From Australia’s Jewish Past: Known as Australia’s first “muckraker’’
Maurice was born in Marggrabowa East Prussia (Poland) to Israel and Bella Brodzky on 25 November 1847.
Maurice Brodzky
He managed to find employment teaching European languages at the Melbourne Church of England Grammar School. He shared lodgings with Richard Birnie – barrister and journalist and Jules Archibald – journalist and publisher – who later recalled that Maurice ‘wrote brightly, was indefatigable, and had a marvellously useful memory’.
His career path took him to the world of journalism and his first job was with the Sydney Evening News, then the Melbourne Age, followed by the Melbourne Herald and he was also the Australian correspondent for the London Daily Telegraph. He published two books in Melbourne – Genius, Lunacy, & Knavery (1876), the story of an unscrupulous colonial surgeon, and Historical Sketch of the Two Melbourne Synagogues (1877). A defamation case arising from the latter bankrupted him for eight years.
In 1885 Maurice resigned from the Herald and, the story goes that he used borrowed capital, to start his own publication known as Table Talk – a weekly mixture of politics, finance, literature, arts and social notes – which was highly successful during the boom of the 1880s. In 1890 he began investigating certain speculative land companies and new banks which had shown large paper profits during the land boom. His articles claimed that suspicious and sometimes fraudulent practices had occurred in the Federal and Mercantile banks, as well as other institutions which were operated by leading politicians and businessmen. As hundreds of such companies failed and went into liquidation, Maurice through his articles in Table Talk, exposed the technique of so-called ‘secret compositions’ by which many directors and shareholders made private arrangements with creditors in order to avoid public exposure in the courts. Maurice had no qualms about who he named in his reporting and even his own family members were attacked in the publication.
Table Talk went on to print fresh revelations on the matter of the stolen parliamentary mace which disappeared in 1891 and which allegedly was discovered in a Melbourne brothel. It was claimed in the Legislative Assembly by Dr William Maloney, a medical practitioner and politician. Maurice had ‘levied blackmail’ on the subject and he retorted in print that Dr Maloney was ‘a malicious liar … a silly, abusive and foul-mouthed scoundrel … an ignorant political quack … cowardly … a black-guard’. This was more than contrary to Dr Maloney’s general reputation as a noted humanitarian, and Maurice was indeed very lucky that he was not sued.
1893 saw the onset of severe depression and the closure of banks. It was inevitable that Table Talk’s profitability would suffer and Maurice was unable to meet his debts. In 1902, an article in it claimed that Frederick Bromley, a trade unionist and Labor leader, had been an accessory to a criminal act. Maurice was sued for libel, with Frederick Bromley winning substantial damages and Maurice was forced into the Insolvency Court. The goodwill of Table Talk was sold for £15, and it was finally taken over by the Melbourne Herald, which continued its publication as a society journal until 1939. Maurice drifted into casual newspaper work and moved with his family to San Francisco where he became editor of a weekly – known as the Wasp. In 1906 the great earthquake hit San Francisco and the family managed to survive, following which they moved to London and then New York. Maurice continued to work as a journalist. Maurice passed away in New York in 1919 at the age of seventy-one.
Maurice married Florence Leon in a Fitzroy registry office in Melbourne on 3 August 1882, and they produced five sons and two daughters, all of whom assisted their father in the writing and production of Table Talk. Maurice had occasion to meet his wife’s cousin, Theodore Fink, a solicitor, politician, newspaper proprietor and educationalist, who assisted him in being successful in getting the position on The Herald.
Maurice’s eldest son, Leon was born in 1883 in Melbourne, and he too became most influential as a journalist and maintained a very close friendship with Sir Alfred Deakin – Australia’s second prime minister. Leon contributed articles on theatre news to Table Talk and tried to encourage indigenous drama. In 1904 he organised the Australian Theatre Society, which was active for some years in Melbourne and wrote and produced two plays – one of them Rebel Smith with its theme of One Big Union. Its main character was a member of the Industrial Workers of the World, and this was published in New York in 1925.
Leon was then appointed by Lord Northcliffe to be the editor of the Weekly Despatch in London on condition that he change his name from Brodzky to the less Jewish-sounding name of Brodney. This he did, and Leon Brodzky then became Spencer Brodney and married Esther Siebel in New York in 1918. Leon’s career continued in the world of journalism, and he moved on to be the editor of the New York Times’ monthly – Current History. When this ceased, he founded his own journal entitled Events. He certainly followed in his father’s footsteps but did not share his personality and writing style.
Maurice and Florence’s second son Horace was born in 1885 in Melbourne. He studied at the National Gallery School in Melbourne and the City and Guilds South London Technical Art School but finally rebelled against academic techniques. During World War I Horace worked as a poster artist for the American Red Cross and edited art journals in New York. He later became prominent in modern art movements. Early in the 1930s, he began to concentrate on single-line pen drawings using plain steel nibs, his linear style pre-dating by several years similar techniques used by Picasso and Matisse. He wrote biographies of Jules Pascin and Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, known for his bust of Horace which is in the Tate Gallery in London.
Next in line was Julius, born in 1888 and for many years was an instructor in electrical engineering in the US. Daughter Vivian born in 1882, followed the family’s career path and became a journalist in London, and the fourth son, Alfred Tennyson – known as Bob Brodney – was born in 1896 and became a lawyer in Melbourne. There is no reference to the other son or daughter. This, indeed, was quite a remarkable family.
The AJHS acknowledges the following references in the preparation of this story.
Michael Cannon – Australian Dictionary of Biography; People Australia; The Australian Media Hall of Fame
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