Academy Fellow

A man for our times: Professor Richard ‘Dick’ Selleck

5 May 1934 – 2 October 2022

It has been a while since I first spied the name ‘Professor R. J. W. Selleck’ on an office door in the Faculty of Education at Monash University – some 43 years ago in fact. He was Chair of Education for 25 years (1972-1997). I was then a lowly Diploma of Education student, in those days able to complete my teaching qualification in just one year. This kind and generous man was to meet me in postgraduate life, making space for scholars like me so to be able to engage in deep research in the field of education. Education faculties in those days were considered something of the poor relatives of Arts, yet Dick’s academic leadership of what became the Melbourne school in the field of History of Education helped change all of that – building on the work of luminaries such as Alexander Mackie at Sydney University several generations earlier, who saw an important place for the academic ‘disciplines’ in education, reinforcing education’s rightful position in the university rather than merely in a teacher ‘training’ college *1. Entrée into this world for young researchers – somewhat daunted by the prospect of presenting their first papers in national conference forums was made easier by Dick’s presence – intensely concentrating with belief on what was delivered, however fragmentary, tracing in his own mind what might one day become a more solid body of scholarly work. An able, lucid yet humble mentor, someone the neo-liberal university of today would hardly notice.

Dick’s piercing intellect had few peers in his field, something we all knew when listening to him sum up an academic panel as discussant - brilliantly and with quiet nuance and élan. His hallmark was his ability for counter thinking, cutting across in unexpected ways the grooves of assumed binary positioning – almost, as Dick said of his great mentor, A. G. (Bon) Austin, to ‘feel thought’ *2. For example, did government schooling in Australia become a form of middle-class social control? Or was it, as Selleck would have it, best characterized through the praxis of its teachers, belonging to the most publicly known of professions, and representing a more autonomous, spontaneous and evolving connective to Australia’s developing and distinctive social makeup? Furthermore, was the broad framing of the social historian around class theorization in fact disabling those who would have later battles to fight when defending the provision of state education from the neo-conservative onslaught? Dick’s macro-questioning on this and other educational issues was built upon his strong interest in historical detail, discovered during long hours in the archive which he then used to create new vistas of empirical analysis. He was wary of the intricate details of history being sacrificed to ‘the god of tidy theory’. His scope was always ambitious, with his epic monographs sitting talisman-like for others then to build upon. 

Dick’s very long list of publications include key monographs: Crudden – the Reluctant Rebel (1970); English Primary Education and Progressives (1972); Frank Tate: a biography (1982), The Shop: the University of Melbourne (2003); A History of State Aid in Non-Government Schools in Australia (2006) and Finding Home (2012) – a beautifully rendered family history. He also co-authored books with A. G. Austin, Martin Sullivan, Marjorie Theobald and Stuart Macintyre. 

However, two monographs stand out for their time and for their intellectual influence. Dick’s New Education (1968), near the beginning of his career, really set the scene for bringing together the contrarian transnational pulses that created innovative educational change between 1870 and 1914. Yet, even here, when an academic might be wishing to make their mark, Dick was at his most modest. Upon completing his 374-page book, and with much at stake, he confided in the last chapter: ‘the findings are likely to reflect very much the idiosyncrasies of the individual historian’ (p. 329). The second monograph is his biography of James Kay-Shuttleworth (1994). This was a massive undertaking, characterizing on many levels a key English reformer (1804-77), whose troubled career stemmed from driving new government responsibility in education that was neither profit-driven nor given over to religious eleemosynary effort. 

Dick was the recipient of several important awards and grants, including a Nuffield Dominion Travelling Fellowship in 1968, three ARC research grants, two Spencer Foundation grants and the History of Education Society (UK) book prize in 1995 for the best book on British history in the preceding three years.    

Yet, in all of this one cannot but think of Dick’s family background that created the sensitivity, loyalty and kindness really needed to bring off such masterly works. He was the eldest of six children and belonged to a devoutly Roman Catholic family, losing his mother, Johanna, to cancer when he was only 16 years of age - a loss he would carry keenly for the rest of his life. He remained an active Roman Catholic for much of his life, but lost this faith gradually, through the last two decades of last century. Family was most things to Dick. He had five children (Johanna, Sean, Luke, Bede, Justin) with his first wife Anne Clancy. In 1993 he married Dr Vivienne Kelly. Dick loved gardening, was a life-long supporter of South Melbourne (later the Sydney Swans) and was an omnivorous and retentive reader. He placed great importance on maintaining friendships through a dedicated stream of letters and emails.

There was much to this humane, self-effacing and decent human being whom I wish I knew better in later life. His intellectual legacy is profound and it is to that scholars can still turn, mindful of its enduring relevance; and with its strong promptings to think in unexpected ways so to add vibrancy and subtlety to their respective academic projects.  

Written by Tim Allender - University of Sydney

[1] Geoffrey Sherington, Alexander Mackie: an academic life (Sydney: University of Sydney, 2019), pt. 2.

[2] Stuart Macintyre, ‘A sense of tradition: R. J. W. Selleck and the purposes of educational history’ in the Journal of Educational Administration and History, 46:2 (2014), p. 117.

• R.J.W. Selleck (2004) The Shop, The University of Melbourne, 1850-1939. Melbourne: Melbourne University Publishing.
• R.J.W Selleck (1994) James Kay-Shuttleworth: journey of an outsider. London: Woburn Press.
• R.J.W. Selleck (1988) State education and culture, In Australian Cultural History. S.L. Goldberg and F.B. Smith (eds.). Sydney: Cambridge University Press.
• R.J.W. Selleck (1982) Frank Tate, a biography. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press.