archive at Backroad Connections
About the Education Subscription Service
Jack Gilding
March 2026
The Education Subscription Service (ESS) was a magazine and document supply service that operated in Melbourne between March 1974 and August 1977 focussing on progressive, radical and alternative education.
From issue 8, the magazine merged with another information service called The Open Book and the people behind that publication provided several pages of camera-ready copy for inclusion in the magazine.
Most of the work was done by Lyndon Shea and Caroline Grbich, with ongoing assistance from Jack Gilding and Deirdre Mason and assistance on particular issues from many other people.
ESS ran from the Walker* Press premises and was one of a number of activities supported by the group around Walker* Press. (For more information on Walker* Press and associated activities see https://backroad.com.au/archive/walker, in particular Lyndon’s A Very Short History of Walker* Press.)
As well as the magazine, ESS listed a number of additional resources called Listed Articles and Other Publications. Listed Articles were copied by ESS, Other Publications were available in bulk and made available to subscribers.
Subscribers could pay any amount up front and deducted from this was the cost of the magazine, articles and other publications they ordered. Even by the standards of the day, costs were excessively low and the operation relied on large amounts of low-paid and volunteer labour. There was also some funding from the Schools Commission’s Innovations Program for some of the time.
In view of the flagrant disregard for intellectual property laws in the production of the magazine (particularly the use of graphics) and the copying of Listed Articles, it would be churlish to claim any copyright in the completed magazines. In any case two of the main people involved (Lyndon and Deirdre) are no longer alive. So feel free to use and copy the scanned magazines and catalogues as you wish (at your own risk). Obviously credit and links back to the original scanned documents would be appreciated.
This was an amazing time with a lot going on in alternative education. Two personal highlights were:
Twenty two issues were produced in total. Click on the issue number below to download. Each issue is about 20MB.
| Issue | Date | Notes |
| 01 | March 1974 | |
| 02 | August 1974 | |
| 03 | Sep-Oct 1974 | |
| 04 | Nov-Dec 1974 | Feature on non-sexist books |
| 05 | Jan-Feb 1975 | |
| 06 | March 1975 | Special issue on ecology and education |
| 07 | May 1975 | Third world issue |
| 08 | June 1975 | NSW issue. First issue with The Open Book pages |
| 09 | July 1975 | |
| 10 | August 1975 | |
| 11 | September 1975 | Melbourne issue |
| 12 | Oct 1975 | South Australian issue |
| 13 | Nov-Dec 1975 | Produced after The Dismissal but before the election |
| 14 | Feb-Mar 1976 | |
| 15 | June 1976 | |
| 16 | Jul-Aug 1976 | |
| 17 | Sep 1976 | |
| 18 | November 1976 | Short issue (10 pages) |
| 19 | February 1977 | Beginning teachers special |
| 20 | April 1977 | Employment and education special |
| 21 | June 1977 | |
| 22 | August 1977 | WA special issue. Announces final issue |
| ESS-zip-all | A 398 MB zip file of all issues and the two catalogue (link via Google Drive) |
In addition to issues of the magazine, two catalogues were produced:
