Guide to the Papers of James Fowler

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MS 2280

National Library of Australia View Catalogue Record

Collection Summary

Creator
FOWLER, J.M. (James Mackinnon), 1865-1940
Title
Papers of James Fowler
Date Range
1899-1940
Collection Number
MS 2280
Extent
0.48 metres (3 boxes)
Language of Materials
English
Repository
National Library of Australia

Introduction

Scope and Contents

The collection comprises correspondence, electoral material, papers on Royal Commissions and committees of inquiries, papers concerning Bert Thomas, literary papers, cuttings and printed material.

Conditions Governing Access

The collection is available for reference.

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Copying and publishing of unpublished manuscript material is subject to copyright restrictions.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 Copying of unpublished material for research purposes is permissible 50 years after the death of the creator of the material.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 James Fowler, National Library of Australia, MS 2280, [series/subseries number, item number]'.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

The collection was donated to the Library by Miss D. J. Fowler in 1969.

Arrangement

The papers have been arranged into four series. There is a name index to correspondence.

Biographical Note

James Mackinnon Fowler was born in Strathaven, Scotland, on 20th June 1865. The son of James Fowler and Mary Mackinnon, he was related on his mother's side to Lachlan Macquarie, the Governor of New South Wales. He was educated at the Free Church School in Strathaven, then at the Glasgow Athenaeum.

Before his emigration to Australia Fowler worked as a clerk in drapery warehouses in Glasgow and Manchester, and served with the 92nd Blackwatch Highlanders. Attracted to the goldfields, he arrived in Western Australia in 1891, where he spent several years mining and prospecting for gold. On leaving diggings he became a journalist. In 1898 he married Daisy Winifred Bastow.

Fowler's political involvement began when he became Honorary Organising Secretary and subsequently Honorary General Secretary to the Executive of the Federal League in Western Australia. He was elected Member of Perth in the first Federal Election of May 1901, and retained this seat in subsequent elections until his defeat in 1922, first as a Labor Party member until 1909, then as a Liberal and later as a Nationalist.

During his parliamentary career Fowler was a member of several committees and inquires. In 1901 he was a member of the Select Committee of the House of Representatives on Coinage, in 1904 a member of the Select Committee of the House of Representatives on Electoral Act Administration, and from 1904 to 1907 he was a member of the Royal Commission on the Commonwealth Tariff. He was Chairman of Committees from 1913 to the dissolution of Parliament in July 1914, and between 1914 and 1917 was a member of the Joint Committee on Public Accounts, becoming a member again and its chairman in 1920.

Concurrent with his participation in politics, but chiefly after he ceased to a Member of Parliament, Fowler wrote a number of novels, short stories, newspaper articles and a film synopsis. Occasionally these appeared under the authorship of Hamish Mackinnon and James Evandale. His novels were never published, but some of his short stories were accepted by newspapers, and three non-fiction works were published: Statesment or mountebank: an Australian war study (Melbourne, Australasian Authors Agency, 1919); Australia's perils, real and imaginary (Melbourne, Brown and Prior, 1926); False foundations of British history, published posthumously in Melbourne, 1943, under the editorship of his son, Richard Fowler.

James Fowler died in Melbourne on 3rd November 1940.

Biographical Reference(s)

Commonwealth Parliamentary handbook, 1901-1920. Melbourne, Commonwealth Parliament. Library Committee 1921

Australian Dictionary of biography, vol. 8, p. 564

Who's who in the Commonwealth of Australia. Sydney, Angus and Robertson, 1922

Obituary, The Age, 4th November 1940

Item Descriptions

Series 1. General correspondence

A small number of letters on non-political topics, dating from 1915 to 1940, form this series. They include comments on his letters to newspapers and rejection slips from publishers. Among the correspondents are Edward, Duke of Windsor and Keith Murdoch, Managing Editor of The Herald.

Letters on other topics are arranged chronologically within the appropriate series.

Series 2. Political papers

Series 2 has been arranged into five subseries.

Subseries (i). Electoral material, such as pamphlets, policy statements and correspondence about elections, make up the first group.

Subseries (ii). The second subseries comprises pages taken from Hansard which feature Fowler's speeches and debates as a member of the House of Representatives. Covering his career from 1901 to 1922, some were found to have been grouped and annotated according to topics. The rest are arranged chronologically.

Subseries (iii). Papers on Royal Commissions and committees of inquiry

Subseries a). Royal Commission on Customs and Excise Tariffs. Reports and recommendations.
Subseries b). Nawab Khan Inquiry, 1909. Fowler's investigations into the abduction of a ten-year-old Australian girl to India by her Afghan stepfather, Nawab Khan, resulted in his presentation in 1910 of a bill to amend the Immigration Restriction Act. This subseries contains, as well as correspondence on the topic, newspaper cuttings about this and related cases, part of the amendation to the Immigration Restriction Act, 1901-1908, and the Native Labour Ordinance, Papua, 1906
Subseries c). Royal Commission to inquire into certain charges against Henry Chinn, 1919. Henry Chinn, the Supervising Engineer on the construction of the western section of the Trans-Australia Railway was found not to have the appropriate qualifications by a Royal Commission set up in 1913. Contained in this subseries are Hansard excerpts, correspondence, newspaper cuttings, the Commission's report and memoranda in connection with the report.
Subseries d). Joint Committee of Public Account. Report.... upon the Commonwealth Naval Dockyard, Cockatoo Island, New South Wales. 1915.
Subseries e). Bert Thomas Case, 1915. Fowler sought the re-opening of the case of Bert Thomas of Perth, who was wrongfully sentenced for murder, and succeeded in obtaining his release. Correspondence and a newspaper item document this case.
Subseries f). Joint Committee of Public Accounts. Report ..upon sugar. 1922. Fowler was chairman of this committee, which investigated abnormalities in the high prices of the Colonial Sugar Refining Company. This group of papers includes Hansard excerpts, press cuttings, magazine articles, parliamentary reports and minutes of evidence

Subseries (iv). Political press cuttings Collected in this subseries are press cuttings on political topics, including articles and letters by and about Fowler.

Subseries (v). Political correspondence and miscellaneous papers make up this subseries,including notes by Fowler, Notices of Motion and Orders of the Day for the House of Representatives, letters of Sir John Forrest, Sir Phillip Gibbs and of Fowler himself.

Series 3. Literary papers

Fowler's creative works - novels, short stories and a film synopsis, many of them based on his experiences as a gold prospector - are represented in this series in typescript form, together with any letters or press cuttings relating to them. These works include: 'Outback after gold', 1928; 'Bush blacks and gold', n.d.; 'Desert gold of Australia', 1931; 'The kookaburra laughed, or Day of Demos', 1933; 'Mary's mistake'; 'Besieged by blacks'; 'James McQueen changes his mind'; and 'Daniel Penruddock's gold'.

There are many cuttings on the film industry in Britain and Australia, grouped with the film synopsis Desert gold of Australia. Also included are manuscripts of articles and a letter to The Age, 1921. Among these articles are: 'Fowler, James Mackinnon'; 'Australian A-' (obliterated), 1916; 'Caledonia stern and wild'; 'Commonwealth arbitration', 1926; 'The curse of party politics'; Letter to The Age, 1921; 'Lord Forrest of Western Australia', 1929; 'Robbie Burns', 1922; 'What is wrong with Parliament', 1931; 'Scotus, Duns'; 'The true position of British Agriculture'; Untitled ('From an evidently inspired communication...'); and 'Robert Burns an appreciation.'

From about 1927 to 1937 some of Fowler's stories and articles appeared in Melbourne newspapers The Weekly Times, The Australasian, and The Age, often under the name James Evandale. These published items, plus articles in the National Review (London) and Police Journal (Melbourne) from another group in this series.

Series 4. Miscellaneous papers

This series includes general press cuttings, ten maps and directories of Australia, Asia and Britain, invitation, programs, greeting cards, Fowler's miner's rights for Victoria and Western Australia, the Yearbook of the Inter-Parliamentary Union Britannic Group, 1913, and a photograph of Fowler.


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