Guide to the Papers of Dorothy Fitzpatrick, 1929-2003

Summary

Collection number:

MS 9920

Creator:

Dorothy Fitzpatrick

Extent:

1.38 metres and (9 boxes + 1 packet)

Language:

English

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]'.

Availability:

Available

Access conditions:

Available for research. Not for loan.

Background

Content Summary:

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.

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.

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.

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.

Indexed terms

Names:

Dorothy Fitzpatrick

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]'.

Location of this collection:

National Library of Australia

Parkes Place

Canberra ACT 2600, Australia

Contact:

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