Frank Hardy

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For the Hardy Boys character, see
Frank Hardy (The Hardy Boys). For the English jockey, see Frank Hardy (jockey)
.

Frank Hardy
Carlton North, Australia
Resting placeFawkner Memorial Park
Pen nameRoss Franklin
OccupationAuthor
LanguageEnglish
NationalityAustralian
CitizenshipAustralian
Period1950-1992
Literary movementleft wing political
Notable worksPower Without Glory
SpouseRosslyn Couper
ChildrenFrances, Alan and Shirley
RelativesSister, Mary Hardy, granddaughter Marieke Hardy

Francis Joseph Hardy (21 March 1917 – 28 January 1994), published as Frank J. Hardy and also under the pseudonym Ross Franklyn, was an Australian novelist and writer. He is best known for his 1950 novel

Gurindji Strike. He ran unsuccessfully for the Australian parliament twice as a Communist Party of Australia
candidate.

Early life

Frank Hardy, the fifth of the eight children of Thomas and Winifred Hardy, was born on 21 March 1917 at Southern Cross in Western

Victoria and later moved with his family to Bacchus Marsh, west of Melbourne.[1][2][3] His mother, Winifred, was a Roman Catholic – his father, Thomas, an atheist of Welsh and English descent. In 1931 Hardy left school, aged 14, and embarked upon a series of manual jobs. According to Hardy biographer Pauline Armstrong, "his first job was as a messenger and bottlewasher at the local chemist's shop" and then Hardy worked at the local grocer. He later also did manual work "in and around Bacchus Marsh in the milk factory, digging potatoes, picking tomatoes and fruit".[citation needed
]

There is some debate among Hardy's biographers about the relative extent Hardy personally suffered from hardships during the 1930s depression. Hardy claimed himself that he left home when he was 13 because "his dad couldn't get the dole" with him at home.

the Great Depression
, and the family had to move into a small rented house in Lerderderg Street.

In 1937, Radio Times published a selection of his cartoons.[citation needed]

Adult life

In 1940, Hardy married Rosslyn Couper and they had three children, Frances, Alan and Shirley. From 1954 they made their home in Sydney.[citation needed]

Communist Party of Australia

Because of his experiences during the Depression, Hardy joined the Communist Party of Australia in 1939. Hardy stood unsuccessfully twice as a CPA candidate for public office: in 1953 as a Senate candidate for Victoria, and in 1955 for the seat of Mackellar (NSW) in the House of Representatives.

Hardy also stood unsuccessfully for the National Committee of the CPA in 1955 and again in 1967.

Australian Army service

Hardy was called up for army service and became a member the Citizen Military Force on 22 April 1942. He spent more than a year based in the Melbourne area, first with the Area Staff of the 3rd Military District and then as a clerk and draughtsman with the Australian Army Ordnance Corps. In June 1943 he transferred to the Second Australian Imperial Force and in July was posted to Mataranka in the Northern Territory with the 7th Advanced Ordnance Depot. He later transferred to the 8th Advanced Ordnance Depot and edited the unit newspaper, the Troppo Tribune. In November 1944, he was transferred again be an artist for the army journal, Salt. He was discharged on 26 February 1945.[5][6]

After his discharge, his short stories "A Stranger in the Camp" and "The Man from Clinkapella" won competitions, and his work was accepted by Coast to Coast and The Guardian. Many of his early stories were written under the pseudonym Ross Franklyn.

Journalism

"Vincent, May 1968" (Vincent Lingiari, Gurindji man, leader of the Wave Hill strike); charcoal on paper, by Frank Hardy, drawn while researching his book, The Unlucky Australians.

He continued to work in journalism for most of his life. Although he opposed the foundation of the

Gurindji strike in the mid to late 1960s.[7] The documentary film The Unlucky Australians, which featured Frank Hardy and the Gurindji people, was made by director and producer John Goldschmidt
for Associated Television (ATV) and transmitted on the ITV network in the UK.

Power Without Glory

His most famous work,

Carringbush (based on the actual suburb Collingwood
).

In 1950 Hardy was arrested for criminal libel and had to defend Power Without Glory in a celebrated case shortly after its publication. Prosecutors alleged that Power Without Glory criminally libelled John Wren's wife by implying that she had engaged in an extramarital affair. Hardy was acquitted and it was the last criminal libel case launched in Victoria; all subsequent libel cases have been civil. Hardy detailed the case in his book The Hard Way.[8]

Power Without Glory was filmed by the

Australian Broadcasting Commission
(ABC) in 1976 as a 26-episode television series adapted by Howard Griffiths and Cliff Green.

The Unlucky Australians

In 1968, Hardy published The Unlucky Australians, with a foreword by

Gurindji Strike.[9]

Plays

Hardy also wrote plays, including Who was Henry Larsen (first performed 1984) and Faces in the Street (first performed 1988, published 1990), which were both based on Henry Lawson.[citation needed]

Hardy founded the Realist Writers Group,[10] which he represented in 1951 at the 3rd World Festival of Youth and Students in Berlin.

Death

Frank Hardy died at his home in

North Carlton
, a suburb of Melbourne, from a heart attack on 28 January 1994, aged 76. His cremated remains were interred at Fawkner Memorial Park.

Family

Hardy's younger sister, Mary Hardy, was a popular radio and television personality in the 1960s/1970s.[11]

His granddaughter, Marieke Hardy, is a writer in Melbourne.

Bibliography

Books about Frank Hardy

References

  1. ^
    ISBN 0-7344-0836-6
  2. ISBN 0-522-84888-5
  3. ISBN 1-876268-23-9
  4. The Herald (Melbourne)
    of 7 October 1983
  5. ^ Military service record, B883, VX126476, National Archives of Australia, https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=6081665&S=6&R=0
  6. ^ Paul Adams, "Hardy, Francis Joseph (Frank), Australian Dictionary of Biography, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/hardy-francis-joseph-frank-19531
  7. ^ Jennett, Christine (Summer 2015–2016). "Big Things Grow". SL Magazine. 8 (4): 17.
  8. ^ "The Hard Way : The Story Behind Power Without Glory". AustLit: Discover Australian Stories. Retrieved 25 May 2021.
  9. ^ Hardy, Frank (Francis Joseph) (1968). The Unlucky Australians. Nelson (Australia). Retrieved 8 August 2020.
  10. ^ McLaren, John (1986). "A failed vision : Realist Writers' Groups in Australia, 1945-65 : the case of Overland". VU Research Repository | Victoria University | Melbourne Australia. Retrieved 29 September 2022.
  11. ^ Knox, David (6 February 2008). "Mary Hardy, the tragic clown". Retrieved 6 July 2009.

Further reading

  • Attwood, Bain (2000). "The Articulation Of 'Land Rights' In Australia: The Case of Wave Hill". Social Analysis: The International Journal of Social and Cultural Practice. 44 (1): 3–39.
    JSTOR 23166785
    .     Includes much detail about Hardy.
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