( Little Darwin series about the feisty, articulate author involved in so many struggles on both sides of the Tasman and internationally )
The eighth of 10 children , the daughter of William and Jane Crook, much of Jean’s outlook was shaped by the tough life the family experienced in New Zealand and the wild industrial struggles of the day . There was so much turmoil in the country that it was said there could be a violent revolution in NZ. Her father , from Lancashire, worked in mines and held positions such as battery manager , blacksmith and mechanic in the South Island. Like so many miners , he suffered a debilitating lung disease and drank heavily, her Irish mother and the rest of the household suffering from his bouts of drunkenness .
Named Jane after her mother, a schoolteacher later urged her to be known as Jean . The same teacher encouraged her to read a lot after she was forced to leave school at 13 and work as a waitress . In l911, aged 16, Jean met a coal miner deeply involved in union affairs, Francis Harold “Hal” Devanny, at a dance and they eventually married. A son , Harold, mainly called Karl after Karl Marx, was born in 1912; Patricia , named after another prominent activist imprisoned for refusing military service , Australian miner , Paddy Webb, who later became a Labor minister , was born the following year; another daughter , Erin, followed the year after.
The Devannys were deeply involved in mining union activities and Marxist study groups. Jean played the piano and violin and was a prolific reader. She got to know many of the militant leaders of the day , such as Bob Semple , Pat Hickey, Peter Fraser , Walter Nash and Henry Edmund “Harry” Holland, many of whom became politicians, some prime ministers .
In the case of Holland ,an Australian who had been an apprenticed compositor and worked on several papers, ran several socialist publications, he was jailed for sedition before he went to NZ in 1912. There he became editor of the Labour newspaper , Maoriland Worker, to which Jean contributed many spirited items and had been impressed by Holland . A former editor of the paper had once been editor of the Barrier Truth in the great mining centre , Broken Hill, NSW . There was a steady flow of workers from Australia to New Zealand in those days , many of them having been involved in fierce disputes for better wages and conditions , and moved about chasing employment across the Tasman .
The Maori Worker’s motto : The World’s Wealth for the World’s Workers. Holland, prominent in large mining and wharf strikes , was again imprisoned for using seditious language An excerpt from the Australian Dictionary of Biography has this to say about him:
Holland was a socialist of extraordinary and selfless dedication and character. Self-educated and sensitive, he was a voracious reader and prolific writer: in addition to his constant journalism and public speaking, he wrote thirty-six pamphlets, mainly on labour issues, but also on subjects such as Samoa, China, Ireland and Mussolini and a volume of sentimental verse, Red Roses on the Highways (Sydney, 1924). His commitment to doctrinaire socialism was passionate and total, though it mellowed somewhat under the pressure of political practicalities.
*************
During a tour of NZ bookshops some years ago, among the many buys by this writer were books and ephemera relating to Kiwi politics. One treasured find was a book which had once belonged to Holland. It provides an extraordinary insight into the intense feelings about the class warfare, the fierce industrial, social and political attitudes existing in the world , especially NZ, nearly 100 years ago.
Called WAR –WHAT FOR ? , by George R.Kirkpatrick , published by the author in Ohio,USA, 1910, 349pp, including illustrations and index ,with extensive marking of text and statistical tables, it contains the pencilled inscription: H. E. Holland,Huntly ( a North Island NZ coal mining town),1914. [Holland died at Huntly in l933 when he collapsed during the funeral of a Maori “King”; nearly 100,000 attended his state funeral in Wellington ]. The book was dedicated to the victims of the civil war in industry ; that is, to my brothers and sisters of the working class, the class who furnish the blood and tears and cripples and corpses in all wars –yet win no victories for their own class .
The frontispiece , above, shows a whip wielding devil depicted as STARVATION forcing a worker into the hands of the system –police, capitalists, the militia - the caption: INDUSTRIAL DESPOTISM, SHREWDLY CALLED FREEDOM . An intriguing inked in front free endpaper inscription reads : To Banjo,Marshall & Duncan & friends. Hold & use this to the best advantage until you are able to get copies .I will call some day & ask for it on my way north when my password will be Boots .
Holland was imprisoned for sedition during WW1 and became the parliamentary leader of the NZ Labour party from 1919-l933. Jean Devanny joined the NZLP and was asked to take part in party politics. However she and her husband Hal found the Labor Party too conservative and were attracted to the Communist Party. It must have been a hectic time for Jean Devanny , what with writing short stories , novels ,including the controversial The Butcher Shop, contributing to the Maori Worker, mixing with the leading lights in unions , her husband Hal in the thick of things, and she bringing up children. One of the positions she held was Secretary of the Friends of Soviet Russia Propaganda Committee.
The death of daughter Erin from peritonitis deeply disturbed Devanny and she gave up her interest in music as a result. One of the female activists Jean was involved with in NZ , Miriam Soljak , later joined forces in Australia with the feminist writer and social reformer, Jessie Street, who campaigned for the rights of women and international peace. At the request of Prime Minister John Curtin, Street , wife of a judge , went to San Francisco in April 1945 as the only woman in the Australian team at the conference which founded the United Nations Organisation .
A prominent New Zealand politician and author, John A. Lee , knew Jean Devanny. Most of his books are in this writer’s library. Born in Dunedin in 1891, he became a “delinquent,” ran away, did a stretch in Mount Eden prison for running grog and breaking and entering. His biographical notes state that at some stage he came across Upton Sinclair's socialist novel THE JUNGLE and also read the works of Jack London. During WW1 he joined up to fight and was known as "Bolshie Lee " because of his socialist views .
In 1917 he was awarded the DCM for single -handedly capturing a German machine gun at Messines, Belgium ; next year he was wounded and his left arm was amputed . After the war, a powerful soapbox speaker, he entered politics and was extremely popular . In the l930s he became well known through his novels writing about socialism, highlighting the plight of poor children, injustices in the system .
Despite putting an enormous effort into the campaign which saw Labor elected in l935, he did not get a seat in Cabinet , but was given what he regarded as a nebulous post . From 1936 to 1939 he was Under-Secretary to the Minister of Finance and responsible for the successful introduction of Labor's landmark state housing programme. In l938 he published SOCIALISM IN NEW ZEALAND , saying it was the way forward , not Communism. Disenchanted with the timidity of government leaders, he became increasingly unpopular within the party . He was eventually expelled in l940 for criticising Prime Minister Mickey Savage , started his own party, the Democratic Labor Party , failed to be relected , and launched a newspaper, John A. Lee’s Weekly which ran from l940-l948. Also produced were a number of political memoirs ; blurbs for these books stated that Lee pulled no punches when commenting on the political scene , and wrote of womanising in the ranks .
Lee mentioned Jean Devanny in his l973 work , POLITICAL NOTEBOOKS, above left, quoting an unnamed woman who supplied him with information about Devanny alleging she entertaining men in a boarding house in between working away on a typewriter . The other book above – RHETORIC AT THE RED DAWN , Collins, 1965 – the dustjacket illustration by cartoonist Minhinnick , shows leading NZ Labour parliamentary figures that Devanny knew, including Holland . In his 1963 autobiographical SIMPLE ON A SOAPBOX , Collins, Auckland , Lee dedicated it to the novelist Upton Sinclair “who found me my first publisher.” As he had outlived many of the politicians in the book, his comments were regarded as fighting old wars and very subjective. In respect of Holland , recalling some of his union activities in Australia before coming to NZ, Lee said he(Holland ) had organised a failed campaign for NSW tailoresses ; other biographical sources state that Holland had succeeded in getting better pay and conditions for the women . Late in life Lee ran a bookshop in Auckland and died in l982.
************
The Devanny family moved to Sydney in August 1929, the start of the Depression , because it was thought the climate would be better for young Karl who had what was said to be a heart condition . NEXT : Jean Devanny joins the Communist Party of Australia, makes fiery public speeches , is deeply involved in an epic clash with the Federal government over an issue in which Rupert Murdoch’s uncle played a part , with yet another unusual book associated with that event from the Little Darwin collection .
