Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/1959.3/51649

Title

'A menace to this realm': the New Guard and the New South Wales police, 1931-32

Author(s)

Evans, Richard W.

Abstract

In 1931 and 1932, New South Wales faced civic collapse. During the last months of the Lang government, the semi-fascist New Guard became a serious threat to the state. This article examines the challenge posed by the New Guard to the New South Wales police, and the strategies used by the police to suppress the group. Superintendent W.J. MacKay, the colourful and Machiavellian future commissioner, effectively and ruthlessly exercised police power against the New Guard. This article disputes the dominant historical interpretation of this period, which sees the police as collaborators with a reactionary secret army, the ‘Old Guard’. This article has been peer-reviewed.

Publication type

Journal article

Research centre

Swinburne University of Technology.

Source

History Australia, Vol. 5, no. 3 (Dec 2008)

Publication year

2008

FOR Code(s)

160601 Australian Government and Politics;  160205 Police Administration, Procedures and Practice;  210303 Australian History (excl. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander History)

Keyword(s)

Australia;  MacKay, W. J. (1885 - 1948);  New Guard Movement;  New South Wales Police Force

Publisher

Monash University ePress

ISSN

1449-0854

Publisher URL

http://dx.doi.org/10.2104/ha080076

Peer reviewed