Sir Frank Macfarlane Burnet, the first Australian of the Year, and how the award came to be

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On a fairly nondescript headstone in a small Victorian cemetery reads the powerful inscription describing the inaugural winner of the Australian of the Year award.

"A man who threw off ideas like sparks which caused a blaze that leapt across to the minds of others."

This epitaph marks the grave of Sir Frank Macfarlane Burnet.

It is a fitting elegy for a man who was a more-than-worthy recipient of the accolade in 1960 — the same year Sir Frank won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

But how did the Australian of the Year award come to be?

The answer to that lies in the origins of Australia Day.

'Award similar to the Oscar'

January 26 marks the day the Union Jack was raised in Sydney Cove and the eastern half of the Australian continent was officially claimed in the name of the British Empire — not the day the First Fleet arrived, which was about a week earlier.

As each colony had its own 'foundation' or 'proclamation' day, January 26 was far from accepted as Australia's national day, even into the twentieth century.

While May 24 (Empire Day), April 29 (the date of Captain Cook's landing at Botany Bay) and January 1 (Federation Day) were favoured by many, January 26 had the backing of the Australian Natives Association, and they lobbied hard.

The ANA was a society exclusively for white men born in Australia.

It began in 1871 in Melbourne with the aim of influencing "public thinking and policy-makers" and "to eliminate from Australian society any sense of cultural inferiority associated with being an Australian-born 'colonial'".

According to the National Museum of Australia, the ANA wanted "to create a society free of British class restrictions".

Aside from being one of the last groups to openly support the White Australia Policy — even after the policy was overturned — the ANA was behind the push which saw January 26 become accepted and known as Australia Day in all states by 1935, and a holiday by the 1940s.

Then in 1946, the Victorian branch of the ANA set up the first Australia Day Council, with other states soon following suit.

These councils hoped "to educate the public on the significance of Australia Day and encourage celebrations", according to Dr Samuel Furphy's history of the Australian of the Year Awards, written to celebrate its 50th anniversary.

In 1960, the chair of the Victorian Australia Day Council, Sir Norman Martin, announced the creation of the "Australia Day Foundation Award which would be presented to the person judged by a special panel to be the Australian of the Year", with the latter title proving to be the catchier one that stuck.

It was part of Sir Norman's ongoing campaign to draw attention to Australia Day.

"What I envisage is an award similar to the Oscar given to the best actor of the year in Hollywood," he said in January 1960.

"It would carry with it great prestige and honour rather than monetary reward."

And the winner is...

The winner of the 1960 Australian of the Year was announced in 1961.

Despite the Victorian-centric selection panel — it comprised the Victorian premier, the Anglican Archbishop of Melbourne, the vice chancellor of Melbourne University, the lord mayor of Melbourne, and the president of the National Council for Women — the selection of Sir Frank Macfarlane Burnet was a popular one.

His work into immunology had won him a Nobel Prize in 1960 and fit Sir Norman's desire for the Australian of the Year award to recognise "an Australian who had made an outstanding contribution to Australia's culture, economy, art, or science".

The Victorian Australia Day Council continued to control the award until 1980, when its power was short circuited by the establishment of the National Australia Day Committee in 1979 and a State Government-run Victorian Australia Day Committee.

As for Sir Frank Macfarlane Burnet, his win was "a source of considerable pride", according to his entry in the Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society.

It was one of dozens of accolades he won over the course of a career that spanned the globe and helped shape medicine, vaccinations and immunology.

Sir Frank died of cancer in 1985 in Victoria's Port Fairy, and is buried in the Tower Hill Cemetery next to his grandparents.

Topics: australia-day, science-and-technology, science-awards, history, health, port-fairy-3284, warrnambool-3280, australia