Charles Edwin Woodrow Bean was born on 18 November 1879 at Bathurst, New South Wales, and was the eldest of three sons of Edwin and Lucy Bean. Charles entered All Saints' Preparatory School in 1886 where his father was headmaster. In 1889 poor health forced his father to resign and he took the family to England. For two years the Beans spent summer in Oxford and winter in Brussels, where Charles learnt French and drawing. In 1891 Charles' father became headmaster of Brentwood School in Essex, which his own father had attended. Charles was a pupil there in 1891-94 and then entered Clifton College where he studied from 1894-1897. It was at Clifton that Bean acquired a real interest in literature, in the classics and cricket. In 1898 Bean won a scholarship to Hertford College, Oxford where he studied Classics, particularly enjoying history. During this period he modified his writing style because he 'determined never, if possible, to write a sentence which could not be understood by, say a housemaid of average intelligence.' Following Oxford he applied for the Indian Civil Service but, graduating with second class honours, was not accepted. Instead he studied law, being called to the Bar of the Inner Temple in 1903. He taught briefly at the Brentwood School before travelling to Teneriffe, Canary Islands, as a tutor. In 1904 he returned to Australia and was admitted to the New South Wales Bar that year and worked as an associate to Justice Sir William Owen. Waiting for clients, he worked as assistant master at Sydney Grammar School and wrote articles for the Evening News. He wrote and illustrated a book, The Impressions of a New Chum, but was unable to get it published. However, from it the Sydney Morning Herald printed eight articles in 1907. Preferring writing to law, Bean went on to become a reporter with the Sydney Morning Herald in 1908 and subsequently published several books including With the Flagship in the South, 1909, On the Wooltrack, 1910 and The Dreadnought of the Darling, 1911. Between 1910 and 1912 Bean was based in London, working for the Herald. He returned to Sydney in late 1912 to work as a leader writer as well as undertaking several assignments in the country. From June 1914 he was writing daily commentary on the European crisis. With the outbreak of the First World War and the invitation of the Imperial government to attach an Australian official correspondent to its forces (Sir) George Pearce, Minister for Defence, requested the Australian Journalists' Association to nominate a suitable person. A ballot was held which Bean won, defeating (Sir) Keith Murdoch by a narrow margin. With the honorary rank of Captain Bean embarked for Egypt with the first contingent of the Australian Imperial Force. He went on to Gallipoli, landing on 25 April 1915, only a few hours after the dawn attack. Although he annoyed some troops in Egypt for reporting that some men were discharged and sent home for indiscipline, Bean gained their admiration on Gallipoli. He was recommended for a decoration for his bravery during the battle of Krithia, where, under fire, he assisted many wounded men, but as a civilian was ineligible for this award. Instead he was mentioned in dispatches. During the August offensive he was shot in the leg but refused to leave the peninsula, remaining at Gallipoli for the duration of the campaign. Bean went on to serve at the Western Front between 1916 and 1918, despatching news reports to Australia and collecting information in notebooks (which eventually comprised approximately 300 volumes) for use in the projected official history of Australia in the war. He was also involved in the administration of the AIF, contributing most significantly to the formation and development of the Australian War Records Section and of the AIF educational scheme. He had noticed as early as the Gallipoli campaign that Australian soldiers were avid collectors of battlefield souvenirs but it was on the Western Front that he conceived of a memorial that would commemorate the fallen. In May 1919 while on his way back to Australia he wrote recommendations to the government for the official history and for the establishment of a national war memorial. His proposals accepted, Bean, his staff and the war records of the AIF moved to Tuggeranong homestead, in the newly established ACT, where he was to write theOfficial history of Australia in the war of 1914-1918. In January 1921 Bean married Ethel (Effie) Clara Young, a nursing sister at the Queanbeyan hospital. They met when she visited Tuggeranong to play tennis. The first two volumes of the history, The story of Anzac, appeared in 1921 and 1924 respectively. By this stage Bean had been suffering pain for several years from a kidney ailment, and in 1924 he and Effie went to England so he could be treated. Following a kidney removal and the doctor's recommendation of a warmer climate the couple moved to Lindfield, Sydney, to a house they named Clifton. His staff and records moved to Victoria Barracks, Sydney. Bean wrote six volumes himself, edited eight more and, with H S Gullett, annotated the volume of photographs. The final volume was published in 1942. This was followed with Bean's one volume abridged history, Anzac to Amiens (Canberra, 1946). The vision Bean had for a memorial to honour the fallen and to display war relics came to fruition with the opening of the Australian War Memorial in November 1941. Between the wars, while living in Sydney, Bean was a founder of the Parks and Playgrounds Movement of New South Wales and was involved in the Town Planning Association. The Depression years took their toll on Bean. Although his salary was fixed by contract and not subject to the pay cuts experienced by public servants, including his colleagues working on the Official History, he insisted that his pay be reduced as well. In the 1930s Bean became an active member in the League of Nations Union, hoping it would help preserve world peace. He also supported the appeasement of Nazi Germany until Germany invaded Czechoslovakia and it became obvious that war could not be avoided. During the Second World War Bean wrote a pamphlet called The old AIF and the new in 1940 andWar aims of a plain Australian, a book in which he decried the failure of Australians to live up to the ideals which, he believed, had emerged at the end of the First World War. In 1940 Bean was employed by the Department of Information to provide liaison between the Chiefs of Staff and the press. In 1942 he became chairman of the new Commonwealth Archives Committee and subsequently had a primary role in the creation of the Commonwealth Archives.After the war Bean sought employment where he could. He was 66 when the Second World War ended, and the volumes he had produced generated no income. The only copyright he held was for ANZAC to Amiens but it sold very slowly. In 1952 he became chairman of the Board of Management of the Australian War Memorial (an unpaid position) and accepted a commission to examine First World War relics to determine what should be kept or discarded. Between 1947 and 1958 he chaired the Promotion Appeals Board of the Australian Broadcasting Commission. He wrote a history of Australia's non-government schools in 1950 and some of his pre-First World War books, were republished in new editions. In 1951 he and his wife Effie visited England and when they returned to Australia it was by a migrant ship, on which Bean was employed as a migration officer. Towards the end of his life Bean planned to return to the subject that had occupied most of his adult life with a series of biographies but only one was written: Two men I knew: William Bridges and Brudenell White, founders of the AIF, 1957. It was his last book.Bean's achievements did not go unrecognised. On more than one occasion he declined a knighthood. In 1930 he was given the Chesney Gold Medal of the Royal United Service Institution and accepted an Honorary Doctorate of Literature from the University of Melbourne in 1931 and an honorary degree of Doctor of Laws from the Australian National University in 1959.In 1956 he and his wife moved from Lindfield to Collaroy, to another house named Clifton. With his health failing Bean was admitted to Concord Repatriation Hospital in early 1964 and remained there until his death on 30 August 1968. A memorial service was held in Sydney's Anglican cathedral with an address given by Angus McLachlan.

Bazley, A. W., (Unpublished, Undated). Bean, C. E. W., (Unpublished, 1924). Dennis, Peter, Grey, Jeffrey, Morris, Ewan, Prior, Robin, (Melbourne: Oxford University Press Australia,1995). Inglis, Ken , (Brisbane: University of Queensland Press, 1970).