Running to about 300 boxes and containers, the Papers of Sir John Monash are one of the great manuscript collections of the National Library of Australia.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
They span his lifetime and are so vast that any attempt to conquer them or even to survey them swiftly is doomed to fail miserably. In working on the National Library of Australia's latest exhibition, Keepsakes: Australians and the Great War, I spent a long time with his papers.
I targeted what I thought relevant, peered into envelopes and turned pages of diaries, letters and notebooks. And as is natural when spending time in someone's company – though only in a two-dimensional way – I formed an impression of him, how he experienced World War I and, particularly, what he deemed worth keeping from that war.
Deciphering handwriting, reading notes to self and marginalia, holding somewhat grubby once-treasured possessions are, for me, the great delights of historical research.
Monash's papers are carefully organised, not just by archivists since they came to the library, but clearly by Monash himself. He was someone who sent duplicates of letters home in case originals were destroyed in transit. Like others, he kept copies of outgoing letters and regularly sent souvenirs home.
He even wrote a note in his pay book requesting its return after checking by the staff paymaster, "as the details are of value & importance to me".
He made to-do lists as if they were going out of fashion – he made notes inside the front cover of notebooks when they were "taken into use" – and crossed out tasks when complete or obsolete. Record keeping and order were important to him.
So what of Monash the man?
Well, these are my impressions. He kept painstaking records, was incredibly organised, was warm to those he admired and loved, an emotive writer, sentimental yet firm, straight talking, imposing, always busy, possessed of an enormous facility with words and never afraid to argue strongly for those things he believed in.
The display in Keepsakes canvases his family background, record keeping, letters to his family, his appointment as Australian Army Corps Commander in 1918 and his military success.
Through those items that he kept, the telegram his wife "Vic" received announcing his promotion, to the photograph of his being knighted by George V, to his diary entry recording the Battle of Hamel, we get a sense of the man.
Some things I found felt very personal. We have a paper bookmark, embroidered with the German words "Ich gratulire", meaning "congratulations". It was made in c.1875 by either Monash or his mother – the annotations on the accompanying envelope are unclear.
A eureka moment for me was finding the two thick, bound volumes of his wartime letters to his family.
Another was in finding his copy of his letter to his relative Gustav, then living in Minneapolis, explaining why he had joined up.
Yet another was in opening his notebooks, and seeing the care with which they were kept up. I'm not sure everyone knows someone who is a meticulous record keeper. I actually do, but I believe that is quite unusual. That a general would list every expense, or have a list of his toiletries and keep those lists, seems quite strange, yet strangely human and humbling. We all need to brush our teeth, even the best of us.
Susannah Helman is acting curatorial manager, exhibitions branch, National Library of Australia and one of the curators of Keepsakes: Australians and the Great War, which is on until July 19.
