Guide to the Papers of Lyndhurst Falkiner Giblin

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 aA 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).