The collection was donated to the Australian War Memorial in 1938 by
the league's honorary secretary, Colonel William Mackenzie, on the league's
being wound up. Printed publications and some documents among the original
donation were dispersed among the Memorial's collection. Copies of the
The collection has informed the work of several military
historians including John Barrett (author of
Open.
Copyright of materials described in this guide is governed by copyright law in Australia. For further information contact the Curator of Private Records, Research Centre.
Guide to the papers of the Australian Defence League (NSW Division), Australian War Memorial, 2DRL/1098. The league's only other division was a short-lived Victorian one, so its name may be abbreviated to ANDL.
The ANDL was one of several lobby groups formed in Britain and its
white dominions between the Boer War and the First World War to urge compulsory
militia and cadet service.
The ANDL was the product of the formation
of Britain's National Service League in 1902, the apparent threat posed by
Japanese naval and military victories over Russia in mid 1905, Australians'
increasing habit of looking to government to solve defence and social problems,
and the energy of a Sydney solicitor and militia colonel, Gerald Campbell.
Formed in September 1905, the ANDL adopted the National Service League's call
for 'compulsory military training' along 'Swiss lines', hoping to confound
potential critics by presenting the martial but unmilitaristic Swiss as a
model.
The ANDL soon had hundreds of members organised in more than
twenty Sydney and rural branches, especially on the New South Wales north
coast. Most members were militiamen or belonged to rifle clubs. Always
referring to itself as the 'New South Wales division', the ANDL hoped to
inspire divisions and branches in other Australian states. Only in Melbourne
did another group form, and it proved short-lived. Calling for mass voluntary
military service, perhaps in rifle clubs where the generals could not control,
it quickly fell out with Sydney and then collapsed.
Gerald Campbell
had more success in uniting prominent soldiers, journalists and moderate Labor
leaders who, for various reasons, had long wanted to end voluntary militia and
cadet service. Early ANDL members included Labor politicians William Holman,
William Morris Hughes and John Christian Watson, journalists Charles Bean,
Frank Fox and Arthur Jose, university professors Mungo MacCallum and Henry
MacLaurin and senior soldiers James Gordon Legge and James Macarthur Onslow.
Gerald Campbell, William Henderson (a publisher and former militia officer) and
William Mackenzie (a militia officer in Campbell's old regiment) were probably
the key organisers. Equally important was Frank Fox, a journalist and militia
officer who edited the ANDL journal
The partnership of soldiers, journalists and moderate Labor and
the brilliance of Fox's journalism and Lindsay's drawings ensured the ANDL's
popularity, in contrast to the general suspicion or indifference which met
Britain's politically marginalised National Service League. Nevertheless,
widespread concern in Australia about Japan, and increasingly Germany too, was
more important than the ANDL in the Australian decision for compulsion. Some
conservative League members deserted the League once the goal of compulsion
became clear and achievable. A few even joined an Australian Freedom League
which resisted compulsory cadet and militia service as unBritish and
militaristic.
As cadet and militia membership became compulsory from
1911 the ANDL turned itself in a propagandist for the new military system and a
guardian against any erosion of it. But it lacked its former sense of purpose,
its branches wound up (remaining members being managed by the Sydney office),
and it struggled financially. During the First World War the cadets and militia
almost evaporated, Campbell was taken into overseas (though not front-line)
service, and a Universal Service League emerged to urge conscription into the
Australian Imperial Force. Already faltering before 1914, the ANDL became
dormant.
It revived in 1919, in part to support calls by the generals
for harder militia training. But militia service was now unpopular, and the
Labor party was committed to ending compulsory recruiting. The ANDL could no
longer draw on bipartisan support and shrank into irrelevance. No one, not even
William Morris Hughes, heeded its protests when a Labor government ended
compulsory military service in 1929. New defence lobby groups sprang up from
1933, including Hughes' Australian Defence League. William Mackenzie took
charge from Campbell and wound up the ANDL in 1938, donating its records to the
Australian War Memorial.
References:
The papers of the Australian National Defence League (NSW Division)
are held in the Private Records collection in the Australian War Memorial's
Research Centre as collection item 2DRL/1098. They document this important
lobby group's organisation, membership and activities from its creation in 1905
to its collapse in 1938. They comprise three registers of subscriptions paid by
members, five volumes of minutes of meetings held, a letter book of outward
letters, five folders of loose, mostly inwards correspondence and two folders
of miscellaneous papers which include updated correspondence and legal
documents. Prominent Australians whose correspondence forms parts of the
collection include Charles Bean, Edgeworth David, Alfred Deakin, Frank Fox,
Arthur Jose, William Morris Hughes, James Gordon Legge, Mungo MacCallum, Henry
MacLaurin and John Christian Watson.
Printed publications and some
documents from the original donation were dispersed among the Memorial's
collection. They can be identified by consulting the Memorial inventory
compiled on acquisition and kept on donation file 12/4/410 in series AWM93. The
dispersed documents concern an essay competition and most now form item MSS630
of series AWM224.