Book review: ‘Peace angel’ of World War I: Dissent of Margaret Thorp

In spite of attacks on her pacifism and other concerns, Thorp never lost the religious zeal that underscored her social action. A zeal which in fact often brought her into conflict, sometimes bitter, with members of the clergy whose Christian beliefs included support for war. At one stage she decided to visit all the parsons “to stir them up”.

Being pacifist did not prevent her being very forthright in defence of her commitments and she gradually earned great respect from political opponents as well as supporters during a period of much bitterness. “Existing divisions were accentuated between Catholics and Protestants, monarchical imperialists and republican nationalists, conservatives and dissenters, as well as within these groups. It also set soldiers against civilians, women against women, and sometimes even family members against family members” Summy writes. But in 1916, when she was only 24, and had been in Queensland only one year, State Home Secretary John Huxham told Thorp he “felt proud to have such a person in Queensland”.

That same year, Thorp was in Gympie with colleagues from the WPA and Australian Peace Alliance to gain support. No-one turned up for a special women’s meeting, and the Town Council refused permission to use a licensed hall for a public meeting, so they decided on an open-air gathering.

Thorp delivered her standard speech: How can peace be made permanent? As she concluded a woman shouted “you ought to be at the wash-tub!” Summy continues “When a man came to Thorp’s defence, he was quickly set upon by the woman who bashed at his head with a bag of apples”, and later Thorp heard there’d been plans to “duck” her. It would be funny if it were not so serious. The speakers were rained off but after the shower the crowd came back and gave them a good hearing. Even so the mayor warned he would instruct the police to prohibit the holding of any meeting by this delegation in future.

This is a gripping yarn about the life of a strong and committed “Peace Angel”. It’s much more than a good read, for it tells the story of aspects of social and political life in 20th century Australia of which we hear comparatively little.

There’s an interesting historical question here. Some social activists do considerable work for the public good and receive accolades, honours, statues in their honour. Others do just as much but receive scant notice. Thorp herself wrote “Who are the real national heroes? Surely they are the men and women who do the little things of life in a big way, putting their best energies and interests into their work, and whose friendship has no boundaries”.

We should be grateful Hilary Summy wrote this story of a committed, brave, feisty woman. We should also be grateful the Centre for Peace Studies chose to publish it.

There is, however, a flaw in the editing of the book.

The natural flow of the yarn, with its incidents, emotion and at times humour, is interrupted time and again by those pesky little footnote numbers in the text forcing the reader’s eye off the ball to flick down to the reference at the bottom of the page. Not occasionally, which might make them easy to ignore, but as many as half a dozen times on a page, 494 times in the total of 124 pages. This may be necessary in presenting a doctoral thesis to prove the author has done her homework but simply isn’t necessary in a work for public consumption, especially when it has an 11-page bibliography and an index of three pages.

To be fair I mentioned this point to two other former academics and a current university student and all agreed it is an irritating and unnecessary interruption. At least the footnotes could have been collected together at the end of the book but even so only a tiny proportion of readers are likely to follow them up.

And another thing. More a question. This story is about a woman committed to social equality, particularly the problems of people out there in the general community. She belonged to the Society of Friends who do not use titles, not even Mr and Mrs, and who have no clergy, no hierarchy. Their “church” is a simple, non-consecrated room with seating in a square.

Yet the launch of the book was in the hallowed halls of The Mayne Centre at Queensland University, amid the titles and icons of privilege. I suspect Margaret Thorp would not have been comfortable. Even though it might be pushing it to suggest the launch should have been in City Square round Emma Miller’s statue, would it not have been more appropriate in the Friends Meeting House, a community hall, a trade union headquarters, a welfare organisation? That is in Margaret Thorp’s workplace?