Origins of the Anzac Dawn ceremony: Spontaneity and nationhood

Journal of Australian Studies

Volumn 33, Issue 1, 2009, Pages 51-65

  Mayes, Robyn ^a  

^a CURTIN UNIVERSITY   (Australia)

Author keywords

Anzac; Community identity; Dawn service; National identity; Place; Spontaneity

Indexed keywords

EID: 68149169741     PISSN: 14443058     EISSN: 18356419     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/14443050802672536     Document Type: Article

References (69)

1. I am grateful for a Curtin University of Technology 'Women in Research Seeding Grant' in support of this research.
2. See, for example, Ken Inglis, Sacred Places: War Memorials in the Australian Landscape, Miegunyah Press, 1998;
3. Graham Seal, Inventing Anzac: The Digger and National Mythology, University of Queensland Press, Brisbane, 2004.
4. The Western Australian Heritage Icons project saw the announcement of 12 icons, one for each month of the year. Department of the Premier and Cabinet, The Constitutional Centre of Western Australia, 'Heritage Icons: April - Albany ANZAC Day Dawn Service', http://www.ccentre.wa.gov.au/index.cfm?event= heritageIconsApril, accessed December 2008.
5. th of April 1923. In the absence of any reference to other dawn services, Albany was thus clearly acknowledged by the foremost national repository of Australian military history and heritage as originating this significant aspect of the Anzac tradition. In 2003, in alignment with the current scholarly literature, the AWM site no longer acknowledged Albany as site of the first dawn service.
6. John Frow, 'Toute la memoire du monde: repetition and forgetting' in Time and Commodity Culture: Essays in Cultural Theory and Postmodernity, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1997, p. 234.
7. While this research focuses on publicly made and circulated lay claims it is not to suggest that the wealth of more personal, private testimony concerning the origins of the dawn service are not of importance.
8. Tom Griffiths, Hunters and Collectors: The Antiquarian Imagination in Australia, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1996, p. 3.
9. Toowoomba Education Centre, About Us', 2003, , accessed June 2006; John Clements, 'Note from the Author' in J Black (ed), Some Toowoomba and Darling Downs Anzacs, Toowoomba Education Centre, Queensland. Italics in original.
10. Bernie O'Shea, A claim for a Toowoomba first' in Jeffrey Black (ed), Some Toowoomba and Darling Downs Anzacs, Toowoomba Education Centre, Queensland, 1992, pp. 45-46. While Captain George Harrington, born Toowoomba 1895, did indeed serve at Gallipoli from 25 April to 25 October, 1915, he in fact returned to Australia on the transport Wahehe arriving sometime in June 1919. See Harington George Robert, Service Number-Captain/49, National Archives of Australia, Series number B2455, Series accession number B2455/1, Barcode 4420574.
11. See, in particular, Inglis, Sacred Places; and Alistair Thompson, Anzac Memories: Living with the Legend, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1994.
12. See Inglis, Sacred Places; Thompson, Anzac Memories; and also Alan Seymour & Richard Nile, 'Foreword' in A Seymour & R Nile (eds), Anzac: Meaning, Memory and Myth, Sir Robert Centre for Australian Studies, London, 1998.
13. See Graeme Davison, 'The habit of commemoration and the revival of Anzac Day', Australian Cultural History, vol 22, 2003, p. 80. While he notes steady numbers at dawn services he also offers a salutary caution concerning the reliability of numbers reported in newspaper articles.
14. Inglis, Sacred Places, p. 330.
15. Seal, Inventing Anzac, p. 136; Paula Hamilton & Paul Ashton, At home with the past: initial findings from the survey', Australian Cultural History, vol 22, 2003, p. 26.
16. Peter Cochrane & David Goodman, 'The great Australian journey: cultural logic and nationalism in the postmodern era' in T Bennett, P Buckridge, D Carter & C Mercer (eds), Celebrating the Nation: A Critical Study of Australia's Bicentenary, Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 1992, p. 175.
17. The external management team that coordinated the festival produced a retrospective report specifically evaluating the festival in terms of attendance and tourism benefits, and making recommendations concerning future events. This report claims that the event was 'an outstanding success' with an aggregate attendance - calculated from ticket sales and the distribution of numbered programs - of over 80, 000 people. See Jay McDaniell, Final Report: Federation Festival Albany and Albany Anzac Day 2001, City of Albany, 2001.
18. Dept. Premier and Cabinet, 'Heritage Icons'.
19. Australian War Memorial, 'The ANZAC Day tradition,' http://www.awm.gov. au/ commemoration/anzac/anzac-tradition.asp, accessed December 2008.
20. Seal, Inventing Anzac, p. 136.
21. Seal, Inventing Anzac, p. 116, 122, 136.
22. In 2002, The Princess Royal Fortress Centre for Local Military History and Heritage in Albany included a static display known as The Padre White National Memorial and Education Centre. Underneath a sign proclaiming 'THE FIRST DAWN SERVICE' was a photocopy of a page from a Register of Services which included the following handwritten entry: April 25 Anzac Day 30 congregants.' A note in the same writing in the right hand memoranda column read: 'Procession to memorial wreath laid collection for soldiers [sic] fund. First Dawn Service held in Australia.' The year of this entry is offered as 1929; however, because White took up his post in Albany in the September of 1929, it must have been at least 1930 when this service occurred. Maintaining the date as 1929 maintains Albany as a contender for at least the first dawn service in Western Australia. The notation of 'First Dawn Service held in Australia' is also cited by Dept. Premier and Cabinet, 'Heritage Icons'.
23. Revd J P Haldane-Stevenson, unpublished letter, Canon Arthur White and Dawn Service File, Local Studies Collection, Albany Local Library.
24. th April, Albany Western Australia, no publisher or place of publication, available Albany Tourist Bureau, 2001.
25. Whether or not such a claim was, or indeed could have been made during his lifetime is moot.
26. For a discussion of the way this event is mobilized in Albany, see Robyn Mayes, 'Localising national identity: Albany's Anzacs', Journal of Australian Studies, vol 79, 2003, pp. 15-27.
27. Tod Johnson 'The First ANZAC Day Dawn Service' ABC Perth, 2004, accessed June 2006.
28. 'Big crowds mark Anzac Day' Weekender, April 27, 2006 p. 7; Ken Matts, Anzac proceeds after funds crisis', Weekender, March 16, 2004, p. 3.
29. Samantha Beech, Anzac tradition stronger than ever', Albany Advertiser, April 27, 2006, p. 1.
30. See 'Veterans angered by plan to remove WWI icon', Weekender, April 13, 2006, p. 1.
31. The National Trust (WA), 'Western Australian Heritage Icons 2004 Connecting a Community: Fact Sheet', http://www.ntwa.com.au/icons/facts.html, accessed December 2008. The Heritage Icons project, however, claims to recognise this as intrinsic value.
32. Seal, Inventing Anzac, p.155.
33. D Noyes & R D Abrahams, 'From calendar custom to national memory: European commonplaces' in D BenAmos & L Weissberg (eds), Cultural Memory and the Construction of Identity, 1999, p.79.
34. Though the Albany service is explicitly described in National Support Group of the 55/53 Australian Infantry Battalion, Remember: Traditions Made in Australia, Sydney, 1995, as organized by 'Rev White' and the Sydney service is attributed to five ex-servicemen and described in Jenkins' account as witnessed by an anonymous police constable, there is no 'religious' or 'official' qualifier explicitly attached to these services.
35. 'The Princess Royal Fortress: The Padre White National Memorial', Information Sheet, no date, available Albany Tourist Bureau, 2001.
36. 'Our first dawn parade', newspaper article, no date, Local Studies Collection, Albany Public Library.
37. This is not possible: according to White's service record he enlisted in May 1916 and was discharged in January 1918. See Arthur Ernest White, Sern Capt/Chaplain, National Archives of Australia, Series number B2455, Series accession number B2455/1, Barcode 1846339; Bartlett, Anzac Day Dawn Service; 'Our first dawn parade'.
38. William G. Jenkins, 'The Dawn Service', 2001, unpublished manuscript, AWM call number Nq 940.460994J52. pp. 2-3.
39. Jenkins, 'The Dawn Service', p. 3.
40. O'Shea, A Claim for a Toowoomba First', p. 46.
41. Frow, 'Toute la memoire du monde', p. 223.
42. Jerome Bruner, 'The narrative construction of reality', Critical Enquiry, vol 18, 1992, p. 13.
43. Inglis, Sacred Places, p. 330.
44. Hermann Bausinger, Folk Culture in a World of Technology, E Dettmer (trans), Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1961, p. 36.
45. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, Rev. ed, Verso, London.
46. For the importance of this, see Kate Darian-Smith & P Hamilton, 'Introduction' in K Darian-Smith & P Hamilton (eds), Memory and History in Twentieth-Century Australia, Oxford UP, Melbourne, p. 2.
47. The attitude or intention of those making the claim, however, might have been quite different. Jenkins, for example, assures the reader in his cover letter to the Chief Librarian of the National Library that 'it has all been thoroughly researched and should put things straight'.
48. Davison, 'The habit of commemoration', p. 80.
49. Hamilton & Ashton, At home with the past', p. 14.
50. Richard White, 'National days and the national past in Australia', Australian Cultural History, vol 22, 2003, p. 69.
51. Mayes, 'Localising national identity', pp. 15-27.
52. In addition, the report stresses that Albany's standing as 'birth place of ANZAC, and the Albany dawn service as an ANZAC Icon event', is something that 'must' be developed, 'planned and built over time leading up to major milestones such as 2014 but with mini highlights on the way' McDaniell, Final Report. Note also the ambiguous and seemingly interchangeable use of the acronym ANZAC and the broader term Anzac' in many of the primary sources examined here. It has been assumed here that these various uses in general connote the larger Anzac myth or legend as opposed to the formation of this specific army corp.
53. 'The life and myths of Padre White,' ABC South Coast WA, 24 April 2008, http:// www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2008/04/24/2226839.htm, accessed December 2008.
54. O'Shea, A claim for a Toowoomba first', pp. 45- 46.
55. Di Burke (ed), Anzac Day: Traditions Facts and Folklore, Anzac Day Commemoration Committee of Queensland, Queensland, 2000, p. 34.
56. Of course, this presentation of the two articles in which neither is privileged may signify, or be a product of, the highly-charged nature of these claims and the consequences of 'taking sides'.
57. Bartlett, Anzac Day Dawn Service. n.p.
58. Bartlett, Anzac Day Dawn Service. n.p.
59. Jenkins, 'The Dawn Service'.
60. Again, this is not likely to be the intention of the individuals making these claims. Jenkins, 'Dawn Service', explains that he produced his article 'because of the number of different versions of the origin of the Dawn Service which have [sic] arisen over the years'. Similarly, Bartlett, Anzac Day, draws attention to the existence of numerous claims as an issue.
61. This does not mean that alternatives will not or can not emerge. See Seal, Inventing Anzac, for a discussion of the sunset service at Anzac Cottage, a recent consciously invented tradition.
62. Jenkins, 'The Dawn Service, p. 1.
63. Jeffrey qtd in 'Thousands gather to remember heroes' 2006,http://www. theaustralian. news.com.au/story/0,20867,189238873-601,00.html, accessed April 2006.
64. Peter Ryan, 'Honour where due', 2006,http://www.theaustralian.news.com. au/story/ 0,20867,18916253-601,00htl, accessed April 2006.
65. See Peter Wilson, 'Gallipoli disappears under a sea of plastic seats',http://theaustralian. news.com.au/story/0,20867,18920492-601,00.html, accessed December 2008. Prefacing the 2006 Gallipoli dawn service, for whatever pragmatic reasons, with 'hours of big-screen footage explaining the history of the site alongside interviews with visitors conducted by ABC TV personality Andrew Denton' together with 'plans to build a high-tech "battle simulation center" on the Gallipoli peninsula' indicates the extent of this increasing commodification of Anzac Day as 'staged' tourist attraction.
66. Bartlett, Anzac Day Dawn Service n.p.
67. Beech, 'Anzac Tradition' p. 1.
68. O'Shea, 'A claim for a Toowoomba first', p. 46.
69. Harry Harootunian, 'Shadowing history: national narratives and the persistence of the everyday', Cultural Studies, Vol 18, 2004, p. 188.