In the corridor where the Australian Dictionary of Biography team does its work at the Australian National University in Canberra, there is a gallery of photographs of those who have led the project since 1962. The first is of Douglas Pike (general editor, 1962–73)—rouseabout, shearer, teacher, clergyman and historian. Pike, the son of missionaries to China, looks squarely at the camera, pipe in mouth: a stereotype of the academic.

The gallery continues with Bede Nairn (1973–84), historian of the NSW Labor Party. Nairn—with a neat moustache that makes him look like a retired army colonel—wears a tweed jacket and paisley tie, posing with an open copy of a volume of the Australian Dictionary of Biography.