Years after he wrote The War of the Worlds – inspired by European massacres of Tasmanian Aboriginal people – HG Wells arrived in Australia, his documents describing him as a “man of letters”. On his infamous visit to Australia in 1938, he never made it across Bass Strait, but he did manage to create an international uproar by criticising the Nazi government in an era of appeasement.
By the time Wells came to Australia he was one of the world’s most famous authors and thinkers. His 1898 classic imagines Martians fleeing a dying planet to take over Earth, landing in the genteel English countryside.
It had been catapulted back into the public’s mind only weeks before Wells’s trip thanks to a panic-inducing radio broadcast of the text by Orson Welles on 30 October 1938.
Michael Foot’s biography of Wells recounts that the book was inspired by a talk with his brother Frank on a walk in the Surrey countryside about the European “discovery” of Tasmania, when Frank observed: “Suppose some being from another planet were to drop out of the sky suddenly and begin laying about them here!”
On the second page of The War of the Worlds, Wells suggests humans not judge the Martians too harshly, because Europeans did the same thing to “its own inferior races” – a racist phrase that has been criticised ever since.
He also writes in The War of the Worlds that Tasmanians were “entirely swept out of existence in a war of extermination waged by European immigrants”, a false statement that was echoed by Unesco until this year, but which did at least give due weight to the scale of the atrocities.
Despite repeated invitations, Wells did not visit Australia for 40 years after the book came out. He finally arrived in Fremantle on the Comorin on 27 December 1938.
That event is recorded among the digitised records of boat arrivals at Fremantle (where most ships from Europe first docked) from 1898 to 1972, held by the National Archives of Australia – a fascinating and searchable history of visitors and migrants.
Wells stirred up controversy on his visit, particularly when he attacked Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini as “criminal Caesars” in an interview in Melbourne on 5 January 1939.
“There is a little group of men in Germany – particularly Hitler, whom I regard as certified lunatic. Then there is Mussolini, who is a fantastic renegade from the socialist movement. Those men are freaks,” he said.
The prime minister, Joseph Lyons, who supported appeasement, said the government would not be associated with the “bad taste” remarks and regretted that Wells had “so far indulged his well-known political sympathies as to make disparaging remarks about the leaders of other nations”.
Wells was also critical of Australia’s censorship laws, saying it was a “half-fascist nation” as he launched the Melbourne branch of PEN International, which fights for freedom of expression for writers.
The records of his visit, captured by the National Library of Australia’s research tool, Trove, track his journey around the nation. Reporters noted his “temper [was] inclined to fray” and that he was “a man of moods – hot and sticky”.
In January 1939 he visited Canberra’s Telopea Park public school for the congress of the Australian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science.
He reportedly “resented” the press attention, “but nobody would leave him alone; curious crowds followed him wherever he went”.
Journalists noted he was “growing rather petulant”, that his voice was “soft and weak”, and that he appeared to be “weak in the legs [with] big, bulging knees”.
Among other high-profile visitors, the NAA documents the arrival of Ava Gardner, Fred Astaire, Gregory Peck and others for the filming of On the Beach, “one of the ultimate cold war movies, a bleak depiction of nuclear apocalypse that retains power to this day”. As “aliens”, their arrival cards feature their passport pictures.
The Australian Women’s Weekly reported at the time that Astaire “plans to watch the dances and rites of two groups of Australians – an Aboriginal tribe and punters on a racecourse”.
In 1964, the Beatles stormed Australia, but not before filling in their landing cards: John Winston Lennon, 23; Paul James McCartney, 22; George Harrison, 21; and James George (“Jimmie”) Nicol, 24.
Nicol briefly filled in for Richard Starkey (Ringo Starr), 23, who joined the rest a couple of weeks in.
The Canberra Times reported that the Beatles believed their arrival in Adelaide “was the biggest welcome they had received anywhere in the world”.
“One girl, about 15, fell and was almost trampled by the huge crowd as the group appeared on the Town Hall balcony,” the newspaper reported.
The Duke of Gloucester wrote his surname as “His Royal Highness Duke of Gloucester” and given names as “Prince Henry William Frederick Albert” on his arrival in 1934. At the time the West Australian said his “pleasing personality and ready smile won him the affection of all”.
Similarly, Princess Anne entered “Princess” as her surname and “Anne” as her first for her 1970 visit (which is listed in the archives as 1969). She travelled with Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip – but kings and queens do not have to carry passports or fill out entry cards.
One Russell Ira Crowe arrived from New Zealand in 1968, aged four.
Julia Eileen Gillard arrived in 1966, listing her destination initially as Victoria, before that was crossed out in favour of SA.
The archives’ assistant state manager for public engagement in Victoria, Patrick Ferry, says the historical records can be incredibly useful.
“The two typical scenarios for these are people doing their family history – Mum and Dad arrived as migrants, were interested in finding the records – and that’s the starting point for them,” he says.
“They’ll find the arrival form and that can be a lead to find other forms that supported the migration process.
“The other scenario which is quite common is that lots of people arrived in Australia as migrants and never became citizens, they became permanent residents, then they reach the age where they have to deal with agencies who need proof that they arrived legally in the country.
“So it’s not just for an interested family historian, they’re supporting the rights of people to benefits and assistance from the government as well.”
Wells, often described as a pacifist, wrote about war long after he wrote about the alien invasion. In his 1933 book The Shape of Things to Come, he predicted a great European war would begin in 1940.
“Although each year in the thirties saw the international tension in Europe increasing, it was only in 1940 that actual warfare broke out,” he wrote.
He was not far off. Wells left Australian shores in February 1939. The second world war began in September.
