Remembering Alison Patrick
1921 – 2009
Alison Patrick died early in the morning of 16 March 2009. She was a leading historian of the French Revolution. Her association with the University of Melbourne History Department began in 1946, under Max Crawford, when she was appointed a sessional tutor. Her career carried her to Reader and Head of the History Department and Deputy Dean of the Arts Faculty. She sat on many committees and raised a family of four, while fulfilling the duties then required of the wife of a leading community figure.
It was, however, as an historian of the French Revolution, that she would wish most to be remembered. In 1950 — by this time she was in effect a permanent member of staff — she and Alan McBriar began teaching Modern History C: 'a study of the Agrarian and Industrial Revolutions in Modern Europe.' This began Alison's lifelong interest in the French Revolution.
When, in 1970, the Department set up a new first-year subject on the eighteenth-century American and French Revolutions, it was natural that Alison teach the subject. 'It was very much Alison's enthusiasm that held it together,' recalls Stuart Macintyre. Alison taught the course until the end of 1986, when she retired. Peter McPhee, who had taken a position at Victoria University of Wellington, was appointed to replace her. He began teaching this subject in 1987. It is still taught today.
In the meantime, Alison wrote her very successful PhD without supervision. She turned it into The Men of the First French Republic, which was published in 1972 by Johns Hopkins, one of the world's leading academic presses. This publication had a major impact on the course of my life.
I was offered a lectureship in the History Department in 1973. I was also offered tenured positions at the University of Idaho in Pocatello and at the University of Paris VII. The Paris position was to teach American history and I had spent years preparing to teach French history. That was what I wanted to teach, but should I teach it in Melbourne or Pocatello? I knew nothing of either University. But I knew of The men of the First French Republic and I knew that its author was at Melbourne. It was a study of the National Convention of 1792, the assembly that governed France during the most critical period of the French Revolution. The French Revolution is the Everest of modern history, the Vesuvius of western democracies. I was and am a tiller of the soil shaped by its eruption. If an historian at Melbourne had published a recognised study at this dizzying height, it was worth taking a punt and going. I did go and I have been grateful ever since. I have never forgotten that it was Alison's book that inspired me to choose Melbourne over Pocatello.
Alison nurtured many scholars of my generation, with her characteristic warmth and enthusiasm. During her two successful terms as Head, the History Department blossomed and she prepared the next generation, which she had done so much to foster, for leadership. Her tenure as Head may well come to be seen the Department's high water mark. Alison also had a term as Head of the Italian Department, an act of community service to tide that department over a difficult period.
Long after her retirement, Alison continued to supervise and to research and publish. In 2006 the Department published a collection of Alison's work, which included many major articles, and she wrote a new preface. The distinguished American historian of the French Revolution, Tim Tackett, who in many ways is Alison's intellectual heir, wrote an extremely insightful and gracious preface. Tim came to Melbourne last year as a Miegunyah Fellow and Alison attended his Miegunyah lecture. Her career had come full circle.
Alison represented the University at its best. Her work, her warmth and her support for younger scholars will be greatly missed. I will miss her infectious enthusiasm for rethinking and challenging the orthodoxies of our profession.
Charles Sowerwine
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
See also, The Age Obitiary by Professor Peter McPhee
'Maintained family's tradition of high achievement with learned French work'
April 10, 2009