocks away, There, residents could take the a ir and contemplate the splendor ol the mansions in Alfred Crescent. It was, perhaps, symbolic of Anstey s

18 The bestand most extensive account of life in Melbourne during this period is Graeme Davison, The Rise and Fall o f Marvellous Melbourne, Carlton, Melbourne University Press, 1978

aspirations that th e ir first home was a small cottage nestling between the insecurity of w orking class povety and the assurance of middle class affluence.

Frank took a job as a salesman, but it is not clear w hat he sold, or to whom However, his need to earn a living at it may have honed his powers of persuasion. Kate, meanwhile, awaited the b irth of th e ir first child as the young couple settled into the routines of family life, It must have been a period of adjustm ent for them both, For the first time, Kate was living in a large city on the edge of industrial suburbs, away from the fam iliar comforts of family and friends, and the quieter rh y th m s of country life. Learning to cope with strange surroundings, the un certain ty of a salesman's earn in g s as well as pregnancy must have been difficult for her. Frank, on the oth er hand, had known city life before, but he had to adjust to the responsibilities of a family man w hich became all the more pressing with the birth of th e ir first son, Ward Eugene, on 23 September 1889. Having to provide for a wife, house and child must have been the occasion for some sober reflection on his new circum stances compared with his vagabond past.

Some time later he found less precarious work as an attendant in the E ngineering Department of the newly-established Working Men's College in La Trobe Street, His weekly wage of £ 1 /8 /3 19 was about h a lf that paid to tradesm en.20