The story of Hedley’s coming to Canberra begins, in a sense, one day in 1951, when, in the quadrangle at the University of Sydney, I was accosted by a young man in a well-fitting suit who said his name was Hedley Bull. He said that he and some of his friends (he was specialising in Philosophy and History) had decided to form a Sydney University Political Science Association, and would like me to be President. I explained that I was a Staff Tutor in the university’s adult education department and so not a member of the intra-mural staff; but he pointed out that there was no Political Science department (the nearest was Public Administration in the Faculty of Economics) and, in effect, I would have to do.
I saw quite a bit of him in the subsequent year, before I left to study at the London School of Economics (LSE). It was clear that he was bright, charming and a genuine seeker after knowledge. His study under John Anderson had equipped him with a properly sceptical disposition, which was endorsed by his life-long immersion in History. I think you could call us friends.
After I got to London I lost track of him; he was in Oxford and busy there. It was not until 1955, when I left the LSE to go to Leicester University, that I took up with him again. Charles Manning, the Professor of International Relations at the LSE, had made me an Assistant Lecturer the previous year, largely because I had no previous training in the subject, and he wanted his staff to listen only to him. When I left he appointed Hedley in my place, for much the same reason. Otherwise Hedley would have gone off to Aberdeen University to teach Political Philosophy. The job at the LSE was the start of his rise.