George Helon

George Helon (born 1965),[1] also known under the pen names George Wieslaw Helon and Jerzy Wieslaw Helon,[1] is an Australian author,[2] businessman, and historian[3] of Polish descent.[4] Among other titles and honours,[5] he is an hereditary Count and Nobleman of the Polish Kingdom and Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Helon is on the board of directors of the Polish Nobility Association Foundation.

George William Helon
George Helon (right) at Freedom of the City of London Ceremony on 12 September 2016.
Born
Wieslaw George Helon

1965 (age 54–55)
Bridgnorth, England
NationalityBritish (birth)
Australian (residence)
Other namesGeorge Wieslaw Helon
Jerzy Wieslaw Helon
Occupation
Notable work
  • Aboriginal Australia
  • The English-Gooreng/Gooreng English Dictionary
  • First Names of the Polish Commonwealth
Websitegeorgehelon.com

He has written numerous ethnographic and etymological books, including Aboriginal Australia, The English-Gooreng/Gooreng-English Dictionary,[1] and First Names of the Polish Commonwealth (which he co-authored with William F. Hoffman). He is also the founder and CEO of MedicReady™,[6] a company in Australia that produces accident and emergency medical data first response kits and cards.

Early life and education

George William Helon was born Wieslaw George Helon in 1965 in Bridgnorth, Shropshire, England.[7][8] His family has noble Polish ancestry, and Helon is a hereditary Count and Nobleman of the Polish Kingdom and Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.[9] He was born with a rare autosomal genetic disorder known as Pallister–Hall syndrome, the symptoms of which (including a rare pituitary tumour and gelastic seizures)[10] he has experienced for his entire life.[11]

His father, Zbigniew "Alan" Helon,[12] was deported to a Gulag forced labor camp in Mucznaja, Archangelsk,[13] Siberia with his family as a toddler in 1940. Zbigniew eventually emigrated to the United Kingdom where he met his future wife (and George's mother) Elzbieta (Elizabeth)[14] Misiura. In 1970, the family left Wolverhampton to move to Melbourne[7][15] where Zbigniew had been offered an engineering job at B.S.P. Planning & Design.[16] George Helon attended St Patrick's College in Ballarat, Victoria between 1980 and 1982.[17][18]

Life and career

Helon published several books of poetry and prose in 1984, including Book of Love and Destruction, Scattered Thoughts, and All for Dreamers.[7] In the 1990 Australian federal election, Helon ran as an independent candidate for the Australian House of Representatives seat in the Division of Ballarat, losing to the Liberal Party of Australia candidate, Michael Ronaldson.[18][19] In 1992, he moved to Bundaberg, Queensland with his family. In 1994, Helon's The English-Gooreng/Gooreng-English Dictionary was published. In October, the Gooreng Gooreng tribe honored Helon with the tribal name of Buralnyarla (White Owl). In December of that year, the dictionary was presented to the Australian Parliament's House of Representatives by the Federal Member for the Division of Hinkler, Paul Neville, who publicly acknowledged Helon's work[7][20]

In 1997, Helon was a candidate for the Constitutional Monarchists in the Australian Constitutional Convention Election.[21][22] By that time, he had also been registered as a Justice of the Peace (qualified) in Queensland. In 1998, Helon published 3 books: The Gooreng Gooreng Tribe of South-east Queensland, Aboriginal Australia, and First Names of the Polish Commonwealth.[7] In 2001, Helon was hospitalized for 12 days with gelastic seizures and an inoperable 4.5-centimeter brain tumor associated with his Pallister-Hall syndrome.[11] He moved with his family to Toowoomba in 2002 in order to be closer to medical specialists.[7][15]

A hereditary Count and nobleman of the Polish Kingdom and Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Helon was appointed as the Australian representative of the Polish Nobility Association Foundation in 2005.[9][23] By 2008, he held titles such as the Marquis de Helon, Knight Commander (KCSG) of the Pontifical Equestrian Order of St. Gregory the Great, Knight of the Grand Cross of the Order of the Eagle of Georgia and the Seamless Tunic of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Grand Officer of the Vietnamese Imperial Order of the Dragon of Annam, and the Grand Cross of the Imperial Ethiopian Order of Saint Mary of Zion.[18][24][25] Between 2012 and 2013, Helon served on the Toowoomba Regional Access and Disability Advisory Committee.[26][27] In 2014, the Helon Theological Reference Library (a private theological and biblical library Helon founded) began displaying a 1:3 reproduction of the Ark of the Covenant.[28][29]

On 8 May 2016, he founded MedicReady™,[30] a company in Australia that produces accident and emergency medical data first response kits and cards that contain information about a patient's medical history.[11] In 2018, he was named to The Toowoomba Chronicle's "Power 100" list.[31]

Awards

In 2016, Helon received the Freedom of the City of London.[32][28][33]

On 17 April 2019, Helon was publicly recognised for his long service as a Justice of the Peace by the State of Queensland when the Shadow Attorney-General and Shadow Minister for Justice David Janetzki MP presented him with an award for 25 years of distinguished service as a Justice of the Peace.[34][35]

Helon was commissioned a Kentucky Colonel on 15 April 2020 during the governorship of The Honourable Andy Beshear, Governor of the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Appointment as a Kentucky Colonel is the highest civilian honour the Governor of the Commonwealth of Kentucky can bestow.[36]

Controversy

On 1 December 2016 Helon ignited a national controversy in Australia after he circulated a picture on Twitter and Facebook featuring nine golliwog dolls placed underneath a sign at a Terry White Chemists in Toowoomba which invited shoppers to "Experience a White Christmas." Helon told the Toowoomba Chronicle "It's a bit of a shocker, I walked past and thought – what?"[37] “I showed a photo to other people and they said, ‘what the hell?’ I don't think there was any ill intent, it was just inappropriately placed."[38]

Australian Aboriginal activist, author and filmmaker Stephen Hagan described Toowoomba as the "most racist city in Australia".[39] Hagan told SBS news that "there's no place for Golliwogs in Australian society now. To me and to all people of colour, it's a depiction of a racist era when black people didn't have any rights."

Terry White Chemists subsequently banned the sale of such dolls from any franchise nationwide and the franchisee "unreservedly apologised" for the "regrettable error".[40]

Bibliography
Publication year Title Original publisher ISBN Notes
1984 Book of Love and Destruction Self-published ISBN 9780959088120 Poetry
Scattered Thoughts ISBN 095908813X Epigrams
All for Dreamers ISBN 0959088113 Poetry
1991 Free Spirit Generation Tree ISBN 0646026658 Poetry
1993 By Another Name: A Four Language Guide to Christian Names and Their Foreign Equivalents Polish Genealogical Society of Australia ISBN 0646171631
1994 Polish-German Place Name Changes ISBN 064618153X
Destination Australia : Extracts from the Wuerttemberg Emigration Index ISBN 0646191608
The English-Gooreng Gooreng-English Dictionary Gurang Land Council ISBN 0646206540
Index to the Newsletters, Journals, and Bulletins of the Polish Genealogical Society of America, 1979–1993 Polish Genealogical Society of America ISBN 0924207019 Compiled with Rosemary A. Chorzempa
1998 The Gooreng Gooreng Tribe of South-east Queensland: Its Traditional Tribal Territory, Clan Divisions and Proper Names Centre for Historical, Aboriginal and International Research Map
Aboriginal Australia: Register of Tribe, Clan, Horde, Linguistic Group, Language Names and AIATSIS Language Codes – including Synonyms, Misnomers and Approximate Locations ISBN 0646352121
First Names of the Polish Commonwealth: Origins & Meanings Polish Genealogical Society of America ISBN 092420706X Written with William F. Hoffman
gollark: https://about.fb.com/news/2021/02/changes-to-sharing-and-viewing-news-on-facebook-in-australia/
gollark: Yeees.
gollark: Hmm. Apparently Facebook has censored all Australian news due to licensing disputes.
gollark: I do not like this particular implementation of new colors.
gollark: I mean, you basically just said "I prefer changing colors sometimes".

References
  1. Arnold, John (2004). The Bibliography of Australian Literature: F-J to 2000. St Lucia: University of Queensland Press. p. 401. ISBN 0702235008. Retrieved 2 January 2019.
  2. Who's Who of Australian Writers (Second ed.). D.W. Thorpe. 1995. p. 304. ISBN 1875589201. Retrieved 2 January 2019.
  3. Carrington, Lois (1999). OZBIB: A Linguistic Bibliography of Aboriginal Australia and the Torres Strait Islands. Canberra: Dept. of Linguistics, Research School of Pacific Studies, Australian National University. pp. 103, 247, 272. ISBN 978-0-85883-515-3. Retrieved 2 April 2019.
  4. Beiga, Mark (1998). Materials in the National Library of Australia on Poles in Australia : compiled on behalf of the Polish Historical Institute in Australia. Canberra: Polish Historical Institute in Australia. Archived from the original on 10 December 2002. Retrieved 18 December 2018.
  5. de Montells, Jose (2012). Libro de oro del Muy Noble Cabildo de San Jorge y Santiago apostol. Rom Editions. p. 71. ISBN 84-935701-7-6.
  6. "ABN Lookup". Australian Business Register. Australian Government. Retrieved 18 December 2018.
  7. "George W. Helon – Biography". AustLit: The Australian Literature Resource. 27 January 2015. Retrieved 11 October 2018.
  8. Niewenhuizen, John; Spearritt, Peter; Arnold, John (1 September 1995). Who's Who of Australian Writers (Subsequent ed.). K G Saur Verlag Gmbh & Co. ISBN 978-1875589203.
  9. Miller, Merryl (22 November 2005). "George digs into family history to claim past". The Toowoomba Chronicle. Retrieved 11 October 2018.
  10. "Personal Stories. Pallister-Hall Syndrome – it's no laughing matter!". Genetic Support Network of Victoria (Winter 2018): 18–19. Retrieved 12 December 2018.
  11. Harris, Meghan (7 July 2017). "Toowoomba man with rare disorder creates life-saving kit". The Toowoomba Chronicle. Retrieved 11 October 2018.
  12. "Record Search Helon". National Archives of Australia. National Archives of Australia. p. 10. Retrieved 12 December 2018.
  13. "O Indeksie". Instytut Pamięci Narodowej (in Polish). Warsaw, Poland: Instytut Pamięci Narodowej. Retrieved 18 December 2018. Nazwisko = Helon; Imie = Zbigniew
  14. "Record Search Helon". National Archives of Australia. National Archives of Australia. p. 6. Retrieved 12 December 2018.
  15. "Nobleman lived life of courage, honour". The Toowoomba Chronicle. 14 April 2012. Retrieved 11 October 2018.
  16. "Record Search Helon". National Archives of Australia. National Archives of Australia. p. 11. Retrieved 12 December 2018.
  17. Naughtin, P.C. (1993). History and Heritage: St Patrick's College Ballarat 1893–1993. Board of St Patrick's College Ballarat. p. 400. ISBN 0646121863. Retrieved 2 January 2019.
  18. Liston, Lorrie (13 September 2016). "Where Are They Now – George Helon". St. Patrick's College. Retrieved 16 December 2019.
  19. "COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA LEGISLATIVE ELECTION OF 24 MARCH 1990". Adam Carr. Retrieved 11 October 2018.
  20. "Gooreng Gooreng Dictionary". Parliament of Australia. 6 December 1994. p. 4,068. Retrieved 11 October 2018.
  21. "1997 Constitutional Convention Electoral Results ans Statistics" (PDF). Canberra: Australian Electoral Commission. p. 39. Retrieved 2 April 2019.
  22. "The Monarchy and Republicanism – The European Perspective". Queenslanders for Constitutional Monarchy. Retrieved 11 October 2018.
  23. "Old Boys in the News" (PDF). The Shamrock. July 2006. Retrieved 11 October 2018.
  24. "Old Boys in the News" (PDF). The Shamrock. May 2008. Retrieved 11 October 2018.
  25. Masters, Megan (21 April 2010). "Polish aircraft disaster suspicion". The Toowoomba Chronicle. Retrieved 11 October 2018.
  26. Calcino, Chris (5 December 2012). "One step to go for Disability Advisory Committee". The Toowoomba Chronicle. Retrieved 11 October 2018.
  27. "Committee targets review of disabled car-parking numbers". The Toowoomba Chronicle. 12 February 2013. Retrieved 11 October 2018.
  28. Liston, Lorrie (2 August 2016). "Old Boys in the news". St. Patrick's College. Retrieved 16 December 2019.
  29. Backhouse, Andrew (4 December 2014). "Ark of the Covenant comes to Toowoomba". The Toowoomba Chronicle. Retrieved 11 October 2018.
  30. "MedicReady". IP Australia. Australian Government. Retrieved 18 December 2018.
  31. Miko, Tara (17 August 2018). "Compassion critical for city influencers". The Toowoomba Chronicle. Retrieved 11 October 2018.
  32. "List of Applications for the Freedom" (PDF). City of London. 3 March 2016. Retrieved 11 October 2018.
  33. Helon, George W. (16 November 2016). "The Freedom of the City of London: a peculiar privilege to die for!". The Toowoomba Chronicle. Retrieved 11 October 2018.
  34. "Toowoomba man recognised for his long service as a Justice of the Peace". David Janetzki MP. 17 April 2019. Retrieved 24 April 2019.
  35. Hinze, Hayley (23 April 2019). "25 Years Recognised". Highlife Downs Magazine. Queensland Magazines. Retrieved 24 April 2019.
  36. Adams, Michael. "Secretary of State". Official Website of the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Retrieved 17 July 2020.
  37. Backhouse, Andrew (1 December 2016). "White Christmas 'golliwog' display labelled racist". Toowoomba Chronicle. News Corp Australia. Retrieved 24 April 2019.
  38. Paola, Sheshtyn (1 December 2016). "Terry White Chemist under fire for golliwog display". Australian Journal of Pharmacy. Retrieved 24 April 2019.
  39. "Toowoomba accused by activists of being Australia's most racist city after chemist shop display". The New Zealand Herald. New Zealand Media & Entertainment. 2 December 2016. Retrieved 24 April 2019.
  40. Soldani, Bianca (1 December 2016). "Offensive 'white Christmas' display sparks calls for Golliwog boycott in Australia". SBS Australia. Retrieved 24 April 2019.
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