Francis Adams

The English-born traveller and writer Francis Adams, who was in Australia from 1884 to 1890, was a cultural activist and a conduit in both directions for the late-Victorian migration of ideas. His book The Australians (1893) was an important source for the â Legend of the Ninetiesâ , but there was a good deal more than the celebration of the Bush in his Australian writing. He was a keen critic of Britainâ s management of its empire, and a sensitive observer and analyst of social and cultural life in the colonies. Stephen Murray-Smith described Adamsâ impact on his contemporaries as that of an â active intellectual [â ¦] who brought something of â modernity,â of sophisticated European modes, to the discussion of Australian problemsâ (14). He expressed progressive views on sex, marriage, and the rights of women; Marxist theories on class war, property and power; a huge amount of sympathy for the working class (whose poverty he sometimes shared, but to which he did not belong); and â advancedâ notions about art, literature and science. His respect for science came in part from his father, Andrew Leith-Adams, an army surgeon and natural historian who corresponded with and greatly admired Charles Darwin

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