The C.E.W. Bean Foundation pays tribute to the seminal writings and images of our nation’s war correspondents, most prominent amongst them being Charles Bean.
And he’s in good company. Australia has produced many significant and highly respected war correspondents, including: Damien Parer (1912-1944); Will Dyson (1880-1938); Alan Moorehead (1910-1983); George Morrison (1862-1920); William Lambie (1860-1900); Donald McDonald (18599-1932); Chester Wilmot (1911-1954); and Keith Murdoch (1885-1952).
The Foundation’s signature project has been the completion of a memorial to all those war correspondents, photographers and artists that have captured and recorded Australian activities in war. The War Correspondents Memorial was completed and dedicated on 23 September 2015, in the grounds of the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.
“A correspondent is at the mercy of the same discomfort and exhaustion which are the natural conditions of soldiers at war. It is a rare journalist indeed, amid all these handicaps, who can piece together a picture of the battlefield, and convey it to a host of civilian readers at home in a fashion which catches their imagination, and embraces a reasonable part of the truth.”
Max Hastings, British journalist and military historian, 1995
Our mission
The C.E.W. Bean Foundation was established in 2001 to honour Charles Edwin Woodrow Bean, Australia’s official war correspondent and historian of the Great War and to commemorate Australian war reporting generally.
It is supported by the Australian War Memorial, the National Press Club of Australia, the National Library of Australia and the Returned Services League of Australia.
Our mission is to promote the works of journalists, photographers, artists, film makers and camera crews as a permanent reminder of their contribution to Australia’s history.
Our website
On the pages of this website, you will learn about C.E.W. Bean and his role as a war correspondent and official historian.
You will find out about our events, past and present, and we invite you to be involved.
There is also a page of leads intended to help journalists, researchers, scholars and interested people learn more.
Please explore!
