Bill (William) Beatty was a journalist and author who collected folkloric and related materials informally in the field and through correspondence with readers and listeners to his ABC radio programs in the 1940s and 50s. He published much of this material in a series of popular books, most relevantly here A Treasury of Australian Folk Tales and Traditions (1960).
There is an interview with Beatty by H. de Berg, in the NLA (transcript, 1963, National Library of Australia) and other biographical and related materials at
Scriptwriters, New South Wales, biography files: Bill Beatty (ABC Document Archives, Sydney)
and the National Archives of Australia at
William Beatty, Australian programme material, Australoddities, correspondence and scripts, 1938-48, SP 300/1, box 2, Series B, SP 341/1, box 64, SP 368/1, boxes 2 and 6, SP 1011/2, box 11, SP 1297/2, box 14, Series C.
His ADB entry is at
https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/beatty-william-alfred-bill-9463
