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Record #4296

Name :: : Henry Arthur HOOTEN (1908 - 1961)
aka : Harry
Father: :
Mother: :

BMD and other details

Date of Birth: : 9 Oct 1908
Marriage (1): :
Marriage (2): :
Date of Death: : 27 Jun 1961

Abode (1) : Place of BirthEngland, Yorkshire, Doncaster

Abode (2) : Place of Death / Burial

Sailing Information

Date of Arrival: : 28 Oct 1924
Country: : Australia
Ship: : Demosthenes
Placement Family: :

Homes / Agencys

Institution (GB): :
Agency: : Dreadnought Scheme

NotesFrom Australian Dictionary of Biography Online ({website}adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A140555b.htm):

HOOTON, HENRY ARTHUR (HARRY) (1908-1961), poet and philosopher, was born on 9 October 1908 at Doncaster, Yorkshire, England, son of Levi Hooton, railway shunter, and his wife Margaret, n?e Lester Glaister. Sent to a socialist Sunday School, Harry also attended (1922-23) Christ's College, Finchley. He was brought to Australia by the Dreadnought Trust and reached Sydney in the Demosthenes on 28 October 1924 with fifty-nine other boys.

Harry left the Government Agricultural Training Farm, Scheyville, in June 1925 at the age of 17 to carry his swag, 'or rather my port', around Queensland and northern New South Wales. Convicted of unarmed robbery, he spent about eighteen months in Maitland gaol. He eventually settled at Newcastle where, on 3 November 1936 at St John's Anglican Church, he married a clerk Thora Zilma Isabel Hatch who bore him twins. They moved house frequently and were later to separate. Hooton started his serious writing, but finding and keeping work were recurring problems. He took relief work and labouring jobs, sold photographs door-to-door, and wrote of one factory in which he was employed, 'The Egg Board broke my heart'.

Initially a Trotskyist, Hooton participated in the unemployed people's strike at Newcastle in 1939. As a provocative commentator on local and international affairs, he voiced his anarchist opinions in the Newcastle Morning Herald and Miner's Advocate. Consequently, he was one of thousands of suspects who were kept under surveillance and was raided by the security police in 1940.

These Poets, Hooton's first book of poetry, was published in 1941. It was widely praised by reviewers, among them P. R. Stephensen in the Publicist. Hooton loved correspondence. His earliest extant letters date from 1936 and were written to Marie Pitt, but his correspondents included Ian Mudie, Rex Ingamells, Max Harris, Oliver Somerville, Harold Stewart, Ted Turner, Clem Christesen and Miles Franklin. The English writer John Hargraves described Hooton's letters as 'crammed tight with single-spaced margin-crowded eye-swivelling sight-blinding a-to-z key bashing'.

Moving to Sydney in 1943, Hooton accepted a position with Brian Penton on the Daily Telegraph. He walked out during the journalists' strike of October 1944 and never returned, taking odd jobs and mainly surviving through the generosity of friends. Things You See When You Haven't Got a Gun was published in 1943, but his philosophical writings were ridiculed by local critics. Meanwhile, he produced what he hoped would be a far-sighted, alternative literary magazine. The first issue was roneoed, called simply No.1 (1943), and contained poems by A. D. Hope and Garry Lyle. A year later NUMBER TWO appeared and in 1948 Number Three. In 1950 and 1951 Hooton worked on three issues of MS.

Never a modernist in the accepted sense, he attacked James Joyce most vehemently. After conflicting with Professor John Anderson, Hooton wrote: 'If someone outside university has an original idea, he's a crank; if someone inside a university has an original idea, it'll be a miracle'. He was influenced by Oscar Wilde's essay, The Soul of Man Under Socialism, and produced a four-page pamphlet, Anarcho-Technocracy (c.1951).

In 1952 Hooton met Margaret Elliott (later Fink) with whom he lived for seven years at Potts Point. They held regular Sunday soir?es. Hooton loved fierce discussion, though often in a humorous and gentle way. There, and in many Sydney coffee shops, he continued to talk, write poetry and work on his unpublished philosophical treatise, 'Militant Materialism'. He contacted like-minded people in Japan, India, South Africa, England, France, New Zealand and the United States of America to aid the creation of what Hooton would call the best magazine in the world?21st Century, The Magazine of a Creative Civilization, which appeared in 1955 and 1957. He had another book published in San Francisco, Power Over Things (1955).

Moving to Melbourne in 1960, Hooton sorted mail at the General Post Office. Diagnosed as terminally ill with cancer, he was brought back to Sydney by his friends in time to see proof copies of his last book, It is Great to be Alive (1961). On his deathbed, he made eleven half-hour tape-recordings. Survived by his son and daughter, he died on 27 June 1961 and was cremated.

Select Bibliography

S. Soldatow, Harry Hooton (Syd, 1990); Quadrant, Mar 1993; National Times, 24 Aug-1 Sept 1979; Dreadnought Trust, minute books, and registers of boys and ships (State Library of New South Wales); Hooton papers (State Library of New South Wales and National Library of Australia and Meanjin Archives, University of Melbourne Archives). More on the resources

Author: Sasha Soldatow

Print Publication Details: Sasha Soldatow, 'Hooton, Henry Arthur (1908 - 1961)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 14, Melbourne University Press, 1996, pp 489-490.

ContributorsCreated : 2008-09-27 19:55:38 / From original database

Last Updated : 2009-01-24 15:00:47 /

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Surnames starting with: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z 30 Entries

Page: [1] 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 349 Entries

ID	Name	DOB	Place of birth	Arrivals & Ships	Dest.	Agency	Family links
3858	ABBOTT, Emily Jane	1886	ENG, YKS, Guisborough	Jul 1903 : Dominion	CAN	Barnardos
3046	ABBOTT, Lily	1873	ENG, YKS, Leeds	Sep 1883 : Parisian	CAN	Maria Rye
3086	ABRAHAM, Dinah	1889	ENG, YKS, Hull	Jul 1897 : State of California	CAN	Waifs & Strays
3089	ABRAHAMS, Milly Esther	1889	ENG, YKS, Hull	Jul 1897 : State of California	CAN	Waifs & Strays
5397	ADAMSON, Doris	1907	ENG, YKS, Hull	Mar 1915 : Scandinavian	CAN	Barnardos
6852	AGGAS, Clara	1891	ENG, YKS, Leeds	Jul 1902 : New England	CAN	Barnardos
6851	AGGAS, Ethel	1889	ENG, YKS, Leeds	Jul 1902 : New England	CAN	Barnardos
6780	AGGAS, Herbert	1895	ENG, YKS, Leeds	Apr 1905 : Kensington	CAN	Barnardos
6854	AGGAS, John William	1893	ENG, YKS, Leeds	Apr 1905 : Kensington	CAN	Barnardos
10434	ALLENBY, Edward	1908	ENG, YKS, Kirkbymoorside	Aug 1924 : Doric	CAN	National Childrens Home
3463	ALLINSON, Herbert Arthur	1895	ENG, YKS, Harwood Dale	Mar 1906 : Dominion	CAN	Barnardos
3462	ALLINSON, Lancelot	1892	ENG, YKS, Harwood Dale	Jul 1903 : Dominion	CAN	Barnardos	suffolkmawther
4456	ANDERSON, Ethel Rows	1884	ENG, YKS, Normanby	Aug 1890 : Parisian	CAN	Maria Rye
3807	ANDREWS, Vernard Reginald	1897	ENG, YKS, Kingston Upon Hull	Mar 1908 : Dominion	CAN	Barnardos
13294	ANGUS, Agnes Crawford	1892	ENG, YKS, Ecclesall Bierlow	Jul 1905 : Corinthian	CAN	Quarriers
13293	ANGUS, Jennie Anderson	1893	ENG, YKS, Ecclesall Bierlow	Jul 1905 : Corinthian	CAN	Quarriers
5278	ARDINGTON, Thomas	1914	ENG, YKS, Driffield	Mar 1930 : Baltic	CAN	Waifs & Strays
8614	ARGENT, Joseph	1892	ENG, YKS, Sheffield	Mar 1909 : Canada	CAN	National Childrens Home	Lyn 8
23425	ARUNDEL, Eleanor Chapman	1892	ENG, YKS, Swinton, near Rotherham	Jun 1907 : Tunisian	CAN	Mrs. Mooney\'s
23426	ARUNDEL, Elsie Mary	1895	ENG, YKS, Doncaster	Jun 1907 : Tunisian	CAN	Mrs. Mooney\'s
5754	ASHBURNE, Alfred	1892	ENG, YKS, Dewsbury	May 1907 : Carthaginian	CAN	Middlemore
23815	ASHER, Thomas	1889	ENG, YKS, Sheffield	Aug 1905 : Dominion	CAN	Barnardos
15686	ASHFORD, Alice Carter	1908	ENG, YKS, Leeds	Sep 1924 : Melita	CAN	Barnardos
5361	ATKINSON, Thos	1910	ENG, YKS, Keighley	Aug 1925 : Montnairn	CAN	National Childrens Home
5049	BAKER, David	1914	ENG, YKS, Leeds	Mar 1930 : Duchess of Richmond	CAN	Barnardos
4996	BARNER, John	1916	ENG, YKS, York	Sep 1930 : Duchess of Bedford	CAN	Barnardos
4733	BARRACLOUGH, Dorothy D.	1918	ENG, YKS, Leeds	1932 : - Unknown -	AUS	Barnardos
4732	BARRACLOUGH, George Edward	1920	ENG, YKS, Scarborough	Jul 1930 : Balranald	AUS	Barnardos
4103	BARRETT, Maud	1888	ENG, YKS, Skipton	Aug 1901 : Parisian	CAN	Barnardos
12080	BATTERS, Thomas Edward	1917	ENG, YKS, Halifax	May 1928 : Ballarat	AUS	Fairbridge Homes
ID	Name	DOB	Place of birth	Arrivals & Ships	Dest.	Agency	Family links

Page: [1] 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 349 Entries

Surnames starting with: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z 30 Entries

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