AustLit

'Geoffrey Bolton AO (1931–2015) was a self-avowed tortoise whose lengthy career matched the steadfast and ultimately triumphant march of his spirit animal. Long committed – in both life and scholarship – to the temperate ‘middle way’, Bolton left ample evidence of the fruits of moderation. His life in history began amidst the Menzies-led heyday of all things middle, with an Honours thesis on Alexander Forrest that became a first article (1953) and book (1958). His last major work – a biography of Paul Hasluck – was completed in 2014, by which time Menzies’ ‘forgotten people’ had made a comeback as Tony Abbott’s ‘forgotten families’. Over the intervening six decades, Bolton made pioneering forays into regional, environmental, public, northern and imperial history, all the while continuing as a biographer. In addition to several full-length biographies, he contributed a staggering ninety-one entries to the Australian Dictionary of Biography. His employment history was equally wide-ranging. A ‘peripatetic professor’ whose trajectory anticipated today's academic hyper-mobility, Bolton held appointments in London, Melbourne, Canberra, Brisbane and his native Perth, where UWA, Edith Cowan and Murdoch each took advantage of his services. Throughout these relocations, his output remained prodigious: a complete bibliography takes up fourteen pages. But no matter how far he travelled, Bolton held fast to his West Australian roots. Ever the proud ‘sandgroper’, he contested the ‘Hume Highway hegemony’ and showed that Australia had history beyond the southeast. Late in life these services won him an honour rarely bestowed upon historians, when in 2014 the main promenade of Perth's new Elizabeth Quay was named Geoffrey Bolton Avenue. Only icons such as Manning Clark and Sir Keith Hancock, who boast eponymous thoroughfares in Victoria and the ACT, have reached similar heights.' (Introduction)