Who Is Gordon Bennett?

What is Gordon Bennett known for

Born in 1955 in Monto, Queensland, Gordon Bennett lived and worked in Brisbane before his unexpected death in 2014. His bold and humane art challenged racial stereotypes and provoked critical reflection on Australia’s official history and national identity.

Why was Gordon Bennett controversial

Lieutenant General Henry Gordon Bennett, CB, CMG, DSO, VD (15 April 1887 – 1 August 1962) was a senior Australian Army officer who served in both World War I and World War II, Despite highly decorated achievements during World War I, during which he commanded at both battalion and brigade level and became the youngest general in the Australian Army, Bennett is best remembered for his role during the fall of Singapore in February 1942.

1. As commander of the 8th Australian Division, he escaped while his men became prisoners of the Imperial Japanese Army,
2. After this, Bennett’s military career waned and, although he rose to command a corps, he never again commanded troops in battle.
3. In 1945, his escape caused controversy and resulted in a Royal Commission and military enquiry.

Both found that he had been unjustified in relinquishing his command. A citizen soldier, before World War I Bennett had worked in the insurance industry and at the conclusion of hostilities pursued his commercial interests while continuing to serve in the military in a part-time capacity, commanding at brigade and divisional level.

What materials does Gordon Bennett use?

Gordon Bennett: Be Polite is an exhibition of largely unseen works on paper by one of Australia’s most visionary and critical artists, Gordon Bennett (1955–2014). This is the first exhibition of Gordon Bennett’s work since his untimely death in 2014. The IMA’s Executive Directors Aileen Burns and Johan Lundh have worked closely with the Estate of Gordon Bennett to curate this selection of works that comprise drawing, painting, watercolour, poetry, and essays from the early 1990s through to the early 2000s.

• Though rarely seen in exhibition contexts, Bennett’s drawing and script form the foundation of his practice.
• Paper is the site where imagery, words, and ideas often found their first expression before being combined into the large-scale conceptual paintings for which Bennett is known.
• Despite their relatively small scale, works in Be Polite embrace rich layers of Western and Australian Indigenous art history and contemporary politics, a direction Bennett played a leading role in developing throughout the 1980s and continued to explore in his successful career.

Like many artists, Gordon Bennett worked in a sketchbook to test out ideas and imagery quickly, and then carefully refined his concepts, style and visual language on the page before moving to acrylic on canvas paintings. He produced hundreds of sketches in basic materials, mostly pencil, ballpoint pen, chalk pastel, felt tip pens, gouache, and watercolour on standard notebooks.

• Often, these drawings were scanned and digitally reworked to create complex layers of images for his paintings.
• The small works on paper and sketchbooks that appear here on display were never intended for public exhibition, yet tell us something important about Bennett’s artistic process.
• Many are significant works of art in their own right.

Some of these simple pen-and-paper works appear to be self-conscious about how inexpensive and humble they are. This self-reflexivity is a common approach in Gordon Bennett’s work, and as an audience, we often feel part of an intimate (and funny) conversation that the artist is having with his own work.

Gordon Bennett was very interested in systems of pictorial representation and how knowledge and meaning is conveyed through visual means. In particular, Bennett saw perspective as essential not only to how Europeans represent the world around them through pictures, but more importantly, to the European worldview: to how they see the world and themselves and others within it.

Similar to his interest in visual representation, Bennett saw written and verbal language as an imperfect system of communication that powerfully constructs and shapes perspective.

When was outsider by Gordon Bennett made

Form as much as content – In Bennett’s most anthologised article, acerbically titled “The Manifest Toe”, he describes his approach to art using an expression that is often used in critical rather than art theory: the “politics of representation.” Here we get to the crux of Bennett’s contribution. Gordon Bennett Australia 1955-2014. Home Decor (After M Preston) No 3 2010 2010 Synthetic polymer paint on linen / 182.5 x 152cm © The Estate of Gordon Bennett. Collection: The Estate of Gordon Bennett I already knew Bennett was in dialogue with other artists and their distinct painterly idioms: Mondrian, Margaret Preston, Thomas Bock, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Jackson Pollock to name just a few.

I was also aware of his concern with western systems of representation and their oppressive effects. What I had not realised is that he is also in an intense dialogue with himself and his earlier work. Looking through the exhibition, this internal language becomes insistently present as the resonances between works start to sound.

Forms and styles of representation recur, transmute and metamorphose across his oeuvre in a dizzying fashion. For example, the small painting of a black angel in the installation in the first room of the exhibition titled Psycho(d)rama (1990) recurs in Notes to Basquiat (Jackson Pollock and his Other) (2001). Gordon Bennett Australia 1955-2014 Notes to Basquiat (Jackson Pollock and His Other) 2001 Synthetic polymer paint on linen / 2 panels: 152 x 152 cm each, 152 x 304 cm (overall) © The Estate of Gordon Bennett Private Collection, Adelaide Pollock’s vibrant skeins of paint can be tracked across a range of works: a section of Blue Poles as a background image in Notes to Basquiat (Jackson Pollock and his Other) (2001). Gordon Bennett Australia 1955-2014. Bloodlines 1993 Synthetic polymer paint on canvas and rope on wood Three parts: a: 182 x 182cm; b: 182 x 61cm; c: 182 x 182cm; 182 x 425cm (overall) Purchased 2019 with funds from the Neilson Foundation through the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art Foundation © The Estate of Gordon Bennett Collection: Queensland Art Gallery / Gallery of Modern Art The diversity of Bennett’s work is another striking feature. Gordon Bennett Australia 1955-2014 Notes to Basquiat (Death of Irony) 2002 Synthetic polymer paint on linen / 152 x 304cm © The Estate of Gordon Bennett. Collection: The Estate of Gordon Bennett. This is the third major survey show to consider the breadth of Bennett’s work and should not be missed.

Where do famous phrases come from?

9. By and large – Many everyday phrases are nautical in origin—”taken aback,” “loose cannon” and “high and dry” all originated at sea—but perhaps the most surprising example is the common saying “by and large.” As far back as the 16th century, the word “large” was used to mean that a ship was sailing with the wind at its back.

Who was the best Australian general in ww2?

Greatest Aust commander unlikely leader In the natural selection of the trenches of the Western Front, good leaders found their place. Sometimes it was simply a private taking over from a fallen corporal or a young lieutenant showing he had what was needed to lead under fire.

• One who rose to the very top was General Sir John Monash, who was among the many officers who departed Australia in the opening months of the Great War.
• The former civil engineer and militia soldier is now widely regarded as Australia’s greatest ever military commander, the right man for the only occasion when Australian forces contributed significantly to victory against the main enemy on the principal field of global conflict.

In the heady period from the Battle of Hamel on July 4 through to October 5, 1918, Monash presided over a succession of victories as the Australian Corps, together with the Canadian Corps and several British formations, virtually spearheaded the British army in successful attacks on the German army.

For this, he was knighted in the field and many other accolades followed. Melbourne’s Monash University is named in his honour, as is a local government area in Melbourne, a town in South Australia, a suburb in Canberra and more. His face graces the $100 note. A new interpretive centre at Villers-Bretonneux, France is named the Sir John Monash Centre, has been opened on the eve of Anzac Day.

As well, a new statue of Monash will be placed in the grounds of the Australian War Memorial. But there are some who insist that is not enough and that he should also be posthumously promoted to Field Marshal. A group of past and present politicians, led by former deputy prime minister Tim Fischer, insist now is the appropriate time to give this recognition to a man who, they say, was denied this honour during his lifetime for various reasons, including his Jewish-German heritage.

Sir Thomas Blamey, who commanded all Australian forces in WWII- far more than Monash ever commanded – remains the first and only Australian Field Marshal, promoted in 1951, three months before he died. The only current Australian Field Marshal is Prince Philip, an honorary rank conferred on April 1, 1954.

Monash was promoted from Lieutenant General to General in 1929, long after he had left the Army but while he still remained on the active list of officers. However, the Turnbull government has resisted the push, saying there is no precedent for the posthumous promotion.

1. I can’t think of a single serving senior military person in Australia right now who believes that a promotion is warranted,” Veteran Affairs Minister Darren Chester said last week.
2. That is not being disrespectful in anyway to Monash himself.” Australian War Memorial head of military history Ashley Ekins said there was a similar, unsuccessful proposal back in the late 1920s to early 1930s.

He said posthumous military decorations and occasionally promotions were common for those killed in combat. “But there are few acceptable precedents for retrospective military promotions being made in other cases,” he said. John Monash was born in Melbourne in June 1865.

A young man of ferocious intellect, he graduated in arts, law and engineering, becoming a successful civil engineer. He also took an early interest in the military, joining the militia at 19 and rising through the ranks. Yet at the outbreak of war, few would have seen great potential in this portly middle-aged engineer.

In that era of rampant nationalism and casual bigotry, Monash’s German-Jewish background marked him out from other officers. At Gallipoli, he commanded the 4th Brigade, though not with any great distinction, and later the new 3rd Division. Official correspondent Charles Bean, initially no great fan of Monash, noted that the higher he rose, the better Monash became as he could make use of his formidable planning and organisational skills.

• Monash was appointed commander of the five divisions in the new Australian corps in May 1918.
• Bean and fellow correspondent Keith Murdoch (father of Rupert) initially sought to white-ant Monash in favour of Cyril Brudenell White.
• The then prime minister Billy Hughes prudently sought his own advice and stuck by Monash.

White was unquestionably an officer of supreme ability – he would have commanded all Australian forces in World War Two were he not killed in a plane crash in 1940. But Monash stood tall and his abilities were amply demonstrated at the Battle of Hamel on July 4.

1. Through meticulous planning, clear direction and imaginative employment of infantry, artillery, tanks and aircraft, victory was absolute.
2. Monash calculated it would take 90 minutes.
3. It actually took 93.
4. More such victories were soon to follow.
5. Monash believed in feeding his soldiers a steady diet of victory.

But he also thought that at times they needed to be pushed hard, beyond the limits of their endurance, or “what they believed were the limits of their endurance.” The cost of those final victories was high, at least 24,000 casualties including 5000 dead.

The consequence was that by early October, the Australian Corps was exhausted and with reinforcements down to a trickle, many battalions were a shadow of their former strength. After the Battle of Montbrehain on October 5, the Australians withdrew to Abbeville for rest. They were moving forward when the war ended just over a month later.

Monash then turned his great organisational talents to getting the troops home. He died of a heart attack in October 1931, aged 66. : Greatest Aust commander unlikely leader

Who was the Australian general who fled Singapore?

“Australians” General Gordon Bennett (TV Episode 1988) | Drama, History

Episode aired May 3, 1988

General Henry Gordon Bennett is usually remembered as the Australian general who left his troops after Singapore fell to the Japanese in 1942 and fled back to Australia. General Henry Gordon Bennett is usually remembered as the Australian general who left his troops after Singapore fell to the Japanese in 1942 and fled back to Australia.

Who was the Australian commander in Singapore ww2

When Singapore fell to the Japanese, Major-General Gordon Bennett escaped home while his troops went into captivity. In this obituary, the Herald looked back on the career of “the most controversial Australian General of World War II”. – First published in The Sydney Morning Herald on August 2, 1962 Death of Lieut.-General Gordon Bennett A fighting general who hated ‘blimps’ Henry Gordon Bennett, who died suddenly yesterday, was the most controversial Australian General of World War II, chiefly because of his dramatic escape from Singapore in 1942. “A year after General Bennett’s ordeal before Royal Commission, soldiers and returned men gather affectionately round him in the Sydney Domain.” Credit: Staff photographer Controversy has never died down about whether Bennett should or should not have left his troops after the British surrender to the Japanese.

1. To the day of his death, Bennett himself believed he did the right thing and declared he would have done it again had the occasion arisen.
2. In this, he probably had the support of most of his men, although some of his higher-ranking officers disapproved.
3. His action was also condemned by the hierarchy of the Australian Regular Army, with whom Bennett had engaged in a long feud between the two wars.

Bennett related in his book. “Why Singapore Fell” how, after his escape from Malaya, he was received coldly and with hostility in Melbourne by Lieut.-General V.A.H. Sturdee. Chief of the General Staff. Son of a Victorian schoolmaster, Bennett was born on April 15, 1887, and became an actuarial clerk and accountant.

• He joined the Victorian Militia in 1908, was a major in less than four years, and enlisted in the A.I.F.
• At the outbreak of war in 1914.
• He went abroad as second-in-command of 6th Battalion, 2nd Brigade.
• After Gallipoli, he went to France as C.O.
• Of his battalion.
• At the age of 29, a short, stocky, red-haired man, he was promoted to command the 3rd Brigade, becoming the youngest Brigadier-General in the Australian or British Army.

At this time, another Victorian, Thomas Albert Blamey, three years older than Bennett, was also making a name for himself in France. Fearless Blarney became C.O. of the 2nd Battalion when Bennett became a brigade commander. The two men were to cross each other’s paths many times afterwards, not very cordially. Bennett, Commander of the Australian force in Malaya. August 21, 1952. Credit: British Official Photograph After World War I, Bennett went back to accountancy, then became a soft-goods manufacturer. Still a keen student of military history, he began writing provocative defence articles for the Sydney “Sunday Sun.” These revealed an undisguised contempt for the diehard professional soldier, which did not endear Bennett to the men in charge of the defence of Australia.

Bennett’s chief creed was: Attack is the best method of defence. Criticising the “Maginot Line complex, he wrote, “Any line can be turned.” When the Germans attacked Poland in 1939, he challenged Captain Liddell Hart’s theory that defensive strategy would win the war. Bennett declared that trench warfare of the 1914-18 variety and orthodox textbook methods were dead.

At the outbreak of war in September, 1939, Bennett was the senior Major-General in the Australian Army and, as such, confidently expected an important command, if not that of Commander-in-Chief. But it was not until the 8th Division was formed in 1940 that Bennett was called upon.

When the division went to Malaya, Bennett found him self once more at loggerheads with professional soldiers, this time of the British and Indian Armies. In Malaya, there were complacency and inertia, bad Intelligence, a scornful underestimation of the Japanese, and of proper co-operation between the Army and the Air Force.

Bennett blamed these things, plus lack of an offensive spirit in the senior and junior leaders, for the quick loss of Malaya to the Japanese. Bennett urged offensive methods to throw back the swiftly advancing Japanese. The war correspondent in Malaya for “The Times” said of Bennett: “Though hard, bitter, sarcastic and difficult, he was a fighter through and through, imbued, like his men, with an aggressive and unconventional spirit.” Debacle The Malayan debacle ended on February 15, 1942, by which time the Japanese had 550 miles in 55 days to trap the British forces on Singapore Island.

Under terms of surrender, hostilities were to cease at 8.30 p.m. (there was to be much legal argument four years later as to whether Bennett had come under the orders of General A. E Percival, G.O.C., Malaya, after the cease-fire order). Bennett said he believed it was his duty to escape to Australia with his knowledge of Japanese jungle tactics.

He left his troops about 10 p.m. on February 15 with his aide-de-camp, Lieutenant Gordon Walker, and Major Charles Moses (now general manager of the Australian Broadcasting Commission). After an adventurous journey by sampan, tongkan (a larger vessel) and aeroplane, Bennett landed at Broome, Western Australia, 10 days later.

At first, he was heaped with praise for a spectacular and daring escape. The Prime Minister, the late John Curtin, and members of the War Cabinet expressed official confidence in him. It was soon apparent, however, that there was a strong undercurrent of feeling against Bennett elsewhere, especially in higher Army circles.

It was held that no commander should leave his troops in such circumstances. Bennett wrote two training manuals on Japanese jungle tactics, based on his Malayan experiences. They were used in the New Guinea campaign. Then Bennett was appointed G.O.C., Western Command, in Western Australia. A dramatic painting of Gordon Bennett, with members of his staff, escaping from the Singapore waterfront. October 11, 1950. The threat passed and Bennett asked vainly for another operational command. It was obvious that he was to be bypassed. In April, 1944, he resigned from the Army and, in doing so, his long quarrel with Sir Thomas Blamey came into the open.

1. Bennett said publicly, “I did not want to get out of the Army during the war, but I have been frozen out by the Commander-in-Chief.
2. My ambition is not to become one of the chairborne troops.” Frustrated Bitter, angry and frustrated, Bennett retired to a 34-acre orchard at Glenorie, 30 miles from Sydney, but the last had not been heard of the Malayan campaign and his part in it.

General Percival’s book ‘The War in Malaya,’ published in 1944, contained criticism of Bennett’s generalship and the role Australian troops had played. Percival said that Bennett had been “out of harness for some years.” He added, “Modern war gives little time for commanders to learn their trade.” Bennett replied hotly that it was Percival’s “Maginot Line Complex” that had helped to lose Malaya. General Gordon Bennett’s funeral at St. Andrew’s Cathedral, August 6, 1962. Bennett and his counsel walked out of the inquiry after the preliminary discussion. A month later a Royal Commission (open to Press and public) into the escape was opened in Melbourne under Mr Justice Ligertwood, of South Australia.

The inquiry lasted a fortnight. It was apparent that some of Bennett’s staff officers disapproved of his escape. These officers, in evidence, said they had believed the escape would adversely affect the reputation of the A.I.F, and that it was unethical for an officer to leave his men voluntarily. The Commissioner found that Bennett had not been justified in relinquishing his command and leaving Singapore.

However, he had acted from motives of patriotism and had brought valuable information back to Australia. Tragedy Loading The Commissioner added that Bennett had not been conscious that he had been committing a breach of his legal or military duty, nor had he been actuated by a desire to secure his own safety or avoid the hardships or inconveniences of imprisonment.

What is the old saying Gordon Bennett?

Origin – the full story – It’s a source of frustration for us etymologists that many don’t refer to real people. Happily, the expression ‘Gordon Bennett!’ does – to James Gordon Bennett, who was a real person – in fact, with the expansiveness that is appropriate for this story, two real people.

So, at least we can get the spelling right – it isn’t Gordon Bennet, it is Gordon Bennett. The elder James Gordon Bennett was born in Banffshire, Scotland in 1795 and emigrated to the USA, eventually becoming a journalist and founding the New York Herald in 1835. He had a natural talent for journalism and the paper flourished.

An editorial in Harper’s at the time expressed the opinion that “It is impossible any longer to deny that the chief newspaper is the New York Herald”. Other rivals, while accepting Bennett’s nose for a story, weren’t impressed with what they saw as his ‘gutter press’ methods. Even in an era of hedonistic behaviour, Bennett’sconduct was a by-word for wanton excess. James Gordon Bennett Jr. inherited his father’s talents for journalism and controversy, not to mention his multi-million dollar estate – and he’s the Gordon Bennett that the phrase refers to.

1. He took over control of the New York Herald in 1866, by which time he was well into an enthusiastic and hedonist playboy lifestyle, indulging in spending the family fortune on air and road racing in the USA, England and France.
2. He was a significant promoter and patron of sports, especially those requiring impressive and expensive equipment, for example international motor racing, ballooning and air racing.

He gave several sponsorships in these fields, notably the Isle of Man Bennett Trophy races of 1900 to 1905 (subsequently a trials course on the island was named after him). A long-distance hot-air balloon race (The International Gordon Bennett balloon race), which still continues, was inaugurated by him in 1906.

• Gordon Bennett!” – how did he get away with it? Bennett was also a chip off the old block, not unlike many wealthy people of his era, in that he wasn’t especially concerned by people’s opinion of his extreme behaviour.
• He has the unenviable record, as bestowed by the Guinness Book of World Records, of the ‘Greatest Engagement Faux Pas’, for the manner in which his engagement to the socialite Caroline May was broken off in 1877.

The engagement was big news in New York society circles. The Edwardsville Intelligencer, reported it in November 1876: “The trousseau of Miss May, who is to marry James Gordon Bennett, has arrived from Europe, where it was collected at an expense of $20,000, according to gossips.

It is said to be the most elaborate and beautiful ever prepared for an American lady.” It is reported that at the 1877 New Year’s party held by his fiancée’s father, he became so drunk that he mistook the fireplace for a toilet and urinated in it in front of his hosts and their guests. Whether or not that story is true is now difficult to verify.

It is certainly the case that the marriage didn’t go ahead and that the Mays weren’t best pleased with Bennett – as this piece from The Perry Chief, January 1877, indicates: “James Gordon Bennett was publicly horse-whipped this morning, by Frederick May, brother of the girl to whom Bennett was engaged to be married.” He took to his heels and travelled to England, ending up in Melton Mowbray.

• Perhaps he had heard of the town’s story and thought he would be at home there? Even the thick-skinned Bennett had the wind taken out of his sails by these events and he remained single until he was 73, when he married the Baroness de Reuter.
• There are many other stories listing his excessive and occasionally boorish exploits.

These didn’t stop him being an successful and innovative journalist though. He invested heavily in developing on his father’s news empire. In 1868, with the simple brief of ‘find Livingstone’ he sent the travelling correspondent of the New York Herald – Henry Morton Stanley, to track down and interview David Livingstone in Africa.

• After a long search Stanley was ready to give up but was encouraged by Bennett which, when he eventually located his prey on the shores of Lake Tanganyika, resulted in what has become one of the most famous of all journalistic lines – “Dr.
• Livingstone, I presume?” From 1877 Bennett lived in Europe and continued to run the New York Herald from his $600,000 314-foot yacht, the Lysistrata.

He died in 1918. The expletive Gordon Bennett appears to be a It is a version of Gor blimey, which is itself a euphemistic version of God blind me, That, combined with Bennett’s famously outrageous lifestyle and newsworthy stunts, is sufficient to explain why his name was picked out.

1. That’s why ; so what about when? The name Gordon Bennett appears in print many times in the 19th century, as we might expect of such a newsworthy figure.
2. The earliest example that I’ve found of the expression being used as an expletive is in a novel by James Curtis from 1937 – You’re in the Racket Too: “He stretched and yawned.

Gordon Bennett, he wasn’t half tired.” : ‘Gordon Bennett!’ – the meaning and origin of this phrase

What does Gordon mean in Scotland?

The Scottish surname Gordon originated from the place-name Gordon in Berwickshire on the Scottish borders, this name deriving from the Old Gaelic gor meaning “large” or “spacious” and dun meaning “fort.” It became adopted by an Anglo-Norman family there in the 12th century.

House of Gordon, Gordon clan website. The Gordons of Kenmure, The Gordons of Kenmure and the story of young Lochinvar. The Gordons of Manar, The Gordons of Manar in Aberdeenshire. Doug Gordon Family History, Gordons of New Jersey. Old Gordon Gravestones, Descendants of Alexander Gordon, prisoner to Massachusetts. Gordon Family History, Ann Gordon of the Parammata Female Factory in Australia. Gordon DNA Project, Gordon DNA.