Guide to the Papers of Dorothy Fitzpatrick
MS 9920
National Library of Australia View Catalogue Record
Collection Summary
- Creator
- Dorothy Fitzpatrick
- Title
- Papers of Dorothy Fitzpatrick
- Date Range
- 1929-2003
- Collection Number
- MS 9920
- Extent
- 1.38 metres (9 boxes + 1 packet)
- Language of Materials
- English
- Repository
- National Library of Australia
Introduction
Scope and Contents
The papers document the life of Melbourne academic and historian Dorothy Fitzpatrick (née Davies). They comprise Fitzpatrick's extensive personal correspondence with family, colleagues and associates; papers relating to her secondary and tertiary teaching appointments; research notebooks and drafts of her early work on the Australian wool trade; personal documents; and some correspondence and other papers relating to her husband Brian Fitzpatrick and his literary estate.
Conditions Governing Access
Please refer to the collection's catalogue record for the access conditions (http://nla.gov.au/nla.cat-vn1597115).
Conditions Governing Use
Copying and publishing of unpublished manuscript material is subject to copyright restrictions. For such material, written permission to publish must be obtained from the copyright holder(s). Copying of unpublished material for research purposes is permissible 50 years after the death of the creator of the material.
Preferred Citation
Items from this collection should be cited as '[Title or description of manuscript item], Papers of Dorothy Fitzpatrick, National Library of Australia, MS 9920, [box number and series and/or file number]'.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
The papers were received from Dorothy's son and daughter, Professor David Fitzpatrick and Professor Sheila Fitzpatrick, in December 2001 (Acc01/304), with a further small addition in May 2002 (Acc02/112). The donation included papers of both Dorothy and Brian Fitzpatrick. Dorothy Fitzpatrick's papers about Brian Fitzpatrick and the administration of his affairs after his death have been retained with her papers (Series 8). Brian Fitzpatrick's own correspondence and writings have been added to his papers at MS 4965: a list can be found in Series 8 File 7 in Dorothy Fitzpatrick's papers.
Related Materials
Papers of Brian Fitzpatrick, principally relating to the Australian Council for Civil Liberties but including drafts of radio programs and publications, are held by the National Library (MS 4965).
There is additional material in the papers of Don Watson, collected for his biography of Brian Fitzpatrick (MS 8261, Series 1), including correspondence with Dorothy Fitzpatrick, and also correspondence in the records of the National Council of Civil Liberties, Great Britain (held in microform at mfm M2657-2661).
Arrangement
The papers were sorted by Dorothy Fitzpatrick's daughter and son prior to donation and were received arranged within envelopes and files annotated with content descriptions and some explanatory notes. The individual File arrangements and the grouping into major, minor and family correspondence series have been retained. Other papers have been grouped into series by Library staff.
Biographical Note
Dorothy Mary Fitzpatrick was born on 4 February 1913, the child of Barbara Elder Davies (née McIndoe) and Leslie Bartlett Davies, a businessman and member of the Young Nationalists. She won a student exhibition to Ormond College, University of Melbourne, and undertook her undergraduate studies there from 1931 to 1934. At Melbourne she was taught by Herbert Burton and William McMahon Ball and, while ‘not seriously active in student affairs', joined the group led by Geoffrey Leeper, ‘a kind of left-wing rationalist, not sympathetic to the Communist Party', and regarded herself as a follower of Burton and Ball's ‘mildly socialist point of view'. (From an interview conducted by Adam Carr on 26 September 1997 as part of his honours thesis on the formation of the Australian Council for Civil Liberties and referred to in his paper ‘Intellectuals and Politics in 1930s Melbourne: Events leading to the formation of the Australian Council for Civil Liberties, 1914-37', available online at http://www.adam-carr.net/honsthesis/honsthesis2.txt).
After graduating with a first class Honours degree in history in 1934, Fitzpatrick tutored for three years in political philosophy and economic history at the University. In 1939 she successfully applied for a British Council scholarship to undertake a study of the wool trade. The following year she married Brian Fitzpatrick (1905-1965), whom she had assisted for some years in his research for his work on the economic history of Australia and New Zealand and with whom she was associated in the movement to establish the Australian Council of Civil Liberties. Her wool trade work was interrupted by the birth of their first child, Sheila, and was never published.
In 1946 Fitzpatrick was appointed as a part-time lecturer in politics and history at the University of Melbourne, and also taught for a term as a student teacher at Melbourne Church of England Girls' Grammar School. After the birth of her second child, David, in 1948 she returned to school teaching, as a student teacher at Shelford CEGGS in 1953 and, on obtaining her teaching certificate, at Melbourne CEGGS from 1954 to 1958.
In 1962 Fitzpatrick was appointed to the History Department at Monash University as a Senior Teaching Fellow (Senior Tutor), where she taught until her retirement in December 1978. Dorothy Fitzpatrick died on 7 September 2001.
Item Descriptions
Series 1. Major personal correspondence, 1937-1991
Letters received from friends and colleagues, designated by Fitzpatrick's children as ‘major correspondence' and arranged alphabetically by correspondent. They date principally from the 1960s to the1980s, but there are some earlier letters as indicated.
Correspondents include Alex Bruce, Barbara Brooks, William McMahon Ball, Stuart and Margaret Broadhead, Clem Christesen, Judith Clark, Manning Clark, Eleanor and Eric Dark (1941-1980), Frank and Marie Davison, Louis Green, Job Hawkes, Bill Kent, Geoffrey Leeper, Margaret Lettice/Hamerseley, Gladys Leisenring (1937 and 1974-89), Gwenda and Sonia Milston, Elijah Moshinsky, Drury Oeser (1951, 1960s-1980s), Nettie Palmer (c1945-1958), P.H. Partridge (1948, 1949 and undated), Michael and Faye Roberts/Dunlop, Katy and Mark Richmond, Margaret Roff/Clark, Joan Sewell/Cunning/Boyce, Pat Uberoy/Houson and Jitsingh Uberoy, Don Watson, and Richard White.
Series 2. Minor personal correspondence, 1938-1989
The series comprises some personal correspondence, letters requesting information about and access to the papers of Brian Fitzpatrick (see also Series 8 Files 5-6), and cards and letters from unidentified correspondents. Includes correspondence with John Legge and Geoffrey Serle 1961 regarding Fitzpatrick's employment at Monash (see also Series 4 File 1 and Series 5 File 3) and letters from Theo Lucas (the first Secretary of the ACCL) and from Peter Singer in 1968 concerning proposed work on the civil liberties movement.
Series 3. Family correspondence, 1938-1999
Letters, cards, postcards and invitations received from Fitzpatrick's siblings Gwen, Roy and Barbara (Douglas), brother-in-law Alan Douglas, and other family members including Una Allen. See Series 8 File 1 for letters from Brian Fitzpatrick.
Gwen Davies to Dorothy Fitzpatrick, c1965-1978 and undated (File 2) - Box 2
Mainly written from the Solomon Islands where Davies worked with the SSEM; includes a 1964 SSEM calendar
Series 4. Other correspondence, 1949-1977
Series 5. Student years, school teaching, University appointments, 1929-1978
University of Melbourne, 1929-1933, 1939-1940, 1946, 1961 (File 1) - Box 3
Correspondence and reports at student exhibitioner at Ormond College and newspaper cuttings of exam results, 1929-1933; Honours history lecture notes, 1932; application for British Council support of research on the wool trade, 1939; appointment as tutor in politics, 1946; application for appointments as a public examiner and in the University library, 1961
Secondary teaching 1946, 1953-1961 (File 2) - Box 3
Includes teaching certificate, correspondence and other papers concerning teaching appointments at Shelford and Melbourne Church of England Girls Grammar School and staff dispute and resignations, and copies of MCEGGS staff handbook, annual report 1956 and Newsletters 1953-1958
Series 6. Personal and miscellaneous documents, 1939-2001
Diaries, 1954, 1980-1981, 1983-1986, 1989, 1991-1995, 1997-1999 (File 1-2) - Box 4
Appointments; some with summary of activities and comments on health
Personal documents, 1922-1988 (File 4) - Box 4
Include extract from birth certificate, passport, driving licences, bank passbooks, membership cards of Australian Labor Party, Victoria (Women and Juveniles) 1942 and Monash University Club 1988/89
‘Public life', 1939-1942 and undated Miscellaneous documents relating to Fitzpatrick's political and civic activities and interests. Comprise bank passbook of Victorian Refugee Immigration Appeals Committee, University branch, 1939-1940; rough minutes of (ACCL?), 2 March 1941; exercise book with cuttings of three letters to newspapers by Fitzpatrick (on broadcasting of religious services, constitutional amendment proposals, extension of school-leaving age), November 1942; notice of meeting of Combined Women's Organisations Protest Committee, 1 August (no year); Bulletin of Council for Women and War Work, Sept-Dec. (no year) [Kathleen Fitzpatrick was President of the Council] (File 5) - Box 4
Series 7. Research, c1933-c1980
‘A history of the Australian Wool Trade', c1940 Amended typescript of complete work and some partial drafts (File 2_4) - Box 5
Research on state legislatures/constitution, 1949 (File 6) - Box 7
Letters received from each of the Parliaments in reply to Fitzpatrick's circular questionnaire, with responses, and Fitzpatrick's summary notes
John Alexander MacPherson research, c1971-1972 (File 7_8) - Box 7
Research notes, Australian Dictionary of Biography article and related correspondence
Miscellaneous notebooks and notes, 1976 and undated (File 9) - Box 7
Notes on lectures attended at Oxford,1976; undated notebook on a ?conference/series of lectures (speakers included history academics Macdonagh, Ward, Prest, Inglis, Rudé, Main, Meaney); ms notes (timeline) on the Italian city state in the 14th century; undated notebook on the Renaissance [not in Fitzpatrick's hand].
Series 8. Brian Fitzpatrick, 1938-1989
Correspondence relating to publication of the work of Brian Fitzpatrick, 1938, 1957, 1966-1994 (File 2) - Box 8
Mainly correspondence with publishers re reprinting and re-publishing of Brian Fitzpatrick's books and articles, with related agreements, royalty statements, public lending rights statements, but file also includes 2 letters 1938 re Dorothy Davies' financial support for the publication of Studies in British Imperialism, a few items of Brian Fitzpatrick's correspondence with publishers, 1957, and some papers relating to disposal of Brian Fitzpatrick's literary estate (gift of back copies of Labor News Letter to libraries)
Condolences, obituaries and estate, 1965-1966 (File 3) - Box 8
Letters (mainly formal) of condolence on Brian Fitzpatrick's death, copies of tributes and obituaries in The Rationalist and The Melbourne Partisan, and correspondence and legal documents relating to Fitzpatrick's intestacy and estate.