L. C. Rodd
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L. C. (Lewis Charles) "Roddy" Rodd (1905–1979) was a schoolteacher, writer, activist, and the husband of novelist Kylie Tennant.
Early life and teaching career
Rodd was born on 12 March 1905 in Sydney and gained a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Sydney in 1931.[1] Rodd was a practicing Anglican, and had considered entering the priesthood rather than pursuing education.[2]
He met novelist Kylie Tennant at the University of Sydney and they married in 1932.[3] During the 1930s and 1940s, Rodd worked at public schools in Coonabarabran, Canowindra, Dulwich Hill and Mullswellbrook as a teacher, and as headmaster in Laurieton and Hunters Hill.[1] He was head of Woolwich Primary School around 1945.[citation needed]
In 1931, he was a founder of the Educational Workers' League, and an activist in the New South Wales Teachers' Federation.[1][4] Rodd contributed regularly to the League's journal, the Education Worker from 1932-1936, arguing for changes to the curriculum.[2] Around 1937, he published a pamphlet as part of a "Survey of Australia" series titled Australian Imperialism.[5] He registered as a conscientious objector during World War II.[1]
After the World War II, Rodd, Tennant and Tennant's father, formed a publishing company, Sirius Books, to re-publish Tennant's novels.[2] It also published "cheap" Australian editions of other novels.[1]
Retirement and later years
Rodd retired from teaching in November 1960, and experiencing depression, attempted suicide shortly after.[1] He collaborated with Donald McLean co-editing a collection of Australian essays Venturing the Unknown Ways (1965) and with Tennant on the collection The Australian Essay (1968).[6][7] In 1972 he wrote a biography of Father John Hope, long-serving rector of Christ Church St. Laurence in George Street, Sydney.[8] He also co-wrote a book about the Church and its location, published the same year.[9]
From 1965 to 1966, Rudd published a series of children's books based on the lives of prominent individuals, almost all authors: Henry Lawson, Louisa M. Alcott, Rudyard Kipling, Mark Twain, Robert Louis Stevenson, R.M. Ballantyne and Henry Parkes.[10] He published an illustrated autobiography A Gentle Shipwreck in 1975.[11]
Rodd died from cancer on 29 July 1979 in the Blue Mountains, aged 74.[2][1] He was survived by Tennant, and their daughter Benison Rodd, a painter and artist.[12] Their son, John Rodd, died in 1978.[1]
Rodd's papers are held by the National Library of Australia.[13]
Selected works
- John Hope of Christ Church: a Sydney Church era (biography) Template:ISBN
- A Gentle Shipwreck (autobiography) (Sydney, Thomas Nelson, 1975) (illustrated by Cedric Emanuel) Template:ISBN
References
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