Talk:Reg Sprigg

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Birthplace[edit]

Almost all sources seem to give his birthplace as Stansbury; however, it seems (according to the registration of his birth) he was born at nearby Yorketown Hospital when the family home was at Stansbury. [photo of Yorketown Hospital] Otherthinker (talk) 09:19, 20 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

have you got access to a birth certificate? I would not expect this to be a public document that could be used here. But it is likely to be so. So we should change the text a bit to allow for the truth. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 06:27, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
No, I don't have the birth certificate. His elder brother was born at Yorketown Hospital when the family were at Stansbury[1] but I haven't been able to find a birth notice in the 'Tiser for Reg. The abstract of the Register of Births for Reg says: Name: Reginald Claude Sprigg, Father's name: Sprigg; Birth Place: South Australia; Registration Year: 1917-1922; Registration Place: South Australia; Page Number: 74 - well that narrows it down! I'm following the lead which points to Yorketown. I haven't changed anything yet. Otherthinker (talk) 01:25, 22 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Now have a transcript of the Index of South Australian Registers:
Reginald Claude Sprigg
Born 1/3/1919 Yorketown SA reg no Dal 34A/74
(Dal= Daly Registration District which covers Yorke Peninsula) Otherthinker (talk) 10:00, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I propose to change the first section to read: Reginald Claude Sprigg was born 1 March 1919 on South Australia's Yorke Peninsula where his family were living in the small town of Stansbury.[2][3] and to make a corrsponding change in the InfoBox. Otherthinker (talk) 07:28, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds OK to me. It is possible that the ASIO file has information, and since I am in Canberra I have a chance to to request it from the archives. Do you think it is worthwhile to do this? Graeme Bartlett (talk) 08:32, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Done. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Otherthinker (talk • contribs) 05:48, 27 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Family sources[edit]

There is a wealth of material which comes from the Sprigg family. As with all such material, neutrality will require a critical reading.

Biography[edit]

There is a biography, Rock Star: The Story of Reg Sprigg - outback legend written by his daughter-in-law, Kristin Weidenbach. According to Adelaide's Eastern Courier Messenger Weidenbach "never interviewed his children Margaret and Doug" because she "didn't want the familial ties to cloud the story." [4] Bruce Elder's SMH review of the biography says that he finds "not a word of criticism or harsh analysis". [5]

In an interview in The 'Tiser, which pointed out that her formal qualifications were as "a PhD immunologist with qualifications from Stanford and Harvard medical schools" and that whilst she "gravitating into science writing. Becoming a biographer, however, was not part of her life plan". She began "collating and transcribing material about the famous Birdsville mailman, Tom Kruse, was a gesture towards her father and the team who had spent four years restoring Kruse's old truck. ... 'Before I knew it, I was writing a book,' she exclaims. The book was Mailman of the Birdsville Track: the Story of Tom Kruse." She goes on to outline her research for the biography. [6] Otherthinker (talk) 05:44, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Weidenbach has spoken of the steps she took to have the draft proofed: "Kristin says she needed an expert team of proof readers to go over her manuscript, one for each of Reg's interests.
"Beach Petroleum CEO Reg Nelson read the company history; SA Museum's paleontology senior researcher Dr Jim Gehling for the fossils; Ian Plimer read the entire manuscript checking the geology; and Mawson Centre's curator Mark Pharaoh for the Douglas Mawson sections. Then there were his kids: Doug and Margaret were handed only the final manuscript, never given a draft or even interviewed for the book because Kristin wanted to encapsulate Reg from all sides.
"Doug's verdict: "She got the measure of the man without having met him. To get the feel for dad without knowing him was something that blew me away."" [7]

Otherthinker (talk) 06:05, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

we can make use of published information. If the family knows something that is not in written form then it is not for Wikipedia. Is there an archive available to the public say in a library? This could be used. The biography should be used as a source for this article.Graeme Bartlett (talk) 06:36, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Agree. I'm not suggesting that the Weidenbach bio not be used, but that it should be used with care to achieve neutrality especially when dealing with controversy or where there may be another point of view, eg Mawson-Ediacara (I haven't contributed on this yet), the dissolution of the first marriage (which I rewrote). Similarly: the Arkaroola website and Dune is a four-letter word are useful sources but need to be used bearing in mind the close family ties. Otherthinker (talk) 01:04, 22 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
tehre is this talk [8] available online. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 02:46, 23 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sprigg - Germein Family History[edit]

Whilst looking for a pre-1955 (ie out of copyright in Australia) image of Reg, explored the State Library of South Australia. Reg appears to have been interested in his family history. Seems SPRIGG family held pastoral lease at Oulnina: some wonderful images but no Reg!
Woolshed at Oulnina Station, South Australia. engraving. Date of creation: August 12, 1871.
Oulnina Station, 10 October 1875.
Port Germein appears to have been named for one of the Germeins. Otherthinker (talk) 03:56, 22 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

National Archives[edit]

The National archives have some material from the ASIO investigation. See http://naa12.naa.gov.au/NameSearch/Interface/ItemDetail.aspx?Barcode=1526508 Graeme Bartlett (talk) 13:51, 22 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I saw this on Wednesday: it is his ASIO file from 1949-1960 (ASIO formed in 1949) and has been redacted in part (sometimes that is just names blacked out, but sometimes whole sections are removed); I'm not in Canberra and it has not been digitised and I don't have the budget to get copies. For some context, there is Bernard O'Neil's South Australia and the Atomic Age[9] - he's written the history of the SA Mines Dept from 1944 Above and Below. and interviewed Sprigg etc. Otherthinker (talk) 15:17, 22 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ "Family Notices". The Advertiser (Adelaide, SA : 1889 - 1931). Adelaide, SA: National Library of Australia. 26 September 1914. p. 14. Retrieved 22 July 2011.
  2. ^ Walker, Rosanne (Created: 30 June 1997, Last modified: 4 February 2010). "Biographical entry Sprigg, Reginald Claude (1919 - 1994)". Encyclopedia of Australian Science. Retrieved 19 July 2011. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  3. ^ Government of South Australia. Index of Births registered in the Daly District. Dal 34A/74: Reginald Claude Sprigg
  4. ^ "Champion Flinders of mighty Ranges". Eastern Courier Messenger. Adelaide: News Ltd. 22 October 2008. p. 28. Geologist Reg Sprigg is the subject of the latest offering from Kristin Weidenbach, author of the best selling Mailman of the Birdsville Track: the Story of Tom Kruse. Weidenbach spent two years researching and writing Sprigg's biography Rock Star: The Story of Reg Sprigg - outback legend but interestingly never interviewed his children Margaret and Doug. Doug is her partner, the father of daughter Lila, and Kristin didn't want the familial ties to cloud the story. However, Doug says she definitely got ``the measure of his dad. {{cite news}}: More than one of |at= and |page= specified (help)
  5. ^ Elder, Bruce (8 November 2008). "Books, In Short, Non-fiction, Rock Star". The Sydney Morning Herald. Sydney: John Fairfax Holdings Limited. www.smh.com.au. p. 31. Reg Sprigg was, by any conventional definition, a committed self-publicist. ... It is probably appropriate that a biography of this high-achieving South Australian should be written, with not a word of criticism or harsh analysis, by his daughter-in-law. ... Sprigg lived in the shadow of his more famous geology professor at Adelaide University, Sir Douglas Mawson, and, not surprisingly, this book attempts to establish that Sprigg was actually a more gifted geologist than his early mentor. {{cite news}}: More than one of |at= and |page= specified (help)
  6. ^ Harris, Samela (11 October 2008). "Life and times of a rock pioneer". The Advertiser. Adelaide: News Ltd. p. 6. Reg had written his own two volumes of geology books with memoirs and anecdotes and Dune is a Four-Letter Word was Griselda's (his wife's) book, but I felt that nobody had put the whole picture together. ... Weidenbach had been fascinated by the diversity of tidbits she had heard from the Spriggs, Doug and Margaret, at Arkaroola. ... "But I didn't interview them formally. In fact, Doug only read the manuscript when I had finished." The family liked what they read. By this time, Weidenbach was a member of the family. She and Doug Sprigg are partners and parents of 4 1/2-year-old Lila, Reg's granddaughter. Weidenbach found that research and writing time worked better with her parents on hand to help take care of Lila, so she moved down to Adelaide to immerse herself in Reg's journals, library documents, geological and survey records, interviewing his friends and colleagues as well as the general discipline of producing a book. Achieving a sense of the personality of a man who died in 1994 turned out to be easier than Weidenbach may have imagined, largely thanks to Reg Sprigg's habit of never throwing anything away. "With his correspondence with Sir Mark Oliphant, for example, he had kept copies of his letters together with the replies so it was possible to get a sense of conversation from them," Weidenbach explains. In fact, Weidenbach establishes a lively narrative as well as a strong sense of Reg Sprigg's energetic and determined personality - tracing his story from rock-hound kid and go-anywhere, do-anything cub geologist to the fearless geological adventurer. ... As for Ediacara, this turned out to be one of the great battles of his life. He was up against the powerful Sir Douglas Mawson who scoffed at him, saying the fossil was merely spurious markings in a piece of sandstone. Getting the pre-Cambrian invertebrate fossils accepted as evidence of the world's most ancient animals was a surprisingly long and frustrating business. Weidenbach ponders the reasons, concluding that Sprigg was very young when he found his first Ediacaran fossil and perhaps Mawson was jealous. "But Reg lived long enough to see recognition in the end," she says. "From all I have learned, there was one thing that Reg felt put out about. That was that people said he was just out there in the Ediacaran hills, that he just happened to find the fossil. He was offended by that. He always said that he was deliberately searching. It was not just dumb luck. {{cite news}}: More than one of |at= and |page= specified (help)
  7. ^ "Arkaroola legend". Eastern Courier Messenger. Adelaide: News Ltd. 22 October 2008. p. 26. {{cite news}}: More than one of |at= and |page= specified (help)
  8. ^ http://digital.library.adelaide.edu.au/dspace/bitstream/2440/48927/2/Kristin%20Weidenbach.mp3 by Weidenbach, Kristin
  9. ^ O'Neil, Bernard (1995). "National heroes not national villains: South Australia and the atomic age". Playford's South Australia: Essays on Life in South Australia 1933-1968. Association of Professional Historians Inc. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help)
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