Emeritus Professor Ken Inglis

Emeritus Professor Ken Inglis

MA (Melbourne), DPhil (Oxford)

I’m grateful to have been invited to give annual Academy lectures, in 1974 on Naming a New Nation and in 1988 on Multiculturalism and National Identity, each of which provoked me to chance my arm on a topic I might not otherwise have addressed.  In 1988 the Academy enabled Paul Chadwick and me to convene a workshop on Prospects for Australian Newspapers. The Governor-General, Bill Hayden, invited participants to dinner at Government House on the evening before the meeting, on condition that we include one person we hadn’t thought of asking.  We were happy to comply.

Of Academy projects, the one that stands out in my memory is Charles Rowley’s historic study of Aborigines in Australian Society; I pay tribute in my entry on him in the Australian Dictionary of Biography. Among annual lectures I cherish in particular Hugh Stretton’s on Australia Fair, and among separate publications Stuart Macintyre’s The Poor Relation.