Overview

Eilean Giblin arrived in Australia from England in 1919 with a shipload of war brides, almost certainly the only woman not wearing a wedding ring; she believed both husband and wife should have rings or neither. She brought with her a commitment to women’s rights and social justice developed through the suffrage movement and left-wing social and political circles. During the next three decades, in three Australian cities, she worked to advance her feminist and humanitarian ideals. In Hobart in the 1920s she campaigned for ‘equal citizenship’; she was the first woman appointed to a Tasmanian hospital board; and she represented Tasmania at the 1923 International Woman Suffrage Congress in Rome. In Melbourne in the 1930s she led a committee that achieved the long sought goal of a non-denominational university women’s college. And in Canberra during World War II she was one of a small minority of Australians who championed the cause of the enemy aliens, many of them Jewish, deported from Britain on the ship Dunera, and she set off on a lone 500 kilometre journey to investigate their internment camp conditions. Patricia Clarke draws on original records and evidence, such as Giblin’s diary kept during World War II – a unique social record and a powerful witness to the immense suffering and futility of war – to portray the courageous public and private life of this unconventional feminist.

Full Product Details

9781921867842

Table of Contents

Reviews

Eilean Giblin ... was a pioneer who opened a door of possibility for women. -- Dale Spender

Author Information

Dr Patricia Clarke OAM is a writer, historian, editor and former journalist who has written extensively on women in Australian history. Several of her books are biographies of women writers, and others explore the role of letters and diaries in the lives of women. She edited poet Judith Wright’s autobiography and is joint editor of two books of Judith Wright’s letters. She has also written widely on media history. She is an Honorary Fellow of the Australian Academy of Humanities and a Fellow of the Federation of Australian Historical Societies. A former President and Councillor of the Canberra & District Historical Society, she edited the Society’s Canberra Historical Journal for fourteen years. She was Founding Honorary Secretary of the Independent Scholars Association of Australia and was elected a Life Member. Patricia Clarke has been a member of the Commonwealth Working Party for the Australian Dictionary of Biography since 1987, a member of the National Library of Australia’s Fellowship Advisory Committee since 1996 and in 2010 was appointed to the ACT Historic Houses Advisory Committee.

Tab Content 6

Countries Available