Irish-born Sir John Winthrop Hackett (1848-1916) achieved substantial political and social standing in Western Australia through his editorship and part-ownership of the West Australian newspaper, his position as a Legislative Council member and as a layman in the Anglican Church. The thesis illustrates his strong commitment to numerous undertakings, including his major role in the establishment of Western Australia's first University. This thesis will argue that whatever Hackett attempted to achieve in Western Australia, his philosophy can be attributed to his Irish Protestant background including his student days at Trinity College Dublin. After arriving in Australia in 1875 and teaching at Trinity College Melbourne until 1882, his ambitions took him to Western Australia where he aspired to be accepted and recognised by the local establishment. He was determined that his achievements would not only be acknowledged by his contemporaries, but also just as importantly be remembered in posterity. After a failed attempt to run a sheep station, he found success as part-owner and editor of the West Australian newspaper. Outside of his business interests, Hackett’s commitment to the Anglican Church was unflagging. At the same time, he was instrumental in bringing about the abolition of state aid to church schools in Western Australia, which he saw as advantaging the Roman Catholic Church. He was a Legislative Council member for 25 years during which time he used his editorship of the West Australian, to campaign successfully on a number of social, industrial and economic issues ranging from divorce reform to the provision of economic infrastructure. As a delegate to the National Australasian Conventions he continually strove to improve the conditions under which Western Australia would join Federation. His crowning achievement was to establish the state’s first university, which he also generously provided for in his will. One of the most influential men in Western Australian history, his career epitomised the energy and ambition of the well-educated immigrant.

[Truncated abstract] This thesis develops an understanding of how, historically, Education as an area of study (Education) has been constructed at each of the five universities in the State of Western Australia. The motivation for the study was the claim made by some academics that historically Education has been marginalised in certain universities in the UK, the USA and Australia, and that this marginalisation was intensified by a negative attitude towards its association with teacher preparation. Very little evidence, however, has been put forward to support this claim, thus highlighting a major neglected area of research. This thesis is a response to such neglect in relation to the situation in one state in Australia. The focus of the thesis is on the 'preactive curriculum' as represented in the plans and syllabi that outline what was included in programs and courses. An 'internal' analysis of relevant documents was conducted along with an 'external' analysis which considered the broader social, economic and political context. It was recognised that a study of the 'interactive curriculum' also needs to be conducted to gain insights into how the 'preactive curriculum' was mediated by lecturers and students. From the outset, however, it was deemed that this would constitute a further major study in itself. ... The most prominent were the 'academic', 'integrated', 'vocational', 'technical', 'pragmatic' and 'professional' orientations. The content of Education at the five universities also varied. Such variation offered breadth of opportunity for students. It also meant that, collectively, the universities served the needs of the State and their students by providing relevant and flexible curricula beyond what would have been possible in a 'one size fits all' model. Furthermore the claim that there was tension regarding the inclusion of 'Education' as an area of study within Australian universities generally, is not upheld for the Western Australian context. While this thesis contributes to an understanding of how, historically, Education as an area of study has been constructed in one State in Australia, much further research remains to be done in this field of curriculum history. In particular, future research could focus on the way in which Education, along with other areas of university study, have been constructed in the other states of Australia and overseas. The identification of areas of contestation and omissions from courses are also worthy of consideration. Finegrained studies of this nature could collectively make an important contribution to the understanding of the history of developments in the university curriculum at a macro level. Such work would, in the fullness of time, contribute to new understandings about institutionalised learning at tertiary level and provide historical insights to inform current practice as universities continue to try to find their way in a global society.

This thesis provides a study of book publishing as it contributes to the production of a regional literature, using Western Australian publishing and literature as illustrative examples of this dynamic. 'Regional literature' is defined in this thesis as writing possessing cultural value that is specific to a region, although the writing may also have national and international value. An awareness of geographically and culturally diverse regions within the framework of the nation is shown to be derived from representations of these regions and their associated regional characteristics in the movies, television and books. In Australia, literature has been the primary site for expressions of regional difference. Therefore, this thesis analyses the impact of regionalism on the processes of book production and publication in Western Australia’s three major publishing houses— a trade publishing house (Fremantle Press), an Indigenous publishing house (Magabala Books), and an academic publishing house (University of Western Australia Press). Book history, print culture studies and publishing studies, along with literary studies and cultural studies, roughly approximate a disciplinary map of the types of research that constitute this thesis. By examining regional literature in the context of its 'field of cultural production', this thesis maintains that regionalism and regional literature can avail themselves of a fresh perspective that shows them to be anything but marginal or exclusive. Regionalism has been a topic of peripheral interest, at least as far as scholarly research and academia are concerned, because those who are most likely to be affected by and thus interested in the topic, are also those who are most disempowered as a result of its attendant dynamics. However, as this thesis clearly demonstrates, access (or a lack thereof) to the field of cultural production (which in the case of print culture includes writers, literary agents, editors, publishers, government arts organisations, the media, schools, book clubs, and book retailers, just to name a few) plays a significant role in establishing and shaping an identity for marginalised 3 constituencies. The implications for this research are far-ranging, since both Western Australia and Australia can be understood as peripheries dominated in their different spheres (the 'national' and the 'international', respectively) by literary cultures residing elsewhere. Furthermore, there are parallels between this dynamic and the dynamic responsible for producing postcolonial literatures. The three publishing houses detailed in this thesis are disadvantaged by many of the factors associated with their distance from the traditional centres of book publishing, while at the same time producing a regional literature that serves as a platform from which the state broadcasts its distinctive contributions to the cultural landscape and to a wider understanding of concepts such as space, place and belonging. These publishing houses changed the way in which Australians and others have come to know and think about 'Australia', re-routing public consciousness and the national imagination.