Alexander and Elizabeth Maitland - 1848
The story starts with Alexander Maitland who was born in Renfrew, by the Clyde close to Glasgow in 1801, and settled in the Mount Pleasant area of South Australia about 50 km inland from Adelaide. His son described him as “from Ayrshire” so we suspect that his origin would have been the Maitlands of Dumfries and Galloway. Although Alexander is frequently used amongst these families, there is no mention of him in the Rogers Harrison pedigree, but this may suggest a connection with that area.
It was pretty adventurous of him to emigrate to Australia at the age of 47. He was old by the standards of the day, and died six years later.
He took with him his wife Elizabeth Cathcart, also born in Renfrew. (Lord Cathcart was a substantial landowner in Renfrew and Ayrshire.) They travelled in the newly built clipper barque Constance, 578 tons, which left London on 16thMay, Plymouth on the 26th and arrived in Adelaide on 30thAugust 1848 – a passage of 91 days, which the Master, Captain J. Godfrey considered slow because he was not permitted by the Emigration Commissioner to sail south of 40º for safety reasons.
It was not a happy voyage – their eldest daughter Elizabeth died a week after arriving in Australia, aged 19. A daughter, Elizabeth was born three months later.
Alexander got a job as a storeman when he arrived in Adelaide, but at his death in 1854 he was described as a labourer. The eldest son, James, started his working life as a 7 shillings a week shepherd boy, and finished with a 6,000 acre estate, President of the Clare Agricultural Society, chairman and councillor of the Hutt and Hill rivers District council an a JP. His estate was declared at £52,500 in 1922. Not bad going!
James wrote an account of his life around 1920. We feature some highlights. In quotes we use James own words, but italics are the Editor’s paraphrase. For the full text, please e-mail the Chief
“We sailed from Leith on the 10thMay 1848 and joined the Constance in London, and waited a fortnight before we could get away, and picked up several families at Plymouth and Cornish ports. The ship Constance was a new ship of about 650 tons and nice and clean. We reached Port Adelaide on the 27thAugust 1848. It was a very primitive looking place in those days. There was not metal on any of the streets. Bullock teams were more in use than horse teams.
“The Burra Mines were in full swing. All those who could muster a team or two of bullocks went off and carted copper ore to Port Adelaide.
“A little later on gold was found at Bathurst NSW in July 1851 and then at Ballarat and Mount Alexander. By the end of the year people were making off to Melbourne.
The diggers took their gold to the Commission at Castlemaine and got a receipt for it and posted the receipt to their wives or friends in Adelaide and when the receipt was presented at the treasury a similar quantity of gold was handed over to them.
“The gold escort was quite an imposing sight in those days, the gold was carried on a plain open cart with a seat for two men. Two troopers rode in front, two on the side and two behind, dressed in scarlet jumpers and fully armed with sword and pistol. There were several pubs on the route. If they wanted a drink two of the troopers would go in at a time while the others kept guard. Money was very scarce as a medium of exchange and many of the business houses issued 2/6 and 5/- to get over the difficulty.
“On arrival at Port Adelaide it was customary for settlers to come down to the ship and engage new arrivals. My father got employment as a storeman, I was engaged as a shepherd at 7/- a week. It seems a low wage now, but everything was low and cheap at the time as there was no such thing as sending produce to Europe.”
James then joined the gold rush, in Melbourne, Forrest Creek diggings, Castlemain and Echunga 23 miles from Adelaide.
“Melbourne was not as far advanced at that time as Adelaide, the public buildings were of a poorer class, the Post Office for instance was weatherboard and stood where the present fine building stands.
“The evening of St. Patrick’s day was something to be remembered, the inrush of men from all parts of the world to the gold diggings and to look at the crowd that night one would think the riff-raff of the earth had been dumped down in Melbourne….Crowds of drunken men and women thronged the streets.
“My father joined us and we went to Echunga to try our luck and got a nice little lot of gold and stayed on till Christmas.”
They then tried Victoria, Daisy Hill, Jones Creek, Barkers’ Creek, Castlemaine, but his father died of dysentery on 21st March 1854 and was buried the following day. James gave up the gold rush and invested in a farm.
“At the end of 1855 I got a farm in the Hundred of South Rhine. .. Ten years later in 1865 I bought land in the Hundred of Hart, 12 miles north west of Clare.
“At that time many of the crops were cut with a sickle, hay was cut with a scythe and ploughs were all single furrow. ….Now the ploughs are multiplied four and fivefold and instead of two horses with teams of 8 and 10 horses”
James does not explain how he was transformed from digger to farmer. Perhaps his participation in the gold rush was the clue and he was more successful than his memoir suggests.
He concluded his notes with some comments on the Stangways Land Act. This was clearly important to him, even if at this distance in time it may be difficult for us to appreciate its significance. However, it gives some background to an important period in Australian development. Before the new act settlers were limited to an 80 acre plot which was too small to be viable.
The Strangways Land Act of 1869 opened up land purchases to settlers and freed them from the need to pay cash down and the need to deal with local land agents who contrived to control land sales. Land was offered on credit at 20/- or £1 an acre, for a maximum of 1 square mile or 640 acres. The settler paid 10% down with five years credit to pay the balance. This enabled farmers to get virgin soil with large, viable holdings where crops could be properly rotated and the industry developed rapidly. a million acres were sold on these terms in three years in However, the climate was – and still is difficult with little rainfall at best and severe droughts from time to time – so the present problems are nothing new.
Another reform of this period was the Torrens Act of 1868. The state guaranteed the vendors title to the land and the ability to sell it with good delivery. Lawyers did not like this because it reduced their work and fees!
The Chief recalls meeting Maitland kinsfolk from Clare about forty years ago who told him they were descended from early emigrants. Doubtless they were James Maitland’s great grandchildren!
Major General Gordon Maitland (1926 - 2018)
Major General Gordon Maitland AO, OBE, RFD,ED, (Ret’d) the Chief’s Lieutenant in Australia and until
recently the President of Clan Maitland in Australia has produced yet another book, The Battle History of The New South Wales Regiment, 1939-1945. An earlier work covered the period from 1885 to 1918, and he has other books to his credit (see end of article).
Gordon enlisted at the age of 17 during World War II, and served in all three battalions of the regiment, finishing as commanding officer. On his retirement as a Major General he was appointed Colonel of the Regiment. A number of books on the regiment followed.
In the latest work, Gordon covers the World War II period in considerable detail. Merely to look at the contents page reminds the reader of the wide spread of the Australian contribution to the campaigns. The story opens in North Africa, goes on to Greece before returning to Africa.
All this happened before 1942. The 2ndbattalion then returned to the Asian theatre to rejoin their comrades in the campaign against the Japanese. For a Eurocentric reader whose knowledge of this period is largely concentrated on the European campaigns, the mere list of actions is a striking insight into the threat posed to Australia by the Japanese.
This is a thorough and well researched book. There are good chapters which provide a campaign overview followed by detailed accounts of the separate actions, with extensive material drawn from individual soldiers which provide a refreshing variety in style and content. Thus there is a clear exposition of the overall strategy as well as the tactics. The book is well illustrated with photographs and good maps, and in addition there is a remarkable section, unusual for a work of this type, devoted to paintings by Australian war artists.
Australian troops brought a special character to the campaign. Being exceptionally aggressive in battle, they were also pretty lively when off duty. This caused some tension between the New South Wales Regiment and General Jumbo Maitland Wilson who commanded forces incorporating the regiment in Greece and Syria. Despite criticism of Jumbo in the text, the Greek campaign is described as "a story of a remarkable fighting withdrawal down the length of Greece".
The Syrian campaign, in which Maitland Wilson's forces of 15 battalions and no tanks were opposed by the French with 30 battalions and 90 tanks was completed in five weeks with the defeat of the French who were compelled to sign the instrument of surrender on 14 July – Bastille Day!
The Australian commander's summary of the advantages the French enjoyed included the comments "(a) the nature of the country which was perfectly adapted to defensive tactics and was intimately known to the French leaders, (b) their superiority in certain items of vital equipment e.g. tanks and mortars. (c) their superiority in numbers in the early stages of the campaign." He concluded "in the circumstances, it is probably rather remarkable that the forces available should have been able to reduce a skilful, brave and stubborn enemy to the point of surrender in the comparatively short space of five weeks."
Jumbo's rather sybaritic headquarters and Olympian style of command clearly clashed with the Australian approach, but it did produce results. This is a very minor criticism, of Gordon’s work, stemming from the Editor’s interest in the General, and should not detract from a very well researched and written book.
The Australians did not like their commander, our kinsman, but the Australian summary of the Syrian offensive showed a remarkable campaign against superior forces defending their own territory which resulted in their defeat and humiliation. It reflects great credit on the troops and their commanding officer.
Perhaps a fitting summary is the remark of General Montgomery's Chief of Staff during the D-Day landings in Normandy "I wish we had 9th Australian Division with us this morning'"
Gordon Maitland's other books are:
Tales of Valour from the Royal New South Wales Regiment
The Second World War and its Australian Army Battle Honours
The Battle History of The New South Wales Regiment 1885 to 1918
Eulogy on Major General Gordon Lindsay Maitland AO, OBE, RFD, ED (1926 - 2018)
Gordon Maitland, appointed by the late Chief as the Chief’s Lieutenant in Australia, died last year. We all miss him, and remember the many happy gatherings he and Dorothy arranged for clansfolk. He was given a full military funeral – the nearest any Maitland has got to a state funeral.
EULOGY by Paul Brereton, Major General, Colonel Commandant
The Royal New South Wales Regiment
The solemn splendour of this ceremony marks the death, on 18th October last, and commemorates a life of service – to the Army, to the Defence Reserves and Ex -service communities, and to Australia - of a man who became a popular and familiar figure at ANZAC Day and most of Sydney’s commemorative ceremonies, described by a Chief of Army as a legend, and by a Governor-General as a “doyen of the veteran community”, Chief of the Clan Maitland, and our most conspicuous remaining link with the 2nd World War - the senior surviving soldier of that war, and the only one who, having enlisted as a private recruit, would become a Major General and a member of the Chief of the General Staff’s Advisory Council.
Early days
Born on 25 August 1926 in Rockdale, the young Gordon Lindsay Maitland learned from his father a love of the bush, and life in it, and the mateship which it brings; while with the support of his artistic mother he became an avid reader, acquiring an appreciation the written and spoken word, of which he would become so fine an exponent. At the age of 11, he was placed eighth in the State at the Qualifying Certificate for high school admittance, and was enrolled at Canterbury Boys’ High School. In a portent of his future, at the age of 14 in 1941, on a dark cold Anzac Day morning, he attended unescorted his first of what would be many Dawn Services in Martin Place.
Attaining his the Leaving Certificate in 1942, he embarked on the study of economics at the University of Sydney by night, while by day he worked as a clerk for the Commonwealth Bank, where he was assigned to a department which, depleted of manpower by the war, was supervised by an able 20-year-old woman, Dorothy Gunn, in whom he saw a remarkable blend of all the important virtues - including a unique ability to bond her staff.
War Service
Approaching his 18th Birthday, and determined to enlist in the 2nd AIF rather than being conscripted into the militia, Gordon enlisted at his local Army depot, at Arncliffe – a depot which would have a lasting place in his military career. On his recruit training at Cowra, he found himself sandwiched between Jim Gerathy, an illiterate boundary rider, and Ken Prowse, who would become chair of an insurance company, on whose board he would later serve. But it was to Gerathy, whom he taught to sign his name, that he attributed his greatest lesson in humility, which would be among his foremost qualities. In him he saw soldierly qualities superior to his own, and he learned that education and opportunity was not necessarily the best yardstick.
Private Maitland was told that he would be proceeding to an intelligence course, and then to the intelligence section of an infantry battalion. He asked whether he instead might be trained for a Z-Special unit, but when interviewed, was told that university students were few in the Army, and it would be of great assistance if he could speak Japanese. So, he went to the Air Force School of Languages, and on 20 September 1945, aged 19 and still a Private, he flew from Melbourne to join Timor Force, wherehis responsibilities ranged across the then Netherlands East Indies, including locating and questioning Japanese war criminals and witnesses, finding Australian graves, ensuring Japanese compliance with surrender arrangements, and dealing with issues arising from the Free Indonesian Movement. The last was the most dangerous, and he recounted that the indigenous population “were leaping onto the bonnet of my jeep, waving their knives and yelling ‘Merdeka’ (freedom)”. Then, as a youthful Sergeant, he served as the Chief Interpreter at the War Crimes Trials in Darwin.
Returning to Sydney aboard the troop ship Manoora, during his leave, on 24 May 1946, took Dorothy Gunn out on their first date. They were soon totally committed to each other, and their commitment endured for the rest of their lives.
Then, he returned as an instructor to the School of Languages at Point Cook, where he was commissioned as a Lieutenant on 14 October 1946.
The three best decisions
In 1947, when offered a Captaincy, he made what he would later describe as the three best decisions of his life. The first was to return to the Commonwealth Bank, from which he would eventually retire as a Chief Manager. The second was to join the Citizen Military Force when it was raised on 1st April 1948, from which he would retire as a Major General and Chief of the Reserve. And the third was to marry Dorothy Gunn, on 6 November 1947; they adored each other for seven decades thereafter.
But never having been a member of an Australian Army unit, he had no banner to march behind, and no mates with whom to reunite, and it would be more than 50 years before, at the urging of the RSL, he would march on Anzac Day.
Civilian career
The Bank made him an Executive cadet, and in time he proceeded to executive positions. As Papua New Guinea approached independence, and while relations soured with Indonesia, Gordon was sent to determine the Bank’s future in that country. His report and recommendations were accepted without amendment.
Initially specialising in lending, he was instrumental in expanding the Bank’s lending business, to the point that it became Australia’s major home lender.
When the Commonwealth Bank, concerned that it was seen as a large lumbering money box, being left behind by its competitors, decided to embrace marketing, it was Gordon Maitland that it appointed as a Chief Manager to transform its image.
When at the age of 55 he retired from the Bank, he became Chief Executive Officer of the Royal Agricultural Society of New South Wales. In that capacity he revitalised the Society, restored it to profitability, and laid the foundations for its move to Homebush Bay. Recognising the value of military organisational skills, he found employment for many ex-service personnel.
Military career
When the CMF, as the Army Reserve was then known, was raised in 1948, Lieutenant Maitland applied to join the 45th Battalion (The St George Regiment), headquartered in the Arncliffe depot. He was duly paraded before the Commanding Officer, the redoubtable Lieutenant Colonel – later Major General - Paul Cullen, who had commanded the 2/1st Australian Infantry Battalion. Most of the Battalions’ officers were from the 2/1st; and many were decorated. Cullen promptly rejected Lieutenant Maitland as lacking the requisite infantry experience, but as he was being marched out, called out: “If you have the right spirit, you will turn up anyway”.
Maitland had the right spirit, and he turned up; in time he would become one of Cullen’s closest friends, and eventual successor as Regimental Colonel of the Royal New South Wales Regiment. The youthful officer became well-liked and was well mentored, and proved more than competent, topping the Army’s first Infantry Tactics Course. He spent thirteen enjoyable years with the 45th battalion, ultimately as a company commander, which he considered the most enjoyable of all his postings. As Brigade Major of the 5th Brigade, he had an experience to which many will be able to relate. He ascertained that it would be quicker, cheaper and more comfortable to move the brigade by private buses than by troop trains. But this earned a reprimand from Headquarters 2nd Division, as there was no provision in its budget for buses – after all, buses were not trains. And then he was counselled, for telling his superior headquarters that they were stupid.
Promotion to Lieutenant Colonel followed in 1962, with appointment as second-in command of the 3rd RNSWR Battle Group under the restructure of the early1960s. When, in 1965, those arrangements were discarded in yet another restructure, he was appointed to command the newly-raised 4th Battalion, the Royal New South Wales Regiment, whose colours you saw marched into the Church this morning, to be placed with the other colours of the Regiment. Mentored by Major General Sir Ivan Dougherty who had commanded the 2nd/4th Australian Infantry Battalion, Cullen, Cox and Major General John Broadbent who had commanded the 2nd/17th, his reading of history and his acquaintance with the battalions of the 2nd AIF taught him that their quality had nothing to do with education and class, and everything to do with “spirit”. And it was on that basis that he selected and mentored his own subordinates, from whom he would spawn a Major General, three Brigadiers, and many Lieutenant Colonels. His sometime subalterns continued to take him out for a birthday lunch, even until last year. There was also a young NCO, whom he advised to transfer to the ARA: Sergeant Wally Thompson would later become the first Regimental Sergeant Major of the Army, but for the rest of his life maintained his connection with Gordon and with 4 RNSWR. Lieutenant Colonel Maitland’s achievements as a Commanding Officer earned him the quite exceptional award, for an officer of his than rank, of appointment as an Officer in the Order of the British Empire, the then equivalent of an Officer of the Order of Australia.
His subsequent career included prestigious staff appointments; a period in Vietnam with the 9th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment, with the then Lieutenant Colonel Alby Morrison; appointments as ADC to two Governors-General; and in 1974, the responsibility of assembling and fare-welling the Royal Family from Australia; and the establishment of the 2nd Training Group in Bardia Barracks, Ingleburn.- 4 -It was also in 1974 that, on promotion to Major General, he assumed command of the2nd Division, when it was shrinking following the end of conscription; his tireless efforts and inspirational leadership, and his belief in training that was interesting, demanding, and challenging, and extended his people and organisations well beyond their comfort zones, sustained it. Recognising that after fifteen years in which the Army had been focused on jungle warfare in South East Asia it needed to learn about the continental defence of Australia, he conducted a major tactical exercise in the Northern Territory. For his service as Commander 2nd Division, he was in 1978 appointed an Officer in the Order of Australia.
Then, initially as Inspector-General of the Army Reserve (1978-79), and subsequently as Chief of the Army Reserve (1979-82), he set about shaping the modern Army Reserve and enhancing Reserve service. He united the discrepant agendas of the state-based fiefdoms into a coherent single Army Reserve approach, and as a member of the Chief of the General Staffa’s Advisory Council won the respect and friendship of his regular colleagues. He established the Chief of Reserves conference, attended not only by senior Australian Army Reservists, but also by the Chiefs of Reserves of the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and New Zealand. And when Russia invaded Afghanistan, he secured the Fraser government’s support for a50% increase in the strength of the Army Reserve, from 20,000 to 30,000, which he then implemented through the most successful ever Reserve recruiting campaign.
As might be expected of one who had been mentored by the likes of Cullen and Broadbent, General Maitland did not succeed by sycophancy; his advice could be firm as it was fearless, as illustrated by his first encounter with the then Field Force Commander Major General Dunstan, who would later become Chief of the General Staff, and eventually Governor of South Australia. As Field Force Commander, he was the immediate superior commander of Maitland’s 2nd Division. Dunstan issued a directive which in Gordon’s view showed a lack of understanding of conditions that were different in the Reserve from the Regular Army, and Gordon wrote to him highlighting the issues. The response from Dunstan was blistering, and Major General Maitland took what he regarded as the only course open - to walk up the hill from Moore Park where 2nd Division was then headquartered, to the Field Force Commander at Victoria Barracks. What followed went something like this. Maitland: “You wrote a disturbing letter to me”. Dunstan: “You wrote an inappropriate letter to me”. Maitland: “I am sorry you found it inappropriate, but I believed it necessary to be direct, and in a proper relationship one has a duty to protect one’s superior from making mistakes". Dunstan then raised the stakes. According to Gordon’s discreet and polite account, he asked when Maitland was going to have recourse to the Army Reserve political group; but I suspect that there was an allusion to the so-called Rum Corps. Maitland replied that he was offended to be so misjudged, that he knew those people well and respected them, but that was where it ended while he had a position of trust. Happily, things calmed down. Within days, the Maitlands were dining with the Dunstans in the Bungalow at Victoria Barracks, and they developed enormous mutual respect, and a close and deep personal friendship.
Retirement
Following his retirement in 1982, General Maitland devoted his next thirty years to commemorative and community activities, to assisting veterans and theirorganisations, to researching and publishing six books on military history, and to the Royal New South Wales Regiment.
As an officer, patron and benefactor, he left his mark on more than 20 organisations –many of them represented here today – including the 2nd/4th Battalion Association, which in 1970 uniquely made him – who had never served in that battalion - a member, in recognition of the support he had provided to them when Commanding Officer of 4RNSWR; the Association of 4th Infantry Battalions, the formation of which he promoted when Commanding Officer, and of which he became a Patron; the Royal United Services Institute; the Military History Society of New South Wales; and Legacy.
For eight years (1982-89), General Maitland served as Regimental Colonel of the Royal New South Wales Regiment, and afterwards remained the Regiment’s elder statesman. Until very recently, he was a fixture at virtually every regimental activity, even in later years when it might have been more comfortable for him to remain at home. He has been responsible for the foundation and fostering of many of the activities and traditions that sustain the Regiment’s spirit, morale and welfare. He was at the forefront of contributing and enlisting support for the sponsorship of a station on the Kokoda Memorial Walkway at Concord: Uberi was selected by him, though it did not have the renown of Isurava or Iorabaiwa, as one through which the antecedent battalions of the Regiment had passed on their way north. He was also instrumental in the conception and creation of the Regimental memorial – designed by his son Neil- on the foreshore of Sydney Cove, south of the Opera House, at the place from which in 1885 the Soudan Contingent departed, to commemorate the soldiers of New South Wales who sailed from Sydney for abroad, in that and subsequent wars.
There has been no greater servant of the Regiment, than General Maitland, and none has earned it greater lustre. Perhaps his most significant legacy to the Regiment is his magnificent twin volume Battle History of the Royal New South Wales Regiment. As an historian, he brought to his work a combination of academic rigour and the understanding of a soldier. His account of the battles of the infantry battalions drawn from New South Wales in the Soudan, the Boer War, and the two World Wars, is in the best tradition of Australian military history: both scholarly and readable, it presents the soldiers’ perspective as much as it does the generals’. As the then Premier Bob Carr said, it is “an important and worthy contribution, not only to the military history of New South Wales, but to the history of the Australian people as a whole”.
General Maitland’s quiet influence as a mentor has given his successors the benefit of his wisdom and experience. On appointment, they could expect an eloquent and gracious letter of congratulations, with some gems of sage advice, but which never seemed an attempt to tell them how to do their job. This did not end with his declining physical health; happily, his faculties remained intact until then end. In a brilliant speech at the 2nd Division dinner in 2014, which he said then would be his last outing and which those who heard it will never forget, he encapsulated in half-an-hour the history of the Division from its formation in 1915 to the present, and moved and inspired the current generation of officers.
Family
Somehow, he managed to combine his multiple and demanding civilian and military careers with success as a husband to Dorothy and as a father to Neil, Barbara andElizabeth. Dorothy and he were a partnership who mutually supported each other in every undertaking. Two Chiefs of Army wrote singing her praises. She was his secretary and the keeper of his diaries, and his chief assistant in researching and composing his six books and numerous papers. When she died just a year ago on 28October 2017, they had been married 69 years.
Neil became an architect and served as an officer in the 4th Battalion; tragically, he died far too young. Gordon’s relationship with his beloved and loving daughters Barbara and Elizabeth was cemented in their teens, on long walks and talks. He had a phrase of sage advice for their every situation, and was delighted when his youngest grandchild quoted back to him: “When in doubt, don’t”.
The man
There was about Gordon Maitland a natural dignity, without airs or graces. This was a man who could talk with crowds and keep his virtue, yet walk with Kings nor lose the common touch. He was well-connected at the highest levels of government and business; his counsel was sought by Chiefs of Defence and Prime Ministers, and his company by Governors. And yet he was entirely unassuming: his manner was relaxed, and he enjoyed mixing with every one; he was as at home with privates and pensioners as he was with Governors and generals. It appealed to his sense of humour to tell a story against himself; one favourite was of the then Sergeant Fred Nile’s 21st Birthday, out in the scrub. Fred’s platoon commander decided that a drink or two would be in order, and invited their company commander Major Maitland. All were gathered in the platoon headquarters dug out when the platoon commander, in pumping up his cooker, set fire to the overhead cover. In the ensuing melee, a sergeant lost his glasses, and by stooping to pick them up, provided a foothold for the major to make a rapid exit. Thereafter an observer said “We knew then you would climb over everyone to the top”
He is quoted as having responded to an inquiry why it had taken so long for a biography of Harry Murray VC to be written by pointing to that hero's "innate modesty"; those words are equally applicable to himself. His great generosity of spirit was manifested in his readiness to help others. He liked to help people. There may have been those of whom he had a low opinion, but he spoke ill of no-one. If, as it has been written, the measure of one who is truly great, is the courtesy with which he treats lesser men and women, then Gordon Maitland was a truly great man.
According to the Roman orator Cicero, the life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living. General Maitland will live, not only though above all in the memory of his beloved daughters and grandchildren, but also in the memory of those many whom he has influenced, and who tentatively tread, with awe and admiration, in his formidable footsteps. For as the American poet Longfellow wrote, “When a great man dies, for years the light he leaves behind him, lies on the paths of humankind.”
