Noel David Mclachlan, 1927–2006

Abstract

Noel McLachlan became a leading historian of Australia after an early career in Fleet Street journalism. He was Reader in History at the University of Melbourne and Editor of Historical Studies. His 1950 MA thesis on ‘Larrikinism’ pioneered the study of this area and his 1989 analysis of Australian nationalism, Waiting for the Revolution, remains a classic. Noel came to history through a circuitous route. After attending Ivanhoe East Central School and then Ivanhoe Grammar School, he earned a BA (Hons) and an MA in history from the University of Melbourne. Upon completion of his MA in 1950, he went to study at the London School of Economics, earning his PhD there in 1957. While studying in London, Noel became involved in journalism and, in 1954, became leader writer for the Evening Standard. In 1956, he moved to The Times, where he became by-election correspondent and reviewed books for The Times Literary Supplement. In 1959 he was appointed leader writer for The Times and editor of the column ‘The World at Large’ in the The Times Education Supplement. In 1964, Noel returned to Melbourne to take up a position as Senior Lecturer in History at Monash University, which had opened its doors in 1961. After three years at Monash, Noel accepted a position at the University of Melbourne which combined the two strands of his career: Reader in History (akin to being a professor today) and Editor of Historical Studies (today Australian Historical Studies), then as now the nation’s leading scholarly journal of its history. Noel was also Vice President of the Print Council of Australia from 1973 through 1975. After ten years as Editor (1968–77), Noel took a secondment as Foundation Professor of Australian History at University College, Dublin, where he remained for three years. He then returned to Melbourne and continued to teach Australian history until his retirement at the end of 1992. His time in Ireland led him to give substantial support to the development of Irish history in Australia. Noel was anything but a ‘black armband’ historian, but his view of history would hardly have pleased the Prime Minister or his apologists. Noel’s 1950 MA, ‘Larrikinism: An Interpretation’, presented the larrikin as ‘an inimitable Australian phenomenon’, by his distinctive dress and ‘the vigour of his persistent insulting (and occasional assaulting) of respectable citizens and policemen’. For Noel, irreverence and refusal to accept constituted authority – or should one say a refusal to take authority seriously – were the hallmarks of the Australian character and the bases of Australian identity. This approach was part of the emerging wave of radical nationalist history represented by the founding of the journal Overland in 1954 and the publication of analyses of the Australian character such as Russel Ward’s The Australian Legend (1958). Subsequently Noel’s interpretation of Australian identity and nationalism grew as he reflected, particularly in his 1977 article, ‘The Future America’, on those colonial Australians who thought Australia would follow the United States and become the next democratic republic to break away from the Empire. Noel’s major work, Waiting for the Revolution (Penguin, 1989), presented Australian nationalism as a consequence of its larrikin heritage and a potential still to be realised. The ‘revolution’ is our own revolution which would, like the American revolution, establish our OBITUARIES