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 '' Power Without Glory'', and for his later political activism. He brought the plight of

Aboriginal Australians Aboriginal Australians are the various Indigenous peoples of the Australian mainland and many of its islands, such as Tasmania, Fraser Island, Hinchinbrook Island, the Tiwi Islands, and Groote Eylandt, but excluding the Torres Strait ...

to international attention with the publication of his book, ''The Unlucky Australians'', in 1968, written during the

Gurindji Strike The Wave Hill walk-off, also known as the Gurindji strike, was a walk-off and strike by 200 Gurindji stockmen, house servants and their families, starting on 23 August 1966 and lasting for seven years. It took place at Wave Hill, a cattle sta ...

. He ran unsuccessfully for the Australian parliament twice as a

Communist Party of Australia The Communist Party of Australia (CPA), known as the Australian Communist Party (ACP) from 1944 to 1951, was an Australian political party founded in 1920. The party existed until roughly 1991, with its membership and influence having been i ...

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 Victoria most commonly refers to: * Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada * Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory * Victoria, Seychelle ...

and later moved with his family to

Bacchus Marsh Bacchus Marsh ( Wathawurrung: ''Pullerbopulloke'') is an urban centre and suburban locality in Victoria, Australia located approximately north west of the state capital Melbourne and west of Melton at a near equidistance to the major cities ...

, west of Melbourne.Hocking, Jenny. ''Frank Hardy: Politics, Literature, Life'' South Melbourne: Lothian Books: 2005; Armstrong, Pauline. ''Frank Hardy and the Making of Power Without Glory''. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press. Adams, Paul. ''The Stranger From Melbourne: Frank Hardy – A Literary Biography 1944–1975''. University of Western Australia Press: 1999; His mother, Winifred, was a Roman Catholichis 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

in the milk factory, digging potatoes, picking tomatoes and fruit". 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. However, Jim Hardy, Frank's eldest brother, wrote to the '' Melbourne Herald'' on 6 November 1983 to rebut this assertion, claiming that Frank had never had to leave homefurther noting that their "father never lost a day's work in his life". According to biographer

Jenny Hocking Jennifer Jane Hocking is an Australian historian, political scientist and biographer. She is the inaugural Distinguished Whitlam Fellow with the Whitlam Institute at Western Sydney University, Emeritus Professor at Monash University, and f ...

in a more recent biography, Tom Hardy did indeed lose his job at a milk factory at the start of

the Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

, and the family had to move into a small rented house in Lerderderg Street. In 1937 ''Radio Times'' published a selection of his cartoons.

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.

Communist Party of Australia

Because of his experiences during the Depression, Hardy joined the

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

According to Pauline Armstrong, Hardy enlisted in the Australian armed forces on 10 May 1943. He was later posted to Mataranka in the

Northern Territory The Northern Territory (commonly abbreviated as NT; formally the Northern Territory of Australia) is an Australian territory in the central and central northern regions of Australia. The Northern Territory shares its borders with Western Aust ...

which was under "perpetual anticipation" of attack from the Japanese. Initially editing and writing a unit newspaper for the Australian army, he was employed as an artist for the army journal, ''Salt''. Later 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

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

Australian Society of Authors The Australian Society of Authors (ASA) was formed in 1963 as the organisation to promote and protect the rights of Australia's authors and illustrators. The Fellowship of Australian Writers played a key role it its establishment. The organisati ...

for political reasons in 1963, he later joined the Society and served on its Management Committee. He played an active role in assisting the

Gurindji people The Gurindji are an Aboriginal Australian people of northern Australia, southwest of Katherine in the Northern Territory's Victoria River region. Language and culture Gurindji is one of the eastern Ngumbin languages, in the Ngumbin-Yapa s ...

in the

Gurindji strike The Wave Hill walk-off, also known as the Gurindji strike, was a walk-off and strike by 200 Gurindji stockmen, house servants and their families, starting on 23 August 1966 and lasting for seven years. It took place at Wave Hill, a cattle sta ...

in the mid to late 1960s. 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, '' Power Without Glory'', was initially published in 1950 by Hardy himself, with the assistance of other members of the Communist Party. The novel is a fictionalised version of the life of a

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/ Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a metro ...

businessman, John Wren, and is set largely in the fictitious Melbourne suburb of Carringbush (based on the actual suburb Collingwood). In 1950 Hardy was arrested for

criminal libel Criminal libel is a legal term, of English origin, which may be used with one of two distinct meanings, in those common law jurisdictions where it is still used. It is an alternative name for the common law offence which is also known (in order ...

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''. ''Power Without Glory'' was filmed by the

Australian Broadcasting Commission The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) is the national broadcaster of Australia. It is principally funded by direct grants from the Australian Government and is administered by a government-appointed board. The ABC is a publicly-owned ...

(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 Donald Horne and contributions by

Vincent Lingiari Vincent Lingiari (13 June 1908 or 1919 – 21 January 1988) was an Australian Aboriginal rights activist and member of the Gurindji people. In his early life he started as a stockman at Wave Hill Station, where the Aboriginal workers were g ...

, Aboriginal Union organiser Daniel Dexter, actor

Robert Tudawali Robert Tudawali (1929 – 26 July 1967), also known as Bobby Wilson and Bob Wilson, was an Australian actor and Indigenous activist. He is known for his leading role in the 1955 Australian film ''Jedda'', which made him the first Indigenous Aus ...

and others, telling the story of the

based on personal narratives, and the

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 Henry Archibald Hertzberg Lawson (17 June 1867 – 2 September 1922) was an Australian writer and bush poet. Along with his contemporary Banjo Paterson, Lawson is among the best-known Australian poets and fiction writers of the colonial perio ...

. Hardy founded the Realist Writers Group, which he represented in 1951 at the

3rd World Festival of Youth and Students The 3rd World Festival of Youth and Students (WFYS) was held from 5 to 19 August 1951 in Berlin, capital city of the then German Democratic Republic, and organised by World Federation of Democratic Youth. The motto of the festival was "Peace and ...

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitu ...

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

Bibliography

*'' Power Without Glory'', 1950. Reprint 2000 *''Journey Into the Future'', 1952 *''The Four Legged Lottery'' 1958 *''The Hard Way: The Story Behind Power without Glory'', 1961. *''Legends from Benson's Valley'', 1963. *'' The Yarns of Billy Borker'', 1965. *''Billy Borker Yarns Again'', 1967. *''The Unlucky Australians'', 1968. 1972 *''Outcasts of Foolgarah'', 1971, *''But the Dead Are Many: A Novel in Fugue Form'', 1975, *''The Needy and the Greedy: Humorous Stories of the Racetrack'', 1975. *''The Obsession of Oscar Oswald'', 1983, *''Who Shot George Kirkland? : A Novel About the Nature of Truth'', 1981. *''Warrant of Distress'', 1983, *''The Loser Now Will Be Later to Win'', 1985. *''Mary Lives!'', 1992 .

Books about Frank Hardy

*''Frank Hardy: Politics, Literature, Life'',

(South Melbourne:

Lothian Books Hachette () is a French publisher. Founded in 1826 by Louis Hachette as Brédif, the company later became L. Hachette et Compagnie, Librairie Hachette, Hachette SA and Hachette Livre in France. After acquiring an Australian publisher, Hachette ...

, 2005, ) *
Frank Hardy and the Literature of Commitment
'', edited by Paul Adams & Christopher Lee (North Carlton, Victoria: The Vulgar Press, 2003, ) *''Frank Hardy and the Making of Power without Glory'', Pauline Armstrong (Carlton South: Melbourne University Press, 2000, ) *''The Stranger From Melbourne: Frank Hardy – A Literary Biography 1944 – 1975'', Paul Adams (University of Western Australia Press, 1999, )