Barnett, F. Oswald (Frederick Oswald), 1883-1972.
We must go on : a study in planned reconstruction and housing /
by F. Oswald Barnett, W.O. Burt, F. Heath. (Melbourne : Book Depot,
1944)
Barnett had done ground-breaking work with his publication in 1933 of
Unsuspected slums a study, which had grown from his Melbourne
University thesis. He had published other works on poverty and juvenile
delinquency and was to publish, in 1945, an inspirational exhortation to the
working class, his poem, I hear the tramp of millions. Barnett was a
Christian socialist and one of the driving forces behind the establishment of
the Housing Commission of Victoria, and helped the Chifley government develop
its housing and urban plans as part of the work of the Post-War Reconstruction
Department. We must go on was one of the most influential publications
of the era in that field. However in 1948 he resigned from the Housing
Commission because the Victorian government had become concerned at his
Communist sympathies, and in 1949 he was forced to resign from the Victorian
Board of City Mutual Life Assurance because he was the auditor of
Australia-Soviet House. Barnett was one of the early casualties of the Cold War
in Australia.
