Frank Hardy: Fighter, Writer, Activist
Written By: Andrew Frost
Frank Hardy was an important writer and activist who helped to expose the evils of the capitalist system, playing a crucial role in the history of the Australian labour movement. Born the year of the Russian Revolution, 1917, Frank was a militant fighter for socialism, joining the Communist Party in 1934 at the age of seventeen. The son of a milk factory worker, he left school at thirteen and worked in a wide variety of jobs: messenger and news boy, grocer’s assistant, fruit and vegetable picker, factory worker, and illustrator.
Early on, Frank was influenced by the political opinions of his father, Tom, who held radical views but was not himself an activist. Like his father, Frank would also develop a capacity for storytelling. Tom was renowned for yarn-spinning and would blend fact and fiction to make up stories about real people. Frank would embrace this style of storytelling and incorporate it into his own literary style.
Joining the Citizen Military Forces in April 1942 he was initially employed as a clerk and draughtsman in Melbourne, transferring to the Australian Imperial Force in May 1943. Whilst in the army Frank made time to be a campaign director for communist candidate Malcolm Good in the Victorian State elections of 1943. The next month he was posted to the 8th Advanced Ordnance Depot at Mataranka in the Northern Territory. Encouraged by Sergeant Frank Ryland, a journalist, he began to write seriously and in October became editor of the 8AOD’s newsletter the Troppo Tribune. Returning to Melbourne in October 1944 Frank was assigned as an artist to the Army Education Service journal, Salt.
Hardy’s professional writing career began at the age of twenty-seven with the publication of short stories in Trade Union journals. At the suggestion of Communist Party leader Ralph Gibson, he began work on a book in the exposé style of the American writer Upton Sinclair. Centred on the prominent and controversial Melbourne Catholic businessman and Labor Party powerbroker John Wren, Power Without Glory (1950) would arguably become his most significant work. Informants for the book included journalists, political and racing identities, Communist Party and Australian Labor Party members, Wren’s disaffected daughter Angela, and Ian Aird, who had been close to the family. Hardy received help in researching the novel from his wife and fellow communists Deidre Cable and Les Barnes, however the writing was all his own.
To provide a defence against possible prosecution, Hardy used the thinly disguised pseudonym of ‘John West’ to portray Wren as a corrupt manipulator of the government and the gambling industry. Much of the book was printed in secret, and the first edition of eight thousand copies sold out within a month. Unable to attack Hardy’s expose of his own corruption, Wren encouraged his wife Ellen in October 1950 to bring a charge of ‘private prosecution for libel’ (Wren v Hardy 1951, 256) for Hardy’s depiction of ‘Nellie West’, her surrogate in the novel, having an affair with a bricklayer. The Victorian government intervened and took the extraordinary measure of upgrading the charge to one of criminal libel. While the former, if proven, could attract a fine, criminal libel carried the possibility of a prison sentence. A condition of Hardy’s subsequent bail was that he played no part in the further sale and distribution of the book. Responsibility for producing the work thus passed to a network of communists, trade unionists, and other volunteers in lounge rooms around Melbourne. The Frank Hardy Defence Committee was also established, comprising left-wing writers such as C. B. Christesen, Alan Marshall, Brian Fitzpatrick, Eric Lambert, and John Morrison. On 18 June 1951 Hardy was found not guilty of the criminal libel charge.
Whilst pursuing a career as a professional writer, Hardy also continued to fight actively for social justice, particularly by becoming involved in the fight for Aboriginal land rights. In 1968 Hardy had published The Unlucky Australians, a documentary-fiction account of the Aboriginal fight for equal wages and land rights in the Northern Territory. The book focused on the Gurindji walk-off from Wave Hill station in August of 1966, a struggle that evolved into a ground-breaking land-rights claim. Earlier that year Hardy had travelled to Darwin, short of money and suffering from writer’s block, and after the walk-off he visited the Gurindji camp at Wattie Creek and spoke with elders. He drafted a letter from them to federal parliament in October and in the years that followed played a key role as chief publicist and president of the ‘Save the Gurindji’ committee in mustering support. Among those he lobbied was the Federal Opposition leader, Gough Whitlam, who later acknowledged Hardy as a ‘staunch fighter for human rights’ (Hocking 2005, 177). He also met the ophthalmologist and fellow communist Fred Hollows, whom he encouraged to visit Wave Hill and treat eye diseases amongst members of the community. They developed a lifelong friendship.
Among Frank Hardy’s many published works are novels such as But the Dead Are Many (which reflected a growing anti-Soviet trend in the CPA), Who Shot George Kirland?, and The Outcasts of Foolgarah; collections of short stories including Legends from Benson’s Valley, Great Australian Legends. and a book about Aborigines based on personal travels and experience entitled The Unlucky Australians. His stage plays include Leap Seven Times in the Air and Faces in the Street. His The Yarns of Billy Borker appeared as a series on ABC television in 1966, and Power Without Glory would follow as a serial in 1975.
Hardy died on 28 January 1994 at his North Carlton home with a racing form guide beside him. Before his cremation, a public funeral was held at the Collingwood Town Hall. A thousand-strong crowd listened to eulogists, including two Gurindji elders, and watched his coffin, draped with the Aboriginal and Eureka flags, being borne out while the Trades Hall choir sang The Internationale.