John Englart personal diaries, with photographs of protests and demonstrations

fonds

1970-1975

Textual Records, Graphic Materials, Photographs, Ephemera

9661673

0.15 metres box of textual material (1 box) - manuscript, typescript
109 photographs (1 box)
52 negatives
3 slides

John Englart (full name Kevin John Englart) was born in February 1955 in Brisbane. He grew up in Panania, Casino and Tweed Heads NSW, before moving to Sydney in 1970 where he attended Epping Boys High (1970, 1972-1973) and Northmead High (1970-1971). After completing high school Englart worked for the Postmaster General’s Department (PMG), Telecom Australia, and later Telstra from August 1974 until August 2005. He attended Vietnam Moratorium protests with his parents in 1970 and 1971, which started his radicalisation and deeper involvement in political issues and groups such as children’s rights and secondary student activism through NSW Secondary Students Union and the Education Action Group. In 1973 Englart began writing a personal journal which coincided with his coming out as gay and his involvement in Sydney’s early Gay Pride demonstrations in September of that year.

Later, Englart became involved in movements such as anti-uranium and anti-nuclear energy, environmental and conservation campaigns through Friends of the Earth (FOE) and against the sacking of Australian prime minister Gough Whitlam and the military coup and dictatorship of August Pinochet in Chile. From 1974 he became involved in various anarchist groups in Sydney. He was a founding member of the Jura Literature Service in 1976 which later established Jura Books an anarchist bookshop in King Street, St Peters, Sydney in 1977. After a split over ideology in Jura in 1982, he joined other anarchists who established the Redfern Black Rose bookshop the same year in Botany Road, Alexandria.

Englart moved to Melbourne in August 1990 and founded Anarres Books with two other people in 1992, a mail order anarchist bookstall which continued until 2008. Between 1992 and 2008 he lived in a collectively owned house (the Bread and Roses Collective) in Brunswick which practiced income sharing. The collective house was sold in 2009. Since 2004, Englart has reported on climate change science and protests, and since 2012 he has served as convenor of Climate Action Moreland. As an accredited NGO observer to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) he has attended COP21 Climate Talks in Paris in 2015, COP22 Climate Talks in Marrakech, Morocco in 2016, COP23 climate Talks in Bonn, Germany in 2017, and COP25 Climate Talks Madrid in 2019.

Reference:
Library correspondence file

SERIES 1
John Englart personal diaries; including clippings, newsletters and ephemera

SERIES 2
Photographs taken at protests and demonstrations, including negatives and slides

SERIES 3
Negatives of Gay Festival in Domain, Sunday Sept 9, 1973; Gay Outrage Mon, Wed; Demo Saturday; Lyndhurst Saturday / by John Englart

SERIES 4
Slides of September 20th / by John Englart

In copyright:
Copyright holder:: John Englart
Please acknowledge:: Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales and Courtesy copyright holder