Ian Bevan papers, ca. 1885-1991

fonds

ca. 1885-1991

Textual Records, Graphic Materials

825809

2.10 metres of textual material and 35 photographs (2 boxes, 4 outsize boxes)

Ian Bevan (1919-2006), author and journalist, was born at Everton, Rye Park, N.S.W., the son of Archibald Bevan and his wife, Ethel May, nee Winchcombe. As an eighteen-year-old he commenced work as a reporter on the The Sun (Sydney) newspaper. He joined the staff of The Sydney Morning Herald in March 1941. He enlisted in the Australian Army at the end of that year and served in North Africa and New Guinea. He was released from the Army at the Herald’s request in May 1944, and later that year went to England as a war correspondent for that newspaper.

In May 1945 Bevan went to Germany and spent nine months there reporting the Allied entry into and occupation of Berlin, and the Belsen and Nuremberg war crimes trials. He also served as a war correspondent for the Herald in the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Italy, Palestine, Greece and Turkey.

Bevan returned to Australia in January 1947. He resigned from the Herald in March 1948 to go overseas. He spent three months in 1949 travelling in North Africa. Most of the 1950s were spent in England where he covered the theatre and wrote the books Top of the Bill: The Story of the London Palladium (1952) and Royal Performance: The Story of Royal Theatregoing (1954). He was Secretary of the Society of Australian Writers in Great Britain in 1953 and edited its collection of essays, The Sunburnt Country: Profile of Australia. Bevan later became Talent Artists Ltd representing variety artists and staging concerts. He retired to the south of France in 1990 and died in New Zealand in 2001.

References:
Compiled from the collection
Obituary, Sydney Morning Herald, 13 November 2006

This collection chiefly documents Ian Bevan's activities as an author and journalist, including his service as a war correspondent during World War II. The papers include correspondence; photographs; literary papers, chiefly relating to his published and unpublished writings; and scrapbooks, chiefly of his journalism and reviews of his books.

SERIES 01
Ian Bevan personal papers and photographs, ca. 1885-1954, 1987, 1991

SERIES 02
Ian Bevan literary papers, 1942-195-, 1976, 1980

SERIES 03
Ian Bevan scrapbooks, 1938-1955