The Death of Dr Duncan (2022) is set in Adelaide, South Australia, from 1972.
At the age of 41, London-born Dr George Ian Ogilvie Duncan, a newly-appointed law lecturer at the University of Adelaide, who had lived in the city for only seven weeks, was found dead in the River Torrens on 11 May 1972. To this day, the case has never been solved, but it led to South Australia being the first state in Australia to advance gay law reforms in 1975.
On the 50th anniversary of Ian Duncan’s death in 2022, author, historian, and law lecturer at the University of Adelaide, Tim Reeves, has released this comprehensively-researched book on the case.
Adelaide is my home town. At the time, while I was studying I worked night-shift for Rupert Murdoch’s daily newspaper, the Advertiser. The newspaper provided extensive coverage of the Duncan case and, with the university, played a leading role in gay law reform.
The case gained both media prominence and public shock and outrage due to Dr Duncan’s respected place in society: ‘Justice was sought so insistently, by so many.’ Particularly as three Vice Squad police officers linked to the case were thought to be guilty or involved, but not proven due to insufficient evidence to proceed with a prosecution.
Both his parents had died before Duncan turned 21 and he was an only child. He arrived in Adelaide with one suitcase. On the night of the attack, there were named and anonymous witnesses, vehicles in the area, and a large amount of people in the vicinity, including uniformed and plain-clothed police, due to other similar attacks along the river, and yet there was no conclusive evidence.
Two thirds of the book is dedicated to the case, and the last third is dedicated to the process of the decriminalisation. Regarding law reforms, there were arguments for no change, or for incremental reforms, or for radical change. The issue, too, was that small gangs were beating individuals suspected of being gay – a violent act for which there were no, or inadequate, laws of protection or prosecution. There was also a debate about morality and the law.
The Advertiser issued an editorial campaigning for decriminalisation, which helped the cause. Politicians and opposition members rallied to the cause, and unexpectedly, a private member’s Bill to enact decriminalisation was introduced within 11 weeks of Duncan’s death. It was based upon the Bill introduced in the British Parliament in 1967. The Australian Bill failed, but it did not mark the end of the campaign, only the beginning. Over the next 20 years, other states in Australia followed the pioneering legislation that ‘delivered equality in the criminal law regardless of gender or sexuality.’
For me, this is a fascinating book because it brought back memories of my time with the newspaper and interest in the case, my university years discussing the case with students and professors, and my budding involvement in human rights for all.
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MARTINA NICOLLS
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MARTINA NICOLLS is an international human rights-based consultant in education, healing and wellbeing, peace and stabilization, foreign aid audits and evaluations, and the author of: The Paris Residences of James Joyce (2020), Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).
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