A project that started as research and archiving regarding Ernest Burgmann the founding Bishop of St Mark’s National Memorial Library has progressed to become a play that uses the story of Burgmann to bring historiographical issues to the public. Due to the high popularity of historical fiction as a genre, I believe it to be a significant medium through which history can reach wider audiences. Despite historical fiction’s reputation among historians as being inaccurate and sensationalised, my project endeavours to implicitly argue that factual and academically researched historical fiction can enable both events and historiographical issues to reach the public. I have aimed to achieve this in the play by ensuring that the dialogue of the major historical characters, namely Burgmann, Hirst, Blanche and Menzies, is derived from primary sources. Aside from connective words that I used to improve the flow of the play, the dialogue of those historical characters is entirely taken from primary sources. Burgmann’s dialogue is adapted from his publications, correspondence and sermons, whereas Menzies’ dialogue is primarily from his election and parliamentary speeches. Most of the sources pertaining to Burgmann I gathered while archiving at St Mark’s Library during my community engagement. However, others and much insightful historical analysis of Burgmann was found in Peter Hempenstall’s biography; The Meddlesome Priest: A Life of Ernest Burgmann. Correspondence between Hempenstall and Burgmann’s family as well as with other historians that I found as part of the archives at St Mark’s library was useful ascertaining the accuracy of Hempenstall’s conclusions.

A key issue with local history is its lack of marketing and promotion to the wider national and even international audience. While Ernest Burgmann was well known within the community of St Mark’s Theological Centre and the Anglican community of Canberra, he was less well known in the greater Australian public. I believe historical fiction, and plays especially due to their engaging nature, can serve to bring fascinating local stories like that of Burgmann to a greater audience. Caroline Kammen asserted in her article on local history and historical fiction that “stories are approachable and likely to be widely read at least in the area when they are set. Historical fiction often becomes the way people understand the local past”. In such a way, the play format enables my organisation, St Mark’s National Memorial Library, to promote their history and their founding figure. 

The structure of the play attempts to encompass aspects of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, who used real historical characters to make an implicit argument concerning the McCarthy trials of his own time. In such a way, the fictional characters of Adam, Melanie and Jacob at the television network station serve to frame the snapshots of Burgmann’s history and in doing so showcase key historical themes. One such theme is that of perspective. For example, to his admirers, Burgmann’s history would be seen as visionary and vital to the prevention of a bill that was a violation of the constitution. However, sources from those who oppose him testify to his communist ideas, his irritating idiosyncrasies and his meddling in the protection of the country.

Another theme conveyed in the play is that of the subjectivity of history. Historian E.H. Carr in his book What is History? uses an analogy of a fish monger to suggest that history is the product of the historian. He suggests that “facts are available to historians in documents, inscriptions and so on, like fish on the fishmonger’s slab. The historian collects them, takes them home and cooks and serves them in whatever style appeals to him”. This idea becomes central in the play and its structure. The structure of the play, namely the way in which Melanie, Adam and Jacob interact with and alter their versions of history, gained inspiration from Tom Stoppard’s The Real Inspector Hound. In Stoppard’s play, the theatre critics Moon and Birdboot interact with and alter the events of the play they are meant to be reviewing.

In terms of accessibility and sustainability, I intend to make the play freely available online. Following the completion of this unit the play will be posted on my historical fiction blog: Centuries Ago: This Year in History. I will also send a copy to St Mark’s Library which they can hopefully make use of or at the very least see what project was born out of the archiving work I did for them back in September. Furthermore, the nature of a short one-act play such as this is to be easily able to be performed. I have structured the play so as to need limited props and technological capabilities. Additionally, aside from publication, a written historical fiction piece has limited means of reaching people whereas the play format will enable more people to be engaged. The play also enables a greater target audience for the issues of history and Burgmann’s story. Where the story of Burgmann may have a target audience only within the Anglican community, the fact that it is framed within the context of a national narrative with the Communist Dissolution Bill of 1951 allows for a greater audience to participate.

In essence, I hope that this play will begin a reformation of the pre-conceived notion that historical fiction is not a legitimate means of presenting accurate history and that it will enable the wider public to engage with the issues of academic history namely, the role of perspective and the challenges of the historian.

— MADELINE FISHER

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