Alexandra Hasluck

Dame
Alexandra Hasluck
AD
Hasluck in 1969
Spouse of the governor-general of Australia
In office
30 April 1969 – 11 July 1974
MonarchElizabeth II
Governor GeneralSir Paul Hasluck
Preceded byMaie, Lady Casey
Succeeded byAlison, Lady Kerr
Personal details
BornAlexandra Margaret Martin Darker
(1908-08-26)26 August 1908
North Perth, Western Australia, Australia
Died18 June 1993(1993-06-18) (aged 84)
Claremont, Western Australia, Australia
Resting placeKarrakatta Cemetery, Perth, Western Australia, Australia
Spouse
​
​
(m. 1932; died 1993)​
ChildrenNicholas Hasluck (son)
Alma materUniversity of Western Australia
OccupationWriter and vice-regal wife

Dame Alexandra Margaret Martin Hasluck, Lady Hasluck, AD (née Darker; 26 August 1908 – 18 June 1993), also known as Alix Hasluck, was an Australian author and social historian. She published a number of works on the history of Western Australia. She was the wife of Sir Paul Hasluck, Governor-General of Australia.

Early life

Hasluck was born on 26 August 1908 in North Perth, Western Australia. She was the only child of Evelyn Margaret (née Hill) and John William Darker. Her father was an engineer and her mother was one of the first female graduates of the University of Sydney.[1] Her family had been established in Western Australia for four generations.[2]

Hasluck attended Ormiston College from 1914 to 1918 and Perth College from 1919 to 1925. As a high school student her poetry was published in The Australasian. She went on to attend the University of Western Australia, graduating Bachelor of Arts in 1929. Hasluck was a sub-editor of the university magazine Black Swan and enrolled in an honours course, but had to discontinue her research on the Arthurian legend for financial reasons. She subsequently taught English and French at a small private school and later at St Hilda's Anglican School for Girls.[1]

Marriage and public life

In 1932, she married Paul Hasluck, who (as Sir Paul) was Governor-General of Australia 1969–1974. In 1974 he was offered an extension of his term by the Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam, and he was willing to serve an extra two years, but Lady Hasluck refused to remain at Yarralumla longer than the originally agreed five years[3] and they returned to Perth.[4] She was in poor health and their son Rollo had recently died.[5] Whitlam then appointed Sir John Kerr. Historians of the period are certain that if Hasluck had still been Governor-General in 1975, as he would have been had his wife not intervened, the constitutional crisis of that year would have ended differently. Hasluck himself implied this in his book, The Office of Governor-General and also in the Queale Lecture.

In the 1978 Queen's Birthday Honours, Lady Hasluck was appointed the first Dame of the Order of Australia for "pre-eminent achievement in the fields of literature and history and for extraordinary and meritorious public service to Australia".[6]

Writing

Hasluck wrote poetry and prose from a young age. Her early interests included medieval England, and in the 1930s she wrote a historical novel titled Tudor Blood which was rejected for publication. She developed an interest in the history of Western Australia at university, which she shared with her husband, and in 1934 she replaced him as honorary secretary of the Western Australian Historical Society.[1]

Hasluck published eleven books on history as well as a collection of short stories and an autobiography.[7] Her works focused on the early colonial period of Western Australia and included full-length biographies of Georgiana Molloy (1955), Thomas Peel (1965), and Edmund Du Cane (1973), as well as shorter works on James Stirling and C. Y. O'Connor. Her 1959 book Unwilling Emigrants examined the convict era of Western Australia through a study of convict William Sykes. Her writing was targeted at general readers and "brought the history of Western Australia to a popular audience at a time when the State's historiography was in its infancy".[1] In 1981, she published her autobiography, Portrait in a Mirror.[8]

Death

She died in 1993.[9] She was buried at Karrakatta Cemetery in Perth.[10]

Dame Alexandra and Sir Paul Hasluck are joint eponyms of the Western Australian Federal House of Representatives Division of Hasluck.

Publications

  • Georgiana Molloy: Portrait with Background (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1955)[11][12]
  • Unwilling Emigrants (London: Oxford University Press, 1959)[13]
  • Remembered With Affection (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1963; book design by Alison Forbes)[14]
  • Thomas Peel of Swan River (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1965)[15]
  • Audrey Tennyson's Vice-Regal Days (Canberra: National Library of Australia, 1978)[16]
  • Portrait in a Mirror (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1981)[8]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d Hunter, Ann P. (2017). "Hasluck, Dame Alexandra Margaret (Alix) (1908–1993)". Australian Dictionary of Biography.
  2. ^ Wilde, William H.; Hooton, Joy; Andrews, Barry, eds. (1994). "Hasluck, Dame Alexandra". The Oxford Companion to Australian Literature (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195533811. Retrieved 22 January 2026.
  3. ^ Wurth, Bob (2 January 2010). "How one strong woman changed the course of Australian history". The Age. Archived from the original on 4 January 2010.
  4. ^ Smith, David (10 November 2020). "On the Road from Yarralumla". Quadrant. 46 (6): 20–28. doi:10.3316/informit.256888070160690. Retrieved 22 January 2026.
  5. ^ Stannage, Tom; Saunders, Kay; Nile, Richard (1998). Paul Hasluck in Australian History: Civic Personality and Public Life. Univ. of Queensland Press. ISBN 978-0-7022-3097-4.
  6. ^ "Australian Government Gazette – Special" (PDF). Government House of The Commonwealth of Australia. Archived from the original (PDF) on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 12 June 2016.
  7. ^ "Author Hasluck dies, 84". The Canberra Times. 19 June 1993. p. 3. Retrieved 9 January 2014 – via National Library of Australia.
  8. ^ a b White, Kate (1 May 1982). "Kate White reviews 'Portrait in a Mirror: An autobiography' by Alexandra Hasluck". Australian Book Review. Retrieved 22 January 2026.
  9. ^ "Alexandra Hasluck (d.1993)". Fremantle Press. Retrieved 22 January 2026.
  10. ^ Reid, Robert (2014). "Travel: Off the beaten trail". Medicus. 54 (9). Australian Medical Association, Western Australian Branch: 64–65. doi:10.3316/informit.658456068738003. Retrieved 22 January 2026.
  11. ^ Smithyman, Kendrick (1 June 1976). "Alexandra Hasluck, Portrait with Background, O.U.P., Melbourne, 1966..." The Journal of Commonwealth Literature. 11 (1): 80–82. doi:10.1177/002198947601100106. ISSN 0021-9894. Retrieved 22 January 2026.
  12. ^ White, Jessica (8 November 2020). "The Tasmanian papers: From the miniature to the momentous: Georgiana Molloy and the craft of collecting". Island (135): 33–38. doi:10.3316/informit.884826461687358. Retrieved 22 January 2026.
  13. ^ Hyland, Joanne (2020). "'The vilest and most degraded of human beings': An investigation into why female convicts were not transported to Western Australia". Studies in Western Australian History (34): 147–163. doi:10.3316/informit.426490097755392. Retrieved 22 January 2026.
  14. ^ Recollection | Alison Forbes, recollection.com.au. Retrieved 18 June 2023.
  15. ^ Blackton, Charles S. (1 April 1967). "Thomas Peel of Swan River. By Alexandra Hasluck . (New York: Oxford University Press. 1965. Pp. xiv, 273. $7.80.)". The American Historical Review. 72 (3): 1067–1068. doi:10.1086/ahr/72.3.1067. ISSN 1937-5239. Retrieved 22 January 2026.
  16. ^ Tennyson, Lady Audrey Georgina Florence Boyle; Boyle, Zacyntha Antonia Lorenzina (1978). Audrey Tennyson's Vice-regal Days: The Australian Letters of Audrey Lady Tennyson to Her Mother Zacyntha Boyle, 1899–1903. National Library Australia. ISBN 978-0-642-99115-7.

Further reading

  • "Obituaries for Sir Paul Hasluck and Dame Alexandra Hasluck", Early Days, 10 (5): 439–441, 1993, ISSN 0312-6145
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