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Cresswell O'Reilly (6 June 1877 – 20 December 1954) was an Australian

public servant The civil service is a collective term for a sector of government composed mainly of career civil service personnel hired rather than elected, whose institutional tenure typically survives transitions of political leadership. A civil service offic ...

who became Chief Commonwealth Film Censor. He "dominated and shaped Australian film censorship" and was able to "define appropriate mass entertainment" for nearly twenty years. He was the founding president of the

National Trust of Australia The National Trust of Australia, officially the Australian Council of National Trusts (ACNT), is the Australian national peak body for community-based, non-government non-profit organisations committed to promoting and conserving Australia's Ind ...

(NSW) and an early urban conservationist.

Early life

Cresswell O'Reilly (he was always known by his second name) was born in

New South Wales New South Wales (commonly abbreviated as NSW) is a States and territories of Australia, state on the Eastern states of Australia, east coast of :Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria (state), Victoria to the south, and South ...

to Irish-American physician Dr Walter William Joseph O’Reilly and his

Ballarat Ballarat ( ) () is a city in the Central Highlands of Victoria, Australia. At the 2021 census, Ballarat had a population of 111,973, making it the third-largest urban inland city in Australia and the third-largest city in Victoria. Within mo ...

-born wife, Mary Narcissa O’Reilly (née Taylor). He was educated at

Newington College Newington College is a multi-campus Independent school, independent Uniting Church in Australia, Uniting Church Single-sex education, single-sex and Mixed-sex education, co-educational Pre-school education, early learning, Primary school, primar ...

(1894–1896) and the

University of Sydney The University of Sydney (USYD) is a public university, public research university in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in both Australia and Oceania. One of Australia's six sandstone universities, it was one of the ...

from where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in 1903. He married Ethel Jane Vickery, a granddaughter of philanthropist Ebenezer Vickery, in 1909.

Army service

During

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

he served with the Australian Imperial Force in France as a gunner and then as a

warrant officer Warrant officer (WO) is a Military rank, rank or category of ranks in the armed forces of many countries. Depending on the country, service, or historical context, warrant officers are sometimes classified as the most junior of the commissioned ...

, class 1, with the Army Education Service.

Public service

Before attending university, O'Reilly had been a junior clerk in the Department of Justice. After the war, he returned to the public service as an officer-in-charge in the justice branch of the Attorney-General's Department. In 1925 O'Reilly was nominated by the Methodist Church, the

YMCA YMCA, sometimes regionally called the Y, is a worldwide youth organisation based in Geneva, Switzerland, with more than 64 million beneficiaries in 120 countries. It has nearly 90,000 staff, some 920,000 volunteers and 12,000 branches w ...

, and the Businessmen's Efficiency League as the senior Commonwealth film censor in Sydney. In this position he was ''de facto'' chief censor, as most films arrived in Australia through Sydney. Three years later he became chief Commonwealth censor and was reappointed annually. He was joined by

Eleanor Glencross Eleanor Glencross (11 November 1876 – 2 May 1950) was an Australian feminist and housewives' advocate. She led the Housewives' Association of New South Wales and she was the first chair of the Federated Association of Australian Housewives. S ...

who was appointed after lobbying by women's organisations. She was replaced in 1930 by Gwendoline Dorothea Julie Hansen who was appointed for three years and then also reappointed annually. The third member of the board was Colonel LJ Hurley. Up until 1935 they were rejecting half of the films that were assigned for assessment. This proportion was relaxed as the US film industry imposed its own censorship in 1934. O'Reilly retired in 1942. As chief censor he introduced, in 1930, the classification system that graded films 'For General Exhibition' and 'Not Suitable for Children'.

Community service

O'Reilly was a

Wesleyan Wesleyan theology, otherwise known as Wesleyan–Arminian theology, or Methodist theology, is a theological tradition in Protestant Christianity based upon the ministry of the 18th-century evangelical reformer brothers John Wesley and Charle ...

and served as a trustee of

Pymble Pymble is a suburb on the Upper North Shore of Sydney in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Pymble is north of the Sydney central business district in the local government area of Ku-ring-gai Council. West Pymble is a separate suburb t ...

Methodist Church for over 50 years, and was a choirmaster, Sunday-school-superintendent and lay preacher. He was elected to Ku-ring-gai Municipal Council as an

alderman An alderman is a member of a Municipal government, municipal assembly or council in many jurisdictions founded upon English law with similar officials existing in the Netherlands (wethouder) and Belgium (schepen). The term may be titular, denotin ...

and as mayor from 1929 until 1933. As mayor his vision for the

Upper North Shore The North Shore is a region within Northern Sydney, in New South Wales, Australia, generally referring to suburbs located on the northern side of Sydney Harbour up to Berowra, and suburbs between Middle Harbour and the Lane Cove River. The ...

involved what he called the two ''TPs'' —

Town Planning Urban planning (also called city planning in some contexts) is the process of developing and designing land use and the built environment, including air, water, and the infrastructure passing into and out of urban areas, such as transportatio ...

and

Tree Planting Tree planting is the process of transplanting tree seedlings, generally for forestry, land reclamation, or landscaping purposes. It differs from the transplantation of larger trees in arboriculture and from the lower-cost but slower and les ...

and hence he became known as the ''Tree Mayor''. As an early conservationist he was president of the State branch of the Australian Forest League and a member of the Forestry Advisory Council. In 1945 he became the founding president of the New South Wales division of the National Trust of Australia. At

Wesley College, University of Sydney Wesley College is a co-residential college of 265 students within the University of Sydney. The college occupies a site on the main campus of the University of Sydney and was built on a sub-grant of Crown land. Wesley is one of six on-campus co ...

he was a councillor and treasurer.

Honours

* Cresswell O’Reilly Lookout – 1030–1066 Pacific Highway,

Publications

* Wesley College (within the University of Sydney): a historical outline (Syd, 1956)National Library of Australia
Retrieved 29 May 2008 * Ku-ring-gai Shire: early history and development (Syd, 1948 & 1963)

Bibliography

* I Bertrand – Film Censorship in Australia (Brisb, 1978) * G Shirley and B Adams – Australian Cinema (Syd, 1983) * Film Censorship Board – Annual Reports 1925–42 *

Sydney Morning Herald ''The Sydney Morning Herald'' (''SMH'') is a daily tabloid newspaper published in Sydney, Australia, and owned by Nine Entertainment. Founded in 1831 as the ''Sydney Herald'', the ''Herald'' is the oldest continuously published newspaper in ...

– 17 June 1942

External links

* Joel Greenberg
Walter Cresswell O'Reilly (1877–1954)

Australian Dictionary of Biography The ''Australian Dictionary of Biography'' (ADB or AuDB) is a national co-operative enterprise founded and maintained by the Australian National University (ANU) to produce authoritative biographical articles on eminent people in Australia's ...

, Volume 11, MUP, 1988, p. 96.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Oreilly, Walter Cresswell 1877 births 1954 deaths Australian Methodists University of Sydney alumni People educated at Newington College Wesleyan Methodists 20th-century Methodists Shire presidents and mayors of Ku-ring-gai