Philip James Ayres (28 July 1944 – 15 August 2021) was an Australian biographer and literary historian, described by High Court Justice Dyson Heydon as "one of the best biographers this country has ever produced".Dyson Heydon, review of Ayres, Fortunate Voyager: The Worlds of Ninian Stephen (2013), in Quadrant, May 2014, p. 26.
Education Ayres was born in Lobethal, South Australia. He was of German and Anglo-Scottish cultural heritage. He attended Adelaide Boys High School and the University of Adelaide (PhD 1971). He taught at the University of Adelaide, Monash University (1972 to 2006), Vassar College and Boston University.Michael Lawriwsky, "Philip Ayres: Scholar and Adventurer", Quadrant, December 2021, pp. 83–88.
Academic work Ayres' biography subjects included Malcolm Fraser,Malcolm Fraser: A Biography (Heinemann, Melbourne, 1987). Douglas Mawson,Mawson: A Life (Miegunyah/Melbourne University Press, Carlton, 1999). former Australian Chief Justice Sir Owen Dixon,Owen Dixon (Miegunyah/Melbourne University Press, Carlton, 2003; 2004; rev. edn 2007). Sydney's late-19th-century, early-20th-century Catholic Archbishop Patrick Francis MoranPrince of the Church: Patrick Francis Moran 1830-1911 (Miegunyah/Melbourne University Press, Carlton, 2007). and Sir Ninian StephenFortunate Voyager: The Worlds of Ninian Stephen (Miegunyah/Melbourne University Press, Carlton, 2013). (who had been Australia's Governor-General for most of the 1980s). His last book, a collection of biographical vignettes built around personal one-on-one encounters with numerous internationally significant people quite aside from the subjects of his biographies, was Private Encounters in the Public World.Private Encounters in the Public World (Connor Court, Brisbane, 2019).
His literary-historical books include Classical Culture and the Idea of Rome in Eighteenth-Century England.Classical Culture and the Idea of Rome in Eighteenth-Century England (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1997). According to WorldCat, the book is held in 398 libraries. WorldCat author record He was the editor of the two-volume Clarendon Press edition of Shaftesbury's Characteristicks.Anthony Ashley Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury, Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times (2 vols, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1999).
The British Law Quarterly Review described his Owen Dixon as a "conspicuous success" in marrying "distinguished scholarship and narrative skills",Tom Bingham, review of Owen Dixon, (2005) 121 Law Quarterly Review, 154-158 at 154. while the Australian Law Journal devoted a 14-page section to complimentary analyses of the same book.(2003) 77 Australian Law Journal, 682-696 (High Court Centenary number). Fortunate Voyager, the account of Sir Ninian Stephen's life, displays similar research and narrative methodologies. The other biographies have also received generally excellent reviews in the relevant professional journals,Mawson: its "high level of research and carefully crafted writing make it a worthy addition to Australian scientific biography"—Brigid Hains, Historical Records of Australian Science, 13, ii (2000), 226-228; see also Rod Beecham in Australian Book Review, June/July 2004, p. 35: "Ayres's great virtue as a biographer is his scrupulous reliance on primary sources, which he has researched meticulously. He can also be funny." although the author has been chastised by one (clerical) critic for declining to moralise his avowedly non-moral and objectivist presentation of character.Frank Brennan, "Tales from the Bench", Eureka Street, July/August 2003, 37-39.
He also wrote first-hand accounts of several conflict zones, having travelled with Malcolm Fraser in South Africa (1986)"South African Diary", final chapter of Ayres, Malcolm Fraser. and Somalia (1992),Quadrant, vol. 36, no. 12, December 1992, pp. 9-14. and with the Hezb-i-Islami jihadists in Afghanistan in 1987."Khost: The Crucial Siege", The Age, Saturday Extra, 28 November 1987, pp. 1-6.
The lists below of learned articles and book reviews are representative of published works too extensive to be noticed here.
Honours and recognition Ayres was a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (London), a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities, and a recipient of the Centenary Medal in 2001 for contributions to literature.https://honours.pmc.gov.au/honours/awards/1126723 (accessed 4 March 2018)
He was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia in the 2025 Australia Day Honours.
Bibliography
Books
Ayres, Philip J. (ed.) (1987) Ben Jonson: Sejanus His Fall. Manchester: Manchester University Press. — (1987). Malcolm Fraser: A Biography . Richmond, Vic.: William Heinemann Australia. Foreword by Valéry Giscard d'Estaing. — (1997). Classical Culture and the Idea of Rome in Eighteenth-Century England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. — (ed.) (1999) Anthony Ashley Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury: Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press. — (1999). Mawson: A Life. Carlton, Vic.: Miegunyah Press. — (2003). Owen Dixon. Carlton, Vic.: Miegunyah Press. — (2007). Owen Dixon (revised edition). Carlton, Vic.: Miegunyah Press.
— (2013) Fortunate Voyager: The Worlds of Ninian Stephen. Carlton, Vic.: Miegunyah Press. — (2019). Private Encounters in the Public World. Brisbane, Qld.: Connor Court. _ (ed.) (2021). The Washington Diaries of Owen Dixon 1942-1944. Sydney, NSW: The Federation Press.
References