Richard Appleton (17 January 1932 – 27 April 2005) was an Australian poet, raconteur and editor who became editor-in-chief of the ''

Australian Encyclopaedia The ''Australian Encyclopaedia'' is an encyclopedia focused on Australia. In addition to biographies of notable Australians the coverage includes the geology, flora, fauna as well as the history of the continent. It was first published by Angus ...

'' and, in 1987, was co-editor with Alex Galloway of the posthumous Lex Banning poetry collection ''There Was a Crooked Man''. He was a long-time associate of the Sydney Push, of which his memoirs were published posthumously in 2009.Appleton R ''Appo: Recollections of a member of the Sydney Push'' Darlington Press, Sydney, 2009. He helped create ''The Pluralist'', a journal of dissident thought.Collingwood, Ly
Reports of his death were premature, till now
Obituary in ''Sydney Morning Herald'' 31 May 2005 (Accessed 22 April 2010)

Biography

Appleton was born at Mosman,

Sydney Sydney is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales and the List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city in Australia. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Syd ...

NSW New South Wales (commonly abbreviated as NSW) is a state on the east coast of :Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria to the south, and South Australia to the west. Its coast borders the Coral and Tasman Seas to the east. T ...

and died at Cessnock NSW. He was educated at North Sydney Boys' High School, the Royal Australian Naval College and

Sydney University The University of Sydney (USYD) is a public university, public research university in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in both Australia and Oceania. One of Australia's six sandstone universities, it was one of the ...

where he was a devotee of John Anderson and co-edited an issue of the annual '' Arna''. He also attended and graduated from a Melbourne teachers' college in 1957-1958—"a crash course of only one year to become a qualified teacher". He entered publishing in about 1967, and became editor-in-chief of the ''Australian Encyclopaedia'' in 1977, overseeing the fourth edition (1983) and the fifth edition (1988). As a freelance in later years, in conjunction with his wife, Barbara, he compiled the ''Cambridge Dictionary of Australian Places''. In the 1980s Appleton edited the Australian content of the ''Encyclopædia Britannica''. In 2008, he was honoured posthumously by the

Australian Labor Party The Australian Labor Party (ALP), also known as the Labor Party or simply Labor, is the major Centre-left politics, centre-left List of political parties in Australia, political party in Australia and one of two Major party, major parties in Po ...

for services to the party. Appleton was described in

Clive James Clive James (born Vivian Leopold James; 7 October 1939 – 24 November 2019) was an Australian critic, journalist, broadcaster, writer and lyricist who lived and worked in the United Kingdom from 1962 until his death in 2019.

References

Bibliography

* Robin Brown (auth), Richard Appleton (ed.), Manning Clark (foreword) ''Milestones in Australian History'' William Collins, Sydney, 1986 * Richard Appleton and Alex Galloway ds''There Was a Crooked Man: The Poems of Lex Banning'', Sirius, Australia, 1987; * Richard Appleton ''I Am The World: Poems 1951-1953'' Edwards & Shaw, Sydney, 1953 * Richard and Barbara Appleton (comp.) ''The Cambridge Dictionary of Australian Places'' Cambridge University Press, Melbourne, 1992

Biography

References

Bibliography

Further reading