Description
Title: The Last Shilling – A history of repatriation in Australia
Author: Lloyd, Clem and Rees, Jacqui
Condition: Very Good
Edition: 1st Edition
Publication Date: 1994
ISBN: 0522845088
Cover: Hard Cover with Dust Jacket – 476 pages
Comments: Senator Edward Millen, who conceived and nurtured Australia’s repatriation system, described repatriation of returned service personnel as just as much ‘an emanation of the heart’ as a cause ‘worthy of the last shilling’. It had been a concern to Australians since the Boer War, but it was not until 1918 that an entire government department (now the Department of Veterans’ Affairs) came into being to address this concern.
Drawing on a wealth of Departmental archives and other unpublished material, Clem Lloyd and Jacqui Rees have provided a frank account of an institution that, from soldier settlement schemes to Agent Orange, has responded to the needs of returned service people in a generous and open-hearted way. In a series of chronological and thematic chapters the authors explore the many functions and practices of ‘Repat’—from hospitals to scholarships, training programmes to home loans—culminating in an examination of the Department of Veterans’ Affairs.
