Recording a nation’s history

As peace returned after the horrors of the Second World War , four men gathered in the English cities of Oxford and London with a plan – to create a national university for a land on the other side of the planet.

These men – Sir Howard Florey, Mark Oliphant, Professor William Hancock and Professor Raymond Firth all held senior academic positions in the United Kingdom and their collective intellectual wisdom was used to form the Academic Advisory Committee – and The Australian National University started to take shape.

The records from these meetings, along with millions of others, are stored in the ANU Archives, deep within the University campus.

RICHARD FOX discovers some of the treasures of the collection in the latest edition of ANU Reporter.

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