Patricia and Frank Graham papers

MLMSS 10751/Boxes 1-8
MLMSS 10751/Box 9X

series

1910-2008

Textual Records, Drawings

9586172

1.4 metres of textual material (8 boxes and 1 outsize box)

Patricia Graham was an artist, art teacher, social and political activist through much of the twentieth century. In 1956 she married one of the founders of the Socialist Party of Australia Frank Graham. Patricia was widely known as an artist under the name Patricia Kelk (her maiden name) and as Kelk Graham. Frank Graham (1897-1988), trade unionist, socialist and peace activist, was born at Strathfield, N.S.W.. As a fitter and turner he enlisted in the Railway Operating Company (6th ROC) in the AIF, serving on the Western FrontFrom 1926 to 1938 he lived at Lithgow, N.S.W., where he was employed on the N.S.W. Railways. There he became a shop steward for the Amalgamated Engineering Union and joined the Australian Labor Party. In 1930 he became a member of the Communist Party of Australia (CPA). From 1939 to 1942 he was Organising Secretary of the State Labor Party, and in 1943 commenced his column, 'Among the Diggers', in the Party's pro-Communist organ, Progress; the State Labor Party amalgamated with the CPA in 1943.
For a decade from 1942 Frank Graham was an organiser for the Federated Clerks' Union. From 1952 until the late 1960s he was employed as a clerk on the Sydney waterfront, where he became involved in the CPA's Maritime Branch. During the 1960s he was active in the peace movement, forming the Waverley Peace Committee and campaigning against the Vietnam War and for nuclear disarmament. In 1970 he left the CPA, following inner-party conflict over the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, and joined the newly-founded Socialist Party of Australia. In the mid-1970s he was Sydney correspondent for the East German journal, Horizont. A founding member of the Australia-U.S.S.R. Society, he was accorded life membership on his 85th birthday.
The Graham home in St Thomas Street, Bronte, from the early 1950s to 1984, served as a meeting place and fund-raising venue for left-wing and progressive causes. The Grahams' hospitality also extended to accommodating transient comrades; the Berlin-based anthropologist Frederick Rose stayed with the Grahams during his return trips to Australia.

Patricia Graham was an artist, art teacher, social and political activist through much of the twentieth century. In 1956 she married one of the founders of the Socialist Party of Australia Frank Graham. Patricia was widely known as an artist under the name Patricia Kelk (her maiden name) and as Kelk Graham. Extensive personal correspondence and reflections of activism. Includes photographs and original artwork for book illustrations. records of Joan Kelk, Patricia's sister, also in this collection. Joan Kelk was active in the International Art Award for Peace that Patricia was involved with. Includes Frank Graham's papers, letters and postcards from family members in the First World War.

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