Charles Edwin Woodrow Bean (1879-1968) served as Australia's official war correspondent during World War One and
subsequently penned his country's official multi-volume record of the war.
Background
Bean was born in Australia but raised in Britain (educated at Clifton College and Oxford University) before he returned to his native land at the age of 25 in 1904. Once home he signed up as a reporter for the Sydney Morning Herald where he was assigned the task of covering the visit of the Great White Fleet.
Education
In 1889, his family moved to England where he was educated, firstly at Brentwood School in Essex
He returned to Australia in 1904 and worked as a lawyer until June 1908 when he joined The Sydney Morning Herald as a reporter.
Career
In 1909 Bean was sent to western New South Wales to write about the wool industry. A mundane
enough assignment in itself, but while in rural Australia Bean 'discovered'
himself and nurtured his growing belief in the distinctive values possessed
by native Australians.
Bean grew to believe that those characteristics that defined 'true' Australians were quite different
from those often seen in Australia's urban Anglicised cities: rural Australians were (he believed) hardy, independent minded and
generous. These were the same qualities he admired in the men who signed up for war in 1914.
When the Australian Imperial Force went off to war in Egypt, Gallipoli and France Bean went with
them as his country's official war correspondent, often reporting from front-line trench conditions.
Wounded in action at Gallipoli he insisted upon continuing to assist with transportation of the
wounded to safety while under fire. Subsequently recommended for the Military Cross
The evacuation of the AIF from Gallipoli
With the armisticeFrom Anzac to Amiens.
Although Bean was by no means solely responsible for the creation of the Anzac legend he
nevertheless made an invaluable contribution to the way Australians
subsequently viewed their contribution to the war.
Bean was also instrumental in sponsoring the establishment of the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.