MS 366
Papers of Lyndhurst F. Giblin (1872-1951)



Scope and Content Note

  • Papers
  • 1885-1965
  • 85 cm (5 boxes)
  • Available for reference

This collection was brought together from a number of sources between 1952 and 1967. Mrs Eilean M. Giblin deposited some of the papers herself. Various friends and associates deposited either original papers, or copies of papers in the possession of other members of the Giblin family. Among those who made substantial contributions in this way were J.M. Garland, Sidney Crawford and Sir Roland Wilson.

Included in the collection are letters to his wife, to his sisters Aella and Edith (Mrs Hall), and to his brother Alan between the years 1885-1950, Mrs Giblin's diaries relating to life in Canberra during 1941-1943; manuscripts and typescripts, papers on the basic wage, standard hours, land values and other economic subjects; his "Letters to John Smith" and "More letters to John Smith"; the "Response to Poetry" and a pocket diary with some notes written by Giblin during the last month of his life.


Biographical Note

Lyndhurst Falkiner Giblin in Hobart on 29th November 1872, son of William R. Giblin, former Premier of Tasmania. Educated at Hutchins School, Hobart, University College, London and King's College, Cambridge, he graduated as a Master of Arts, with Honours in mathematics. He excelled at Rugby football, and represented England at that game. In 1898 Giblin went to northern British Columbia to try his luck at mining, but he was unsuccessful. After this, he became in turn a teamster, lumberman, sailor and schoolteacher. His years of travel and adventure extended until 1905, and included a visit to the Solomon Islands.

Giblin returned to Tasmania in 1906 and took up farming and fruit growing. He developed an interest in local politics and from 1912 to 1915 was a member of the Tasmanian House of Assembly. He joined the A.I.F. in 1916, served in France, finishing with the rank of Major and won the Distinguished Service Order and the Military Cross. In 1918 L.F. Giblin married Eilean Mary Burton. On 1st December 1919 he was appointed Government Statistician of Tasmania and held that position until 1928. He was made Ritchie Professor of Economics at the University of Melbourne in 1929, devoting himself to the study of such problems as State and Federal financial relations and the concept of taxable capacity, the measurement of tariff costs and their distribution. He occupied the chair until 1940. During the Depression of 1928-32, Giblin undertook the task of explaining to the general public, in a series of press articles entitled "Letters to John Smith, the causes of the crisis." In 1931, the Commonwealth Government led by J.A. Lyons appointed him as a financial adviser and have him the office of Commonwealth Statistician. His advice to the Lyons Government was to some extent responsible for Australia's rapid recovery. Between 1922 and 1936, Giblin was a member of the Commonwealth Grants Commission. When the Second World War broke out, Giblin came to Canberra where he remained until the war ended. For seven years, from 1939 to 1946, he was Chairman of the Commonwealth Financial and Economic Committee.

Giblin came to economics through other studies. His original interests were mathematics and statistics, and he probably never regarded himself as having mastered the techniques of theoretical economics. His chief work as a writer on economic subjects lay in his contribution to the Economic Record and in his Growth of a Central Bank (1951), the latter arising out of his experience from 1935 to 1942, as director of the Commonwealth Bank.

L.F. Giblin died in Tasmania on 1st March 1951. King's College, Cambridge, of which he had been made a A Supernumerary Fellow in 1937, established in his memory a Giblin studentship, open to an Australian graduate.

References:

  • The Australian Encyclopedia, Vol. IV, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1958.
  • Who's Who in Australia, 1950
  • Economic Record, June 1951
  • The Australian Quarterly, June 1951
  • The Economic Record, Nov. 1952
  • Copland, Douglas, ed. Giblin, the Scholar and the man, Cheshire, Melbourne, 1960 (with a complete bibliography of Giblin's writings, pp. 223-228).

Series List

1

Letters from Giblin to his wife 1-1685

2

Letters from Giblin to his sister Aella 1-150

3

Letters from Giblin to his sister Edith (Mrs Hall) 1-205

4

Letters from Giblin to his brother Alan 1-149

5

General correspondence 1-342

6

Mrs Giblin's war time diaries 1-2

7

Basic wage and standard hours 1-189

8

Land values 1-107

9

Other economic papers 1-345

10

Letters to John Smith 1-209

11

Response to poetry 1-177

12

Biographical and miscellaneous papers 1-58


Series Description

Series 1

Letters from Giblin to his wife

This series contains 419 letters written by Giblin to his wife from 1917 to 1950; they are arranged in chronological order.


Series 2

Letters from Giblin to his sister Aella

Contains letters to his sister Aella from 1890-1938; type script copies are also included.


Series 3

Letters from Giblin to his sister Edith (Mrs Hall)

Typescript copies of letters to his sister Edith between the years 1885-1951.


Series 4

Letters from Giblin to his brother Alan

Small number of letters to his brother Alan, from 1916-1918.


Series 5

General correspondence

This series contains general correspondence to and from Giblin between the years 1896 and 1950. There are also letters from Mrs Giblin to Sidney Crawford and some letters of sympathy to her after her husbands death. Some correspondence between Mrs Hall and L. Crawford and between John Garland and R. Schieder. These letters refer to Giblin's association with Martin Grainger in British Colombia. Other correspondents include; E.G. Theodore, J.A. Lyons, A.G.B. Fisher, Sir Douglas B. Copland, Sir Otto Niemeyer, E. Dyason, W.B. Reddaway, W.B. Duffy, Sir Walter Massy-Greene and Sir Charles Wickens.


Series 6

Mrs Giblin's war time diaries

The diaries are in two volumes, 1940-41 and 1941-43; they were deposited by Mrs Giblin in 1952 and 1953 and relate to life in Canberra during the war years.


Series 7

Basic wage and standard hours

Printed and typescript material on wages, prices and economic effects of a 40 hours week in Australia. The Standards Fours Enquiry by A..J. Tyrer and the Standard Hours Case by H.P. Brown are also in this series


Series 8

Land values

This series includes typescript material on land values, land sales control, the valuation of land under an incremental tax, the stabilisation of rural land values, the land valuation policy in New Zealand and the report on land valuation by Justice Uthwatt.


Series 9

Other economic papers

Placed in this series are manuscripts and typescripts on various economic topics; a complete list is to be found in Appendix 1.


Series 10

Letters to John Smith

These letters were written in simple language by Giblin to "John Smith" and published in the Herald (Melbourne) during the Depression (1930). Their object was to persuade the people to accept a reduction in the basic wage awarded by the Arbitration Court. More letters to John Smith are also included in this series.


Series 11

Response to poetry

Contains typescript notes by Giblin, (24 January 1945) on "The response to poetry" and a copy of an article on the same subject written by the magazine Prometheus (25 September 1945).


Series 12

Biographical and miscellaneous papers

Contains a diary that records briefly the last month of Giblin's life, press cuttings, Stand-to, August to September 1952, the future of the Botanical Gardens (Melbourne). A day in Cambridge, Port Arthur in the seventies, some notes from Mrs Hall (Dec. 1951), biographical notes and 2 photographs of Giblin.


Appendix 1

Manuscripts and typescripts on various economic topics, held in Series 9.

Manuscripts
Folder
1

Australia agoniste

2

Employment and unemployment in Australia, Nov. 1930

3

A note on road expenditure

4

Valuation of imports for duty

5

Federal income tax

6

Suggestions for income tax

7

The just step to economic recovery

8

Public finance

9

A tax on tea

10

Gold bonus

11

Retail prices


Typescripts
Folder
1

Australia in the shadows

2

The taxable capacity of Australian States

3

The Australian balance of payments

4

Estimated total female breadwinners

5

Estimated total male breadwinners

6

Estimated costs of raising women's wages in certain industries

7

The Premiers' plan myth

8

Australia, 1940

9

The future of Australia

10

The National income, 1924-31

11

Nationalisation of credit

12

Export farmers

13

Export farmers' income

14

Addendum to evidence by Prof. Wadham

15

Memorandum for the Treasurer, 7 Sep. 1942

16

Surplus rural export income

17

The surplus of rural income

18

Unemployment index, N.S.W.

19

Notes on band board appointment

20

White alien immigration

21

The crisis in democracy

22

Notes on Republic of Solitaria


Bibliography

A complete bibliography of Giblin's writings is to be found in Copland, Douglas, ed. Giblin, the scholar and the man. Melbourne, Cheshire, 1960, pp. 223-228


Name Index to Correspondence

All correspondence in the papers has been indexed, the numbers below being underlined to indicate authorship, non-underlined indicates receipt of a letter. The number preceding the backslash indicates the series, numbers after the backslash indicate the item, eg. 5/249, Since the bulk of the correspondence is with Giblin, letters to him have been indexed only under the writer's name, and not under Giblin.

Bennett, Samuel

5/324

Brigden, James Bristock

5/338

Clausen, Francis Felix

7/32, 7/42

Copland, Sir Douglas Berry

5/64-6, 5/252, 5/255

Crawford, Sidney

5/256-9, 5/260, 5/261-2, 5/263-6, 5/267,
5/269-70, 5/271, 5/272, 5/273-4, 5/275-6,
5/277, 5/278-9, 5/280-1, 5/282, 5/342

Davidson, Sir Alfred Charles

5/336-7

Duffy, William B.

5/242-5

Dyason, Edward Clarence

5/8-9

Earp, Frank Russell

5/249

Exley, Harold James

5/311-2

Firth, Gerald G.

8/25, 8/40, 11/25

Fisher, Allan George Barnard

5/2, 5/10

Garland, John M.

5/283-5, 5/287-8, 8/46, 8/47

Gepp, Sir Herbert William

5/334

Giblin, Aella

2/1-150

Giblin, Alan

4/1-149

Giblin, Desmond

5/290

Giblin, Edith
(see Hall, Mrs Edith)

Giblin, Mrs Eilean L.F.

1/1-1685, 5/250, 5/252, 5/253, 5/271,
5/272, 5/273-4, 5/275-6, 5/277, 5/278-9a,
5/280-1

Giblin, Emily Jean Mrs

5/1

Giblin, Lyndhurst F.

1/1685, 2/1-150, 3/1-205, 4/1-149, 5/1,
5/2, 5/3-6, 5/10, 5/11-9, 5/20-38,
5/39-40, 5/41-43, 5/44, 5/45-46, 5/47-50,
5/51-9, 5/60-63, 5/72, 5/81-83, 5/86-8,
5/89-94, 5/95-8, 5/99-115, 5/116-122, 5/123-30,
5/131-6, 5/137-45, 5/46-52, 5/153-62, 5/163-92,
5/193-220, 5/242-5

Gibson, Alexander Boyce

5/250

Gifford, John Liddle King

5/338

Hall, Mrs Edith M.

3/1-205, 5/256-9, 5/260, 5/261-2, 5/263-6,
5/267-8, 5/269-70, 5/342

Hytten, Torleiv

5/338

Johnston, Walter Lindsay

5/316

Lyons, Joseph Aloysius

5/20-38

McMinn, Jas. C.

5/84-85

Massy-Greene, Sir Walter

5/68-71

Niemeyer, Sir Otto

5/45-6, 5/75-6

Pitt, George Henry

5/282

Reddaway, William Brian

5/221-41

Richardson, Martin

5/325

Schieder, Dr Rupert M.

5/283-5, 5/286, 5/289, 5/287-8

Shann, Edward Owen

5/60-3, 5/338

Sheppard, John

5/248, 5/249

Simpson, George

11/25

Theodore, Edward G.

5/3-6, 5/7, 5/41-3, 5/44, 5/73-4, 5/77,
5/78, 5/80

Wadham, Samuel McMahon

5/246-7, 9/283

Walker, Edward Ronald

5/81-3, 5/338

Wickens, Sir Charles

5/291-6, 5/97-9, 5/302-5, 5/306-10, 5/338

Wilson, Sir Roland

5/253

Wood, Gordon Leslie

5/79, 5/80


Box List

Series

Box

1

1-2

2-5

3

6-7

4

8-12

5