H.C. ‘Nugget’ Coombs 1906-1997

Other early Trust productions included Ray Lawler’s landmark play Summer of the Seventeenth Doll and Sandy Wilson’s British musical spoof The Boy Friend. By 1956 the Trust was touring its own drama and opera companies. In addition to his work with the AETT, Coombs was a member of the Council of the Australian Ballet School from 1958 and a director of the Australian Ballet Foundation from 1962 to 1967.

During Coombs’ often controversial tenure as chairman, the AETT established the Australian Drama Company (and the later Trust Players), the Young Elizabethan Players (with a simplified ‘Shakespeare in Jeans’ repertoire for younger audiences), the Australian Opera Company (later the Australian Opera and now Opera Australia), the Marionette Theatre of Australia under Peter Scriven, the Elizabethan Orchestra, the Australian Ballet with its associated school, and the National Institute of Dramatic Art, founded in Sydney in 1958. In turn, NIDA established the Old Theatre Company in 1962. Coombs fostered links with commercial managements and encouraged state-subsidised theatre companies, and he constantly pushed for increased government support. By 1968 the AETT was distributing over $1.5 million – $1 million from the Commonwealth and $550,000 from the states. The Trust supported the building of the Sydney Opera House and the Victorian Arts Centre, but its policies tended to marginalise smaller companies and contributed to the weakening of the commercial theatre sector.

In 1968 the John Gorton government followed up an initiative of Harold Holt, and established the Australian Council for the Arts to administer federal support for the arts sector. Coombs was its first chairman. The appointment coincided with his retirement as chairman of the AETT and Governor of the Reserve Bank. This left him with more time to devote to other worthy community organisations. From 1968 until 1976 he was chancellor of the Australian National University (which he had been instrumental in founding) and chairman of the Australian Council of Aboriginal Affairs.

In 1971 Coombs was The Australian’s inaugural Australian of the Year. He continued to steer and develop the Australian Council for the Arts under a succession of Prime Ministers: Gorton, McMahon and Whitlam. In 1974 Whitlam transformed the ACA into the Australia Council. Coombs served as its chairman for one year and then retired. He was succeeded by Peter Karmel.

Coombs’ later years were notable for his continuing devotion to Aboriginal and environmental issues.

An interviewer once asked Coombs what he thought was the function of a bureaucrat. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘A good bureaucrat makes other people’s dreams come true. So far as I have an achievement in relation to the arts, it’s that I helped some people have their dreams come true.’ At the grand old age of 91, Nugget Coombs died on 29 October 1997. ‘He was,’ said John Sumner, ‘a remarkable and humane man.’

Frank Van Straten, 2007