CEW Bean

Getting to know CEW Bean, Barrister and Judge’s Associate

Charles Edwin Woodrow Bean (1879-1968) is widely known in Australia as a Journalist (and author of On the Wool Track) who became, in turn, Australia’s Official War Correspondent in World War I and, thereafter, Editor of the Nation’s Official History of the War.

A little known fact is that Bean (who was born in Bathurst but educated in England) commenced his working life in Australia (in February 1905) as a Barrister, and as a Judge’s Associate (between 1905 – 1907), before turning to The Sydney Morning Herald to become (in January 1908) a full-time Journalist.

His “legal career” provides new insights into the life and times of a prominent Australian.

As a contribution to this year’s ANZAC Day celebrations, and in the hope of encouraging a reassessment of Charles Bean’s contributions to Australian heritage, the Society publishes Be Substantially Great in Thyself: Getting to Know CEW Bean; Barrister, Judges’Associate, Moral Philosopher  by the Hon Justice Geoff Lindsay, together with the following appendices:

  1. CEW Bean, Thomas Arnold, Australian Character and the ANZAC Spirit [Appendix 1]
  2. Edwin and CEW Bean in Poetry and Song [Appendix 2]
  3. A Chronology of the Judicial Work Schedule of Owen J during CEW Bean’s Associateship (1905-1907) [Appendix 3]
  4. Wagga Wagga Circuit Court Business, September-October, 1905 [Appendix 4]
  5. Deniliquin Circuit Court Business, October 1905 [Appendix 5]
  6. Newcastle Circuit Court Business, September 1906 [Appendix 6]
  7. Tamworth Circuit Court Business, October 1906 [Appendix 7]
  8. Virginia Woolf’s allusion (in 1940) to Bean and Thoby Stephen at Clifton College [Appendix 8]
  9. CEW Bean’s Correspondence from Thoby and Adrian Stephen 1905-1907 [Appendix 9]
  10. A Bibliography of C.E.W. Bean’s Major Works [Appendix 10]
  11. A Bibliography of biographical works “on or about” C.E.W. Bean [Appendix 11]

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