I'm excited to finally share this story about how the US public relations industry arrived in Australia on the back of an oil tanker. Working in partnership with @rebeccajohn.bsky.social who dug up a whole bunch of new records from the Hill&Knowlton archives, this has been months in the making. /1 - ThreadSky

roycerk2.bsky.social • 7 days ago

I'm excited to finally share this story about how the US public relations industry arrived in Australia on the back of an oil tanker. Working in partnership with @rebeccajohn.bsky.social who dug up a whole bunch of new records from the Hill&Knowlton archives, this has been months in the making.

/1

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ozgeo.bsky.social•6 days ago

An excellent story and a real eye-opener, thank you for sharing...

roycerk2.bsky.social•7 days ago

/2 The prevailing theory in 1953 was that Australia was geologically too old for oil. It took a Kiwi accountant, William Walkley, driven mostly by self-belief, to overturn this idea with the discovery of oil at Rough Range-1 -- a discovery his American partners didn't bother to tell him about.

roycerk2.bsky.social•7 days ago

/3 This would later be chalked up to a mistake, but for Walkley it was a reminder of the status quo. He was working with some of the biggest, most powerful US oil companies in the world at the time who were at pains to remind him that he was just a bit player with the lion's share going to them.

roycerk2.bsky.social•7 days ago

/4 To represent them in Australia, Standard Oil California and Texaco brought in Richard "Dick" Darrow. Darrow handled Hill&Knowlton's biggest accounts and is credited with teaching the US tobacco industry to lie like the US oil industry.

In 1953 he flew in and brought US-style PR with him.

roycerk2.bsky.social•7 days ago

/5 Walkley needed his business partners, but he understood the risk he might be swept aside in a neo-colonial resource grab, so he fought back with a duelling public relations campaign that made him a hero and blamed every failure on the Americans. At one point, he tried to get Darrow sacked.

roycerk2.bsky.social•7 days ago

/6 Walkley also fought dirty. In one update sent back to US oil executives, Darrow described how Walkley was personal friends with Sydney's finance press and had encouraged them to buy shares in Ampol - which proved an effective strategy against much bigger, better resourced frenemies.

roycerk2.bsky.social•7 days ago

/7 As frustrated as Darrow was with Walkley, he loved Australia. From the moment of his arrival, Darrow courted the media, helped his clients get involved with industry associations, set up education programs -- creating a mould which is still used by industry today.

ingemajig.bsky.social•7 days ago

📌

phoenixfitzroy.bsky.social•6 days ago

I’m reminded of the Guano Islands Act.

America has form when it comes to seizing other countries’ resources as its own. And it seems nothing has changed in 2025.

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