Person - James McAuley

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JAMES PHILLIP McAULEY (1917 - 1976)

The dominant personality in the 1941 revue I’d Rather be Left was its talented pianist, lyricist and raffish musical director 23-year-old blond-haired Jim McAuley. “The pianist deserves special mention for his unflagging efforts”, commented the Wireless Weekly. “His bright playing in swing style was a big asset.” McAuley, who could play everything from Mozart to jazz, was also choirmaster and organist at Holy Trinity Church, Dulwich Hill.

Described by Russel Ward as thin, slight, pale and intense, his mouth turned down as though he’d swallowed a lemon, and by Oriel Gray as always seeming to be sharing a private joke with this academic friend John Reed, McAuley was a passionate opponent of censorship of the Press when war broke out. At university he was influenced by the philosophy of Professor John Anderson and, nervous after the CPA was banned in June 1940, got rid of his collection of communist and anarchist literature. In politics McAuley moved from Left to Right, cutting himself off from the past and removing himself at any mention of the NTL revue.

Ex student of Fort Street (a contemporary was John Kerr), BA 1938 MA 1940 Dip Ed 1942, McAuley was the regular pianist and musical director of the Sydney University Revue, retiring in June 1941 because of Student Representative Council censorship of the scripts, low social awareness among the undergraduate population, and the difficulty of extending revue outside the university without losing its student character. Satire was also hard to write. He edited Hermes and spent time in the company of Donald Horne who edited Honi Soit.

McAuley was a serviceman in Sydney when he helped create the Ern Malley literary hoax, was founding editor of Quadrant and became one of Australia’s most respected poets.

James McAuley has Wikipedia and Australian Dictionary of Biography entries, and is the subject of Peter Coleman’s 1987 memoir The Heart of James McAuley. His papers are held by Mitchell Library. His sheet music from I’d Rather be Left is in Box 20 of the papers of his wife Norma née Aberwethy (MLMSS 7920).



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