In 1935, after four years as the first UK Government representative to Australia, Ernest Tristram Crutchley returns to London. While keeping in touch with visiting Australians and the Dominions Office, he has become public relations officer of the General Post Office (GPO), succeeding the pioneering Sir Stephen Tallents.
     Crutchley finds his work cut out. His department needs better organisation. The renowned Film Unit, under John Grierson, is under fire from anti-leftists and the Treasury and in danger of inviting awkward questions in the House of Commons. The Poster Advisory Group, led by Kenneth Clark, is forcing recommendations that are too highbrow. A programme of regionalisation is underway, and there is a book to write about the GPO.
     From 1936, Crutchley also becomes involved in secret preparations leading to a wartime Ministry of Information (MOI) and its Home Publicity Division to which his GPO public relations team would migrate. The 1938 “Munich crisis” briefly forces the shadow MOI into the open under Sir Stephen Tallents. 
     In late 1938, Sir John Anderson, Crutchley’s former chief at Dublin Castle (1921-1922) becomes Lord Privy Seal. Concerned with civil defence, he calls Crutchley to become his director of public relations. Crutchley, remaining on the nominal list of the Post Office and a member of its Board, while also retaining duties for the Dominions Office and shadow MOI, despairs that he has a foot in four separate departments.
     In 1940, Crutchley emerges from an all-too-brief retirement to take up wartime liaison between the Ministry of Information, the Home Office, and Ministry of Home Security. The workload taxes his already-precarious health and results in his death in October 1940, aged 62.
     Crutchley’s diaries are entertaining, rich in content, and sometimes hilarious. They present a fascinating perspective of the civil service and its entourage of the interwar years, the gossip and intrigues, the growing threat of war and, finally, personal experience of the first bombing of London. 
In this sequel to The Australian Diaries of E.T. Crutchley, 1928-1935, (2023), entries are accompanied by around 900 editorial notes, a list of over 750 names, a timeline, a brief biography, and appendices devoted solely to entries pertinent to the GPO Film Unit, the GPO Publicity Committee and Poster Advisory Group, and preparations for war respectively.

 

 

This 409-page transcription can be viewed or downloaded free of charge from the National Library of Australia website. Click here.

 

The National Library of Australia also holds scanned copies of the original handwritten diaries

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© Ed Crutchley