An absolute gem of a find in Townsville is this slim volume , 55pp ,well illustrated , about speakers in Sydney's Domain . Author Maxwell deserves to be cast in bronze , mounted on a golden soapbox and placed in the Domain for this informative work , published in 1994.
By Peter Simon
Repeatedly leafing through the book resulted in people and events of particular interest to me coming to the fore , some covered in Little Darwin in the past .
There is a drawing of Beatrice Miles (1904 -1970) , described as a famous Sydney eccentric , who used to heckle Domain speakers . I had seen Bea when she operated from the steps at the GPO in the city , sporting a tennis shade, a sign offering Shakespearean recititations for a small amount of money .
Bea was notorious for jumping into taxis and demanding to be driven somewhere , without paying , police being called , court cases . An uncle of mine told me a driver he knew responded to such a situation by throwing the car keys out the window and saying they were going nowhere. She had responded by giving him a withering verbal blast , without asking for a fee for her performance .
A former university student , she was the daughter of businessman W. J. Miles , founder of the right wing journal ,The Publicist . He employed controversial literary figure , P.R. "Inky" Stephensen.
Stephensen was involved in the long drawn out saga of the publication of Xavier Herbert's award winning 1938 novel , Capricornia , about the Northern Territory. Herbert told me that when Miles introduced him to Bea , he openly said she was "mad ".
A brilliant but troublesome student at Queensland University , Stephensen had loved debating , and when editor of the university magazine renamed it Galmahra, Aboriginal for messenger , a copy of which , below, found on Magnetic Island .
Awarded a Rhodes Scholarship in l924, he studied at Oxford ,wrote for the Oxford University Review , took part in the l926 General Strike and wore a sandwich board supporting Ghandi of India . Because of his political activities , The Times backed a call by the university vice-chancellor that Stephensen and another student cease their "communistic activities ".
While in London , Inky became involved with D.H. Lawrence at Mandrake Press which published a collection of Lawrence's paintings , Stephensen responsible for the typography and layout . He also helped to secretly publish in a London basement what he called the "unmutilated " English edition of Lady Chatterley's Lover , which declared it had been published in Italy .
Lawrence's essay, Apropos of Lady Chatterley's Lover , was also published by Stephenson , as well as a collection of poems , Pansies.
A notorious Domain soapbox orator was William James Chidley .Long after he died , admitted to a mental asylum , I can recall my maternal grandmother, a keen reader of the scandalous Truth newspaper , sniggering about him , branding somebody another Chidley .
Stephensen was involved in the long drawn out saga of the publication of Xavier Herbert's award winning 1938 novel , Capricornia , about the Northern Territory. Herbert told me that when Miles introduced him to Bea , he openly said she was "mad ".
A brilliant but troublesome student at Queensland University , Stephensen had loved debating , and when editor of the university magazine renamed it Galmahra, Aboriginal for messenger , a copy of which , below, found on Magnetic Island .
Awarded a Rhodes Scholarship in l924, he studied at Oxford ,wrote for the Oxford University Review , took part in the l926 General Strike and wore a sandwich board supporting Ghandi of India . Because of his political activities , The Times backed a call by the university vice-chancellor that Stephensen and another student cease their "communistic activities ".
While in London , Inky became involved with D.H. Lawrence at Mandrake Press which published a collection of Lawrence's paintings , Stephensen responsible for the typography and layout . He also helped to secretly publish in a London basement what he called the "unmutilated " English edition of Lady Chatterley's Lover , which declared it had been published in Italy .
Lawrence's essay, Apropos of Lady Chatterley's Lover , was also published by Stephenson , as well as a collection of poems , Pansies.
A notorious Domain soapbox orator was William James Chidley .Long after he died , admitted to a mental asylum , I can recall my maternal grandmother, a keen reader of the scandalous Truth newspaper , sniggering about him , branding somebody another Chidley .
Chidley , who arrived in Sydney from Melbourne, wore a Grecian tunic, spoke openly about sex and its part in the way of life . A book he wrote was deemed pornographic by police and he was arrested several times for his utterances .
Maxwell began researching the book on Sydney soapbox identities after coming across a story in the Sydney Morning Herald of October 29 , l946, containing photos of new speakers at the Domain .
UPCOMING : The Aboriginal Soapbox Orator from Palm Island . 
