Canberra p270; Wigmore Long View p i55; Sparke Canberra ch 1.
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However, there was at least one member of the bureaucracy who felt strongly about the effect of planning on residents, although he too had scant regard for the Griffin Plan. This was T.R.S. Gibson, appointed head of the tow n planning section of the Department of Works and Housing in May 1949.102 Gibson spoke publicly about his ideas at the Jubilee Congress on Regional and Town Planning convened by the Australian Planning Institute in Canberra in August 1951. He criticised contemporary practices whereby 'the needs of the inhabitants are subservient to this paper pattern [the Canberra Plan j'. He believed that 'the domestic, social, cultural and work-day life of (Canberra| people must be equally considered if the city is to be a place in which people are willing to settle without inconvenience.103
Gibson's office had plans in place for community centres in each neighbourhood, which would include shopping, mothercraft and pre-school play centres, indoor cultural and outdoor recreation.104 But his progress in this regard was thwarted by the legacy of wartime shortages (his publicly stated explanation) and probably also his own lack of power and status within the bureaucratic system and the indifference of senior officers.10'* One of the major barriers to community-responsive residential development for Canberra was the new Liberal Prime Minister. Robert Gordon Menzies, who recalled his first impression of Canberra in his memoirs. He wrote, '1 cannot honestly say that 1 liked Canberra very' much; it w as to me a place of exile.'106 However, after admitting in April 1956 that, 'I am not very proud of what has happened to Canberra during my current period of office,' his attitude changed quite remarkably and he began to use his powerful influence to encourage the city's development.10
102 Gibbney Canberra p252; Sparke Canberra p44. One year later Gibson's section and its stall were transferred to the Department o f the Intenor.
103 T.R .S. Gibson 'Canberra Today and Tomorrow1 in Federal Congress on Regional and Town Planning Record o f Proceedings Canberra 1951. The theme o f this conference was the planning and developm ent o f the capital, and it attracted 'almost everybody o f any standing in the Australian planning world,' plus W illiam Holford from Great Britain who was to have much to do with the planning o f Canberra in the late 1950s. Gibbney Canberra p256.
104 T.R.S. Gibson 'Recent Developm ents and Problems' in Planning and Developm ent o f Canberra Canberra 1951.
105 Sparke Canberra p45. It is doubtful whether Gibson was genuinely concerned for all residents of Canberra, however. As 1 will show in chapter 5, his comments about the inhabitants o f the temporary area at Westlake give som e indication o f where his true pnontes lay.
1 0 6 R.G. M en /ies The Measure of the Years Cassell, Aust. 1970 p i 43; Sec also Sparke Canberra p31. 10 Men/.ies' remarks are quoted in Sparke Canberra p54. See also Fischer p65.
An anecdote relating to Menzies' change of heart is worthy of note here as it sheds some light on the lives of mothers in Canberra at the time. Historian Eric Sparke has recorded that Menzies’ decision to do something about Canberra occurred shortly after his married daughter. Heather Henderson, arrived in the capital to live in January 1956. Sparke claims Heather's search for suitable accommodation was hampered by the acute housing shortage, and that:
the simple task of taking her baby for a walk presented difficulties because of bad or non-existent footpaths. Dame Pattie Menzies, who loved children, and often walked her grandchild, urged the Prime Minister to try it for himself. He did. and this experience combined w ith fa m ily badgering to turn more o f his attention towards Canberra.108
Another event that must also have influenced Menzies to some degree was the work o f the Senate Select Committee on the Development o f Canberra. On 3 November 1954, J.A. McCallum. a Liberal senator angered by the lack o f parliamentary interest in the capital city, asked the Senate to appoint a Select Committee to enquire into Canberra's development.109 The hearings began the next month and in September 1955. after 83 witnesses had given evidence, the Committee presented its Report.110
The Report recommended that the long term planning o f Canberra should be the responsibility of a single central authority with sufficient powers and finance to carry out the task effectively. Two years later this did in fact eventuate but Menzies, in his Memoirs, claims the credit for himself, without reference to the work of the Committee:
[A t the time] there was no single authority responsible for the development of Canberra; . . . I therefore proposed in 1957 to Alan Fairhall, then Minister fo r the Interior, and Cabinet agreed, that we should set up a National Capital Development Commission, get as good a man as we could find to be commissioner, and give the commission authority which would not be subject to normal departmental control, and something in the nature o f an annual budget.111
1 08
Sparke Canberra p 3 1. I w ill discuss the state o f Canberra footpaths and their effect on mothers later. 109 Sparke Canberra p42.
1 10 Sparke Canberra p38; SSC Report. 1 1 1 Men/.ies Measure o f Y ears p 145.
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The establishment of the NCDC marked a new era for Canberra, beyond the scope of this work. The following chapters will focus on the period prior to the establishment of the NCDC and will explore the implications, for mothers, of a number of the features outlined in this chapter, in particular the tight control over Canberra life exercised by the Department of the Interior and the type of planning decisions made about the city before the 1940s. These features combined with the more natural features of isolation and climate (w hich were themselves a result of Government planning decisions about w here to build Canberra), and together had far-reaching effects on the lives of Canberra mothers in the post-war era.