About Us
In Honour
Donald & Sylvia Dyer
Donald Dyer, founder of the Public Relations Institute of Australia in South Australia.
Donald Dyer was the first public relations director for the Adelaide Children's Hospital more than half a century ago. Remarkably, he is still remembered for his work in developing the auxiliaries which continue to raise funds and promote the hospital throughout the State.
At his own expense Donald visited Melbourne and Sydney to learn about the fledgling Public Relations Institute. The following year, the PRIA (SA) was established with Donald as its Founding President. He also helped set up the Institute in the Northern Territory.
Over many years Donald and Sylvia committed both time and money turning a fragmented industry into a profession. In addition to serving in various elected positions for the State Institute for close to 30 years, Donald helped found the PRIA national body and became National President in 1962.
Donald Dyer's contributions to the profession resulting in his receiving an MBE.
Sylvia Dyer was not formally a member of the PRIA but was bestowed with PRIA Life Membership for her major fund-raising, community care and organisational support roles at state and national levels. Among her notable contributions on behalf of the PRIA was her work in establishing the highly successful Sudden Infant Death Research Foundation in SA.
PRIA and the University of South Australia offer a the Donald Dyer Scholarship in memory of Donald which is made possible by a generous bequest from the estate of the late Sylvia Dyer, the scholarship offers the opportunity to further develop advanced research in PR, normally at a PhD level.
John Flower
John M Flower LLD FPRIA - 31 December 1929 - 19 August 2007
The Public Relations Institute of Australia (PRIA) loses an eminent public relations practitioner and long-time supporter of the profession. John's passing follows a short illness. He leaves behind his partner Eva Light. Our thoughts and best wishes go to Eva.
John joined the PRIA in 1954. His friend and employer, Alfred Heintz introduced him to the public relations industry on his first day on the job. “I haven’t told you before, but I am the secretary of the PRIA in Victoria. I have the title; you do the work”.
From that beginning John automatically / compulsorily become secretary of the Victorian branch and is the only member in PRIA history to have served as National President twice, in 1968 and again in 1982. He was elevated to Fellow in 1971 and then Life Fellow in 2003, the highest honour that can be awarded to a public relations practitioner. He was instrumental in establishing the RMIT PR course and remained an active servant to the Institute and our profession throughout his life.
John’s working career began in 1954 with Albert Heinz and then another small PR consultancy where he was advised to look for a larger organization to gain broader experience.
John joined the Petroleum Information Bureau as it was known then and towards the end of 1957 was made Deputy Director of the NSW Bureau. John worked in Sydney and Adelaide succeeding the late Dudley Pilcher as Director of PIB from late 1968 until it was absorbed into the Australian Institute of Petroleum in 1976.
In 1993 John’s career took another turn when he was accepted by Deakin University for their Law course, which was available on a part time basis in Melbourne. After six years study with four subjects per year, John completed the course in 1999 and graduated with an LLB after his name.
John had a keen interest in improving the Australian Constitution (even imperceptibly) but he knew that no one would take any notice of anything he wrote on the subject without the qualifications to back it up.
At that point John’s health had begun to fail, however he continued with his many interests including the constitution, and the PR industry.
In recognition of his significant contributions, PRIA Victoria recently announced the John Flower Corporate Communication Award. The award will be presented annually to the best corporate campaign.
We would like to thank John’s good friend Gordon Holland for keeping the Institute informed of his progress right up to the end.
For more than half a century John inspired, led, disagreed with, corrected, gently cajoled and, most memorably, splendidly laughed with so many of us.
Noel Griffiths
Noel Griffiths was the PRIA's Foundation President in 1952. His pioneering work has been honoured for many years by the Noel Griffiths Lecture.
Percival Gordon Holland
War correspondent returned to marshal 'troops' at The Age
by Michael MacGeorge
15-2-1913 - 18-5-2009 | GORDON Holland, who received a personal congratulatory note from the World War II Allied supremo in the Pacific, General Douglas MacArthur, for his work as a war correspondent, before returning home to become chief of staff at The Age, has died at a Box Hill nursing home. He was 96.
After his distinguished career in journalism, Holland went into public relations and became state manager of the Victorian branch of Eric White Associates, then Australia's leading public relations consultancy. He managed the Canberra branch from 1962 to '64, then returned as managing director, Victoria.
After 10 years with Eric White, he joined the Australian Finance Conference, a national association of major finance companies. He retired from the AFC in 1982, at the age of 69, and opened his own public relations firm, Gordon Holland Associates Pty Ltd. He was president of the Public Relations Institute for two years from 1979.
Born at Kalgoorlie-Boulder in Western Australia, Holland grew up in Bendigo where he became a cadet on the Bendigo Advertiser. He joined the editorial staff of The Age in 1935. After World War II began, he enlisted in the AIF as a private. Later selected for an officer training scheme, he graduated as a lieutenant in the infantry in 1943. He was posted to force headquarters in New Guinea as adjutant of the army's public relations unit at Port Moresby. When the commander of Australian forces, Field Marshal Sir Thomas Blamey, made it known that he wanted war correspondents with a military service background to report on operations in the South-West Pacific, The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald nominated Holland as a war correspondent.
He was discharged from the army in May 1944 and returned to Papua New Guinea the following week as Australian war correspondent number 78.
Holland also became an accredited war correspondent at MacArthur's general headquarters. In 1945, Holland received a letter from MacArthur awarding him the Australian-Pacific Service Ribbon, with a note that read: "You have added luster to the difficult, dangerous and arduous profession of war correspondent."
Back at The Age after the war, Holland covered state politics before becoming chief of staff in the 1950s.
Sir Harold Campbell, who had been editor for 20 years, died in 1959, and Keith Sinclair, who succeeded him as editor, added new people to the editorial executive team. Among them was an able and dynamic young feature writer, Graham Perkin, who became assistant news editor. Holland, who remained chief of staff, resigned soon after to enter the expanding world of public relations. An assiduous and trustworthy journalist, his period with The Age had spanned 24 years.
Holland married Joan Catt in 1941. They were together for 64 years, until Joan's death in 2005. They had no children.
He had been living at the Uniting Church nursing home in Box Hill for about 12 months and enjoying reasonable health almost to the end.
Michael MacGeorge succeeded Gordon Holland as joint chief of staff of The Age (with Greg Taylor, who went on to become editor and managing director).
Shan Hoskyns
Shan was President of PRIA National from 1970 to 1971. He ran a successful consultancy in Adelaide (Shan Hoskyns & Associates).
Shan was born in Western Australia, but began a journalistic career on Melbourne's Argus'. From there he moved to the 'Herald', and in 1938 moved to Adelaide to become Financial Editor of the ‘News’.
On that paper Shan had a varied experience as a senior journalist. In 1953 he became a full-time public relations consultant and his business soon bore the name of Shan Hoskyns and Associates. They were pioneering days and Shan learnt his lessons the hard way with almost no one to show him the way.
He spent time touring the world in 1969, during which he met some of the world's leading practitioners in the United Kingdom, North America, Sweden and France. He returned with the conviction that the problems of the PR man are much the same wherever you go, and that with the shrinking of the 'global village' matters which were once parochial are now of universal concern.
Shan founded the Western Australian Branch and worked to form the Canberra Branch of the institute.
His firm was first in Australia to erected a building especially to house a PR firm.
Shan was a member of the Society of Friends, a man of high integrity and was respected in our profession.
Peter Ireland
Peter Ireland was an outstanding communicator. After a long battle with multiple sclerosis, he died on 22nd October 2006 aged only 50.
One of the earliest graduates of the UTS Communication bachelors' degree, Peter joined the PRIA as a student member, was active in some of its committees and worked at Professional Public Relations for seven years after his graduation. In his youth, Peter acquired something of a reputation for long hair, guitar playing and sartorial elegance. His brother Chris spoke at a memorial celebration of Peter's life, referring to Peter as a "cool dude", a "teenage Lothario" who liked a drink and was "good with the ladies".
Understandably, with this background and his dedication to the profession, Peter made rapid progress as a consultant. He became a specialist in rural communication and headed PPR's agricultural division, where he managed successful programs for the cotton industry, the leather tanning industry and the wheat growers of NSW.
Passionate about his work, Peter won several Golden Target Awards for PPR for his innovative rural communication work. The New York Film & Television Industry recognised his work with a prestigious international award for best agricultural film for a short subject documentary about Australian cotton production.
For several years after his graduation Peter Ireland taught communication students at UTS.
Before he was 30, Peter discovered that he had multiple sclerosis and soon afterwards retired from public relations. With his wife, Diane and daughter, Sarah, the family moved to Coffs Harbour. For the past 20 years, Peter maintained a lively interest in community affairs, continuing his reputation as a capable debater, a deep and ethical thinker and a 'guardian of the right'. Though confined to a wheelchair, he became a regular voice on the local community radio station.
In the past few years, the gradual physical decline caused by MS defeated him, but happily, he retained his lively interest and enthusiasm for communication right until the end. He encouraged Sarah to study communication and to undertake work experience at PPR. It is expected that she will shortly graduate and work in the communication industry.
Peter Ireland is a loss to the profession and to the PRIA. He believed in communication and in its importance for the future. He will be warmly remembered as a loyal and outstanding colleague.
Sir Asher Joel
Sir Asher Joel (1912-1998) helped to establish the public relations profession in Australian among many other achievements in public life.
Joel was instrumental in the founding of the Public Relations Institute of Australia in 1949 and was a key organiser of some of the nation’s most high profile events over a period of 35 years.
He started his media career at the age of 14 as a copyboy at the Sydney Daily Telegraph and quickly became a respected political reporter.
In 1938 he moved into public relations as a publicity officer with the NSW government for Australia’s celebration of the coronation of King George VI and also the nation’s 150th anniversary celebrations.
Joel enlisted in the Australian Army in 1941 and then served in the Navy from 1942, firstly in New Guinea operations as a staff officer and then as a public relations liaison officer with the Commander of the US Seventh Fleet in the South West Pacific. In 1944-45 he was posted to the staff of General Douglas MacArthur, who was Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in the South-West Pacific Area, with headquarters in Brisbane.
He started his own public relations consultancy in 1946 and continued to be at the centre of many high profile events. In addition to the coronation and sesquicentenary celebrations in the 1930s, other notable events he was involved with included:
- Visit of Princess Alexandra of Kent in 1959
- Visit of the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh in 1963
- Visit of US President Lyndon Johnson in 1966
- Visit by Pope Paul in 1970
- Captain Cook bicentenary celebrations in 1970
- Official opening of the Sydney Opera House in 1973 (Joel, 1988)
A couple of his public relations initiatives provide some insights into Joel’s creativity on big occasions. When he was helping to organise the Pope’s visit to Sydney in 1970, people said transport to the venue at Randwick Racecourse would be chaotic, so he led a walk from Central Station to the venue to show its easy access to pedestrians (Sydney Morning Herald, 2008).
Getting the Pope to visit the Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children was another Joel idea. The Pope brought toys from Rome – beautifully dressed dolls from Eastern Europe, South American jumping toys and soft toys from the United States – all in a brightly painted Sicilian cart. The Pope’s face lit up when he went into the ward and saw his gifts ready for distribution (Sydney Morning Herald, 2008).
Joel was elected an Independent member of the NSW Legislative Council in 1958, joining the Country Party in 1959 and retiring from politics in 1978.
In recognition for his professional and many community achievements, Joel was awarded an Order of the British Empire in 1956, a Knight Bachelor in 1971 and a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1974.
He also wrote a respected reference book, Australian Protocol & Procedures (Joel, 1988).
Joel is quoted as saying:
Communication is the nervous system of our society, community structure and person-to-person relationship. There is no greater need in the world today than the necessity to communicate ably and fluently with others. Surely this is what public relations is all about. (‘Sir Asher Joel,’ n.d.)
Pauline McGrath
On 26 November 1982 the public relations industry lost one of its respected and valued practitioners. During her years in the industry, Pauline established a reputation for personal integrity, unstinting effort, creative and imaginative programming and for her undoubted professionalism. Her dedication to the industry was further emphasised by her involvement in the activities of the PRIA. For some years she served on various committees and on the council of the NSW Branch.
Ronald Plater
Ronald Plater died on June 5th 2004 at St. Vincent’s Private Hospital in Sydney, Australia. He was 82.
Plater served with the Royal Air Force in World War II and was awarded the Military Cross on April 22, 1943. A long-time journalist, Plater switched to public relations when he joined Eric White Associates in the 1950’s. Plater led the New South Wales branch of the Public Relations Institute as president and became national president for the year of 1973.
Plater also served as chairman of the consultancy Ronald Plater & Company.
Jon & Lynne Royce
Jon Royce, who founded the Royce communication consultancy in 1969, was the first Australian to be elected President of the International Public Relations Association. Jon recognised the value of learning about public relations practice in other countries, and was instrumental in IPRA’s decision to hold its 1988 world congress in Melbourne. Unfortunately, Jon died from cancer before the congress was held. As a tribute to Jon’s contribution to the profession, the congress organising committee donated the profit from the congress to establish the Royce Fellowships.
Jon’s wife, Lynne, was also a director of the consultancy and continued to make an energetic contribution to the daily life and operation of the business until she died in a car accident in 1992.
The Royce group generously fully funded the first five Fellowships. After a lapse of some years, the Fellowships are again being offered, and are being financed by the profits from the 1988 IPRA congress. The Public Relations Institute of Australia is administering the Royce Fellowships in conjunction with the trustees of the Jon & Lynne Royce Memorial Trust.
Frank Shew
Frank Dunbar Shew (1936-2009) was one of the early pioneers in public relations, highly regarded, a true professional and an esteemed Fellow of the PRIA.
He attended Scotch College in Victoria in 1947-54 where he was editor of Satura (the school newspaper) in 1953.
On leaving Scotch, he furthered his studies at the University of Melbourne and received his Diploma of Journalism in 1959.
He then became a Journalist with the Age Newspaper and entered public relations soon after that. He joined the PRIA in January 1962 when he was working for Volkswagon Australasia.
In 1969 he moved to the National Bank where he was later appointed Corporate Affairs Manager and made a significant contribution to the corporate arena through his work with the Bank and also with Volkswagon Australia, the State Electricity Commission of Victoria and the National Mutual Insurance Company. He moved on to be a high achiever in the consultancy world working with Royce for over 20 years.
The PRIA elected him a Fellow of the Institute in 1988 and in 1996 he contributed to Golden Target Awards committee as a Judge. He was President of the Public Relations Institute of Australia and the Victorian Chairman of the Australian Association of National Advertisers.
Frank was a good guy, a true professional and he will be sadly missed by his friends and colleagues in public relations.
Our deepest sympathies go to Rowena and his family.
Eric White
(Much of the following material was kindly provided by Mark Sheehan from his unpublished conference paper on Eric White in November 2009.)
Eric White (1915-1989) was a dominant, but shadowy figure in the early days of Australian public relations. He was a close formal and informal adviser to Sir Robert Menzies, Australia's longest serving Prime Minister (1939-41 and 1949-66), which gave him enormous behind-the-scenes influence in politics and business. Founding one of the first PR consultancies in Australia in 1947, White turned it into the largest consultancy in the country. His obituary in the Sydney Morning Herald said White was 'for almost two decades the doyen of Australian public relations' (Sheehan, 2009).
Like most early public relations practitioners in Australia, White started his career in the media, writing for The Bulletin magazine and in radio (Sheehan, 2009). He was (Sir) Robert Menzies' Press Officer when he was Prime Minister from 1939 to August 1941 before enlisting in the Australian Army in 1942. When he left the Army in 1944, he became either Director of Public Relations or Director of Publicity (it's not certain which) of the Liberal Party of Australia. Either way, this would have made him one of the first professionals in Australia with a public relations title who was not in a military role. He stayed in the role until 1947 when he set up Eric White Associates (EWA) (Dwyer cited in Sheehan, 2009).
During his consulting life, White remained a background adviser to Menzies for the next 17 years until the Prime Minister's retirement in 1966, and he was also consulted by several later Prime Ministers from both major political parties, including Prime Ministers John Gorton, Sir William McMahon, Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser, according to White's son, Hugh, who recalled those after-hours telephone calls to the White residence.
Former EWA CEO, Peter Golding, who joined in 1957, said that in the 1950s many people who practised public relations 'thought its sole purpose was to achieve "free" publicity in the news media. Eric White was an exception. He saw it as having a much broader role and refused to accept that publicity was more than just one facet of public relations' (Golding cited in Sheehan, 2009). One of White's rare surviving written documents is the chapter he wrote in Dwyer's 1961 Australian Public Relations Handbook, in which he stated 'the responsibility for public relations must rest with management, because PR is policy. Every decision of a policy nature is a PR decision because every such decision affects people' (White, p. 9, citing in Sheehan, 2009).
During the 1950s, EWA grew to become the largest Australian public relations consultancy, with offices in Sydney and Melbourne. By the late 1950s it was operating in all State capitals and Canberra and looking across the Tasman to New Zealand and north towards to Asia. By 1965 the firm had opened offices in Hong Kong and Malaysia.
By the early 1960s, White's 'client list looked like the Who’s Who of Australian business' (Sydney Morning Herald, 1989). Golding describes the firm as the 'industry leader in more than size.' It was the first public relations company in Australia to:
- open branches in all States and Canberra and thus provide a national service
- export its services overseas, pioneering public relations throughout South-east Asia
- actively recruit non-journalists
- adopt a non-discriminatory attitude to women consultants
- develop a range of specialist public relations services
- initiate cadet training
Due to his political connections and widespread communication network, White most likely used his consultancy as a cover for Australian Security Intelligence Service agents in Asia, although he refused to confirm or deny the claims.
In correspondence with Mark Sheehan, White's son, Dr Hugh White, stated he had 'no doubt that employees of EWA in Jakarta, Singapore, KL, Bangkok, HK and Tokyo had dual roles' and that Eric was very well connected with prominent politicians in Malaysia. (Hugh White in personal correspondence cited by Sheehan, 2009).
In 1974, Eric White sold his firm to Hill & Knowlton and he retired from business at that point. In many ways, White was the classic public relations operator, working behind the scenes to achieve results for others. He was so successful in staying out of the limelight that he is hardly remembered in today's public arena. Nevertheless, Eric White was one of the most powerful people in Australian public relations as it was establishing itself as a profession.