Item 4 - Sidney John Baker

Edmund Morris Miller (1881-1964) C.B.E., M.A., D.Litt. (Melb.) was a librarian in the Public Library of Victoria from 1900 until 1913 when he was appointed Lecturer in Mental and Moral Science in the University of Tasmania. He was made Assoc. Prof. in 1925 and Professor in 1928. From 1933 to 1945 he served as Vice-Chancellor and also was Honorary Librarian from 1919 until 1945.
For more information see http://www.utas.edu.au/library/exhibitions/morris_miller/index.html
and http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/miller-edmund-morris-7581

Philologist and journalist.

Sidney Baker was born in Wellington, New Zealand, to English-born parents Sidney George Baker and Lilian Selby (née Whitehead). He was educated at Wellington College and Victoria University College, Wellington, though he did not graduate from the latter. He was influenced by the writings of Sigmund Freud and Friedrich Nietzsche, and was an admirer of D.H. Lawrence.

Baker arrived in Australia in 1935. After a period spent in London, he returned to New Zealand, but soon found himself back in Australia, where he worked as a journalist on numerous papers: A.B.C. Weekly (1941-42), the Daily Telegraph (1943-46), the Melbourne Herald and Sun News-Pictorial (1946-47), and the Sydney Morning Herald (from 1947).
However, his primary work (on which his posthumous reputation rests) was his exhaustive collection and interpretation of Australian idioms. He researched language in Australia and New Zealand and published several books on the subject, including Dictionary of Australian Slang (1941) and The Australian Language (1945). For more information see: http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/baker-sidney-john-sid-9411