Emeritus Professor Ken Dutton speaking about the genesis of his new book That Gallant Gentleman.
The Central Queensland University Press is soon to publish Emeritus Professor Dutton’s new book on the Jarry-Gray manuscript held in Cultural Collections.
The new book is entitled ‘That Gallant Gentleman‘ and describes the detective hunt that took place to discover the unidentified authors of the manuscript that contained a military treatise in French, and a pioneer diary in English.
The authors were later identified as being General Francoise Jarry, a distinguished French officer who co-founded the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst, and Lieutenant-Colonel Charles George Gray who emigrated to New South Wales with his wife and family and later settled on a property near Port Macquarie. Gray later moved to Ipswich as Police Magistrate (1853) and in 1859 accepted the invitation to become Parliamentary Librarian and Usher of the Black Rod in the first Queensland Parliament. We congratulate Professor Dutton on this forthcoming new book.
We were recently delighted in being able to track down an elusive and important hitherto unpublished paper on Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings written many years ago by the late Professor Barry Gordon, Professor in Economics here at the University of Newcastle.
We received an enquiry from a scholar in the United Kingdom who was trying to track down the article entitled “Kingship, Priesthood and Prophecy in The Lord of the Rings”. He believed the article may have been unpublished.
We checked our library and archival listings, including four boxes of unaccessioned material with no luck. So we hoped to be able to get in touch with Professor Gordon’s family to see whether they could help.
We were fortunate to make contact with his wife, Dr Moira Gordon who kindly tracked down the original manuscript of not one but two versions, and transcribed them for us in order to complete the enquiry. She also kindly provided her permission for us to upload the article onto our library catalogue and Cultural Collections blog.
Our Newcat catalogue entry for the electronic article is located here:
Author: Gordon, Barry
Title: Kingship, priesthood, and prophecy in The Lord of the Rings [electronic resource] / [written by Barry Gordon ; transcribed by Moira Gordon]
Edition: [Version 3, 1967]
Subject: Tolkien, J. R. R. (John Ronald Reuel), 1892-1973.
Lord of the rings — Criticism, Textual
Redemption in literature
Fantasy fiction, English — Criticism, Textual
Fiction — Religious aspects — Christianity
Electronic version created 05/05/2009 by Dr Moira Gordon.
Other Auth: Gordon, Moira
Relating the history of the article, Dr Moira Gordon writes (Email, 8 May 2009):
To the best of my knowledge Barry’s article “Kingship, Priesthood and Prophecy in The Lord of the Rings” was not published, although one draft of this article may have been circulated as a paper given to the Newcastle Theological Society some time around 1964. There are manuscript copies among Barry’s papers. I have located two carbon copies of drafts, which could be regarded as presenting three versions of his paper, as I will explain.
What appears to be the earliest typed manuscript dates from around 1964. This paper is quite long (over 5000 words) and, from correspondence also found during my search, it seems to have been submitted for consideration for publication to a journal edited from the University of Keele (in England, from where I have a letter signed by W.J. Harvey who recommended sending it to Modern Fiction Studies). This advice appears to have been followed, as there is a letter from Maurice Beebe at Purdue University (then editor of Modern Fiction Studies) dated June 24, 1964. Because of its length and publication queues at that time, neither of these journals accepted the paper for publication. The paper also appears to have been sent to PMLA, for which Patricia M Spacks read the manuscript in June 1965 and suggested it was more appropriate for “a theologically oriented journal such as Religion in Life”. The copy I have contains a few hand-written alterations made by Barry Gordon, giving what could be regarded as a second version. It is this version which I have converted to an electronic file.
Paul Fromer, the editor of HIS, magazine of Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship, (Chicago) wrote to Professor Gordon in January 1967, saying “it has come to me indirectly that you wrote an article on Tolkien entitled “Kingship, Priesthood and Prophecy in The Lord of the Rings” and inviting him to send a copy for possible publication. The second of the manuscripts which I have appears to be the version sent in response to this request. This draft is considerably shorter. The three core sections of the article are unchanged. However, in this draft a much tighter introduction replaces the longer introduction and the first section of the earlier draft, and a long final section is deleted. Subsequent correspondence from Mr Fromer indicated that this 3800 word draft substantially exceeded their usual 2000 word limit for articles and expressed the hope that Professor Gordon would reduce the paper to fit into this limit. I have found no evidence that this was ever done.
In searching through Professor Gordon’s papers I have not found any evidence that he sent a copy to Professor Tolkien, although it is possible that he may have done so. I do know that Miss Rhona Beare, who was at one time a member of the Classics Department at the University of Newcastle (Professor Bernie Curran would remember her), did correspond with J.R.R. Tolkien and, in the draft of another article which Barry was working on, “J.R.R. Tolkien on Death as the Gift to Men”, Barry quotes from a letter she received from Tolkien in 1958.
The quality of both of the carbon copies which I have is extremely poor. However I re-typed these into electronic files, and will forward these to you. The original pages are folio length and I have not attempted to reproduce them. Nevertheless, as a result of the type-face which has been used, the paging is broadly similar. I am sure that Barry would be only too happy to have his work used, with the appropriate acknowledgement.
October 2009 Update
The online version of “‘From Mirrored Truth the Likeness of the True’: J.R.R. Tolkien and Reflections of Jesus Christ in Middle-Earth” by Jonathan Padley and Kenneth Padley has been published and is located here:
Day Shift -15/07/2008 – 02:10 PM
Presenter: Carol Duncan
Producer: Jeanette McMahon
Interviewee: Gionni Di Gravio, Archivist, Newcastle University
Newcastle University Archivist Gionni Di Gravio discusses a new addition to the Collections in the form of an authentic manuscript account of a settler’s life in the Hunter Region. The manuscript which was written in early 1832 is by an as yet unknown author. His interesting (and in some instances amusing) views on women, floods, pigs, bushrangers and the legal system will be discussed.
It was originally donated anonymously to The Tweed River Historical Society Murwillumbah Museum a few years prior to 1998. No records were kept of the transfer and part of the original manuscript was subsequently lost. In December 1998, after preliminary enquiries and due in part to the importance of the manuscript to the Hunter Region, the Society transferred the manuscript to the custodianship of the Newcastle Regional Museum who in June 2008 transferred it to the care of the University’s Cultural Collections (Archives) as a item better suited to documentary research.
What is it?
The manuscript is a portion of a larger work written by settler on the Hunter River, presumably around the Maitland district, in early 1832. There are 41 leaves of hand written text divided into sections and chapters. What has come down to us are chapters 2 sections 4 and 5; Unknown chapter sections 2 and 3; Unknown chapter sections 2,3; Chapter 3 sections 4 and 5; Chapter 4 sections 1 and 2. The order is still being ascertained with some of the leaves. The final two are badly damaged and may have originally formed part of one of the sections dealing with servants. We also know that parts of the manuscript were lost while in the Murwillumbah Museum. There is a partial transcription which was made prior to this, and which we still need to examine to see whether it includes anything from the lost sections.
How do we know when the manuscript was written?
I can tell you with some certainty that the date at which it was penned was around February-early March 1832. The author (who only refers to himself as ‘the writer’) makes a statement relating to two steamers plying the river and the building of a third. This statement allows us to target a potential date for the manuscript. The Sophia Jane was in operation by November 1831, and the William IV was launched in the same month, but did not begin its run until the 15 February 1832. The ‘third’ being built on the Williams was the ‘Experiment’ which was not completed until May 1832. Therefore our writer penned the manuscript sometime between February and May 1832. Later on in the manuscript he makes reference to a story in the Sydney Herald about a fellow dying of cold in the bush, so this could point to the colder months in 1832. He also appears unaware of the severity of the floods in the district, especially the one in 1826 prior to his arrival in 1829. This is another clue, as another severe flood occurred on the 24 March 1832, so I would assume that he was writing just before that date, sometime around February-early March 1832.
What does it say?
The author begins with a discussion between native born people and emigrants. What he means by ‘native’ is not as we understand as ‘aboriginal people’ but white people born in the colony. He begins by describing the differences between those who emigrated here refer to themselves as ‘Sterling’ while those who are native born are known as ‘currency’. He goes on to speak about a range of topics including the nature of life in the district, the landscape, shipping along the river, flooding, agricultural matters, female convicts and women in general, the legal system, pigs, the relationships between settlers, emancipists and free settlers (exclusives) and bushrangers.
Who is the author?
We do not know the identity of the author. Wheat we do know is that he was a free settler on the Hunter River (presumably in the Maitland district), who arrived some time around 1829. He has an amazing sense of humour, especially when talking about pigs. The section of the manuscript concerning pigs and the trouble they cause between the settlers is very funny. He talks about quality of life in New South Wales (Australia) in general terms, and breaks off into local examples based in the Maitland district. He is also an apologist for the emancipists’ cause. Who he was remains an interesting mystery.
Hopefully we might find someone out there that recognises who the author might have been, or might be inspired to search him out.
Gionni Di Gravio
University of Newcastle
July 2008
I wish to thank Mr Ron Madden (see comment below) and http://www.jenwilletts.com/Steamers.htm for information on the Steamers and when they were operating, as it greatly helps in dating this manuscript. (April 2011)
ABC Newcastle (Newcastle)
Day Shift – 16/10/2007 – 02:10 PM Presenter: Carol Duncan Interviewees: Gionni Di Gravio, Archivist, Newcastle University
Newcastle University Archivist Gionni Di Gravio discusses the Jarry-Gray manuscript purchased by the University in March 2001. General Francois Jarry, was a leading French general of the Napoleonic era, and Lieutenant Colonel Charles George Gray, was one of the pioneer settlers in the Port Macquarie district.
Click to view a slideshow of the Launch of Emeritus Professor Ken Dutton’s book A French General and a Scots Colonel by Her Excellency Professor Marie Bashir AC CVO Governor of NSW on 18th October 2007.
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Broadcast Notes
Today I thought I’d discuss our Jarry-Gray manuscript dating from the 18th-19th centuries, along with another work recently purchased and once belonging to Colonel Gray.
The Governor of NSW will be launching the book entitled A French General and a Scots Colonel A Most Unusual Volume and the Search for its Authorship written by Emeritus Professor Ken Dutton on his investigation of the manuscript this Thursday 18th October 2007.
The manuscript was purchased in March 2001 as a early settler’s diary by our then archivist Denis Rowe. Mr Rowe retired soon after and it stayed under lock and key with the Tyrrell Diary until late 2005 when I was conducting a valuation survey through the collection and came across the manuscript again.
On the 6th December 2005 together with a Christmas greeting I wrote to Professor Ken Dutton, our Emeritus Professor of French and fellow collaborator, asking him to look over the manuscript for us, as most of it was a French transcribed text with a diary at the back of the book written in English. He wrote back within a couple of hours and there it began. Within two days I had a full copy of the manuscript on CDrom for him to work on over the Christmas break. For the next year Ken worked on this thing and together with Denis and myself adding our two bobs worth and the rest of the cast and crew nutted out the mystery of this mysterious work.
I assisted in tracking down the names of the convicts and others mentioned in the diary and matching them to their Colonial master.
Sample leaves from Lieutenant Colonel Charles George Gray’s diary from the 17 May 1839
In August of 2006 we released the following press release:
“University solves mystery of valuable hand-written archive
Wednesday 9 August 2006
The University of Newcastle has unravelled the mystery surrounding an unusual antique hand-written manuscript, revealing the authors as a leading French general of the Napoleonic era, and a pioneer settler in Port Macquarie.
After six months of intensive research in the Auchmuty Library Cultural Collections, Emeritus Professor Ken Dutton has identified the writing in the volume as that of two authors: General Francois Jarry, a leading French general of the Napoleonic era, and Lieutenant Colonel Charles George Gray, one of the pioneer settlers in the Port Macquarie district.
The French manuscript consists of over 300 pages on military fortifications and the mapping of battlefields. But when turned upside down and opened at the other end, it is written in English and is the working diary of a settler near Port Macquarie in the second half of 1839.
Professor Dutton said there was no indication in the text as to its authorship. The only clue was on the spine with the words JARRY TOM 1.
“Solving the mystery involved eliminating a number of military men of the period,” said Professor Dutton. “Extensive investigation identified the author as General Francois Jarry, who had headed Frederick the Great’s military school in Berlin. Jarry later fled to England at the time of the French Revolution and in 1799 founded a private college for army officers at High Wycombe, later to become the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst.
“Samples of Jarry’s handwriting obtained from the British Library and compared with the diary held in Newcastle provided conclusive evidence that the French text was in Jarry’s own hand.
“Final confirmation of the work’s second author came when a bookplate inside the diary’s cover was found to correspond to the arms of the Gray family.
“Lieutenant C.G. Gray had probably acquired the volume while a student at High Wycombe in 1809 and brought it to Port Macquarie where he kept it as a diary.”
Gray was born in Edinburgh in 1786 and fought Napoleon at Waterloo before settling in Port Macquarie, and later building himself a residence which he called Huntington House. Gray later moved north where he became the Police Magistrate at Ipswich, and Queensland’s first Parliamentary Librarian and Usher of the Black Rod in 1860. He died in 1873.
“The volume is of exceptional value,” said Professor Dutton. “It gives us an unusual picture of what an officer would have learned at a British military academy in the early years of the 19th century, and a vivid snapshot of the severe life of assigned convicts in an early Australian settlement.”
Ken has recently launched the book in the Queensland Parliament and is now launching the book here in New South Wales in the presence of the Governor.
At the Queensland Parliamentary launch in early September 2007 (6th) there were about 25 descendants of Colonel Gray present, as well as the Acting Speaker (who presided in lieu of the Speaker, who was ill), Mary Seefried Parliamentary Librarian, the Parliamentary Historian and the Parliamentary Information Officer. They were treated to an inspection of the Parliamentary Library, the O’Donovan Library and various memorabilia associated with Colonel Gray, including a list of some journals he ordered (including, appropriately, the Edinburgh Review). Professor Dutton was also able to inspect Gray’s tombstone in the Ipswich cemetery, and the plaque in St Paul’s Church Ipswich which commemorates him. On a visit to the HQ of the Queensland Women’s Historical Association, he was able to see Gray’s wine chest from Waterloo, as well as a large sideboard, inscribed “Huntington 1837″ – possibly built by one of his convict labourers.
In recent weeks we have purchased a couple of further volumes that at one time belonged to Colonel Gray by Maurice Comte de Saxe entitled Memoires ou Art de la Guerre, 1756.
The real important thing to remember about archives and manuscripts is that we are not dealing with dead and disembodied things, every object is connected in some way with a living and breathing person. In the case of this manuscript it is certainly a marvelous thing to see how many connections have been forged between the University and the rest of the world that were not present before this research was conducted by Professor Ken Dutton.
Best Wishes,
Gionni Di Gravio
‘Titivillus strikes again’ – Emeritus Professor Ken Dutton
