Annabelle Rankin

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Government Whip in the Senate
In office
11 June 1951 – 8 March 1966
Prime MinisterRobert Menzies
Preceded byReg Wright
Succeeded byMalcolm Scott
Senator for Queensland
In office
1 July 1947 – 24 May 1971
Succeeded byNeville Bonner
Personal details
Born
Annabelle Jane Mary Rankin

(1908-07-28)28 July 1908
South Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
Died30 August 1986(1986-08-30) (aged 78)
South Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
Political partyLiberal
RelationsColin Rankin (father)

Dame Annabelle Jane Mary Rankin

DBE (28 July 1908 – 30 August 1986) was an Australian politician and diplomat. She was the first woman from Queensland
elected to parliament, the first woman federal departmental minister, and the first Australian woman to be appointed head of a foreign mission.

Rankin was born in

High Commissioner to New Zealand
from 1971 to 1974, she was the first woman to head an Australian mission overseas.

Early life

Rankin as a small child, with her mother and grandmother

Rankin was born on 28 July 1908 in

Queensland Legislative Assembly (1905–1918).[1]

Rankin grew up on her father's sugarcane farm on the

heritage-listed.[2][3] Rankin attended the local state schools in Childers and Howard before completing her education as a boarder at the Glennie Memorial School in Toowoomba.[4]

As an unmarried woman from a wealthy family, Rankin was not expected to enter the workforce. She involved herself in various community organisations, teaching Sunday school and founding a local unit of the Girl Guides.[1][5] She was encouraged by her father to travel overseas, visiting China and Japan soon after leaving school. She visited Europe in 1936, working in the slums of London and with refugees from the Spanish Civil War; while in Gibraltar she witnessed the bombing of La Línea de la Concepción.[4]

After her father's death in 1940, Rankin began working as a clerk for the Union Trustee Company of Australia. She was the commandant of a Brisbane-based

Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) the following year. She was responsible for the organisation's work around the welfare of servicewomen, in which capacity she travelled to military bases in North Queensland. In 1946, she was offered a position in Greece with the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, but declined in order to enter politics in Australia.[1][4]

Politics

Rankin in the 1940s

In July 1946, Rankin won

Queensland People's Party, the contemporary state affiliate of the Liberal Party. Her selection ended the political career of Senate veteran Harry Foll. Rankin's first campaign speech in Maryborough reportedly "attracted one of the largest crowds ever to attend a political meeting in that town, the number including almost twice as many women as men".[1] At the 1946 federal election she was elected to a term beginning in July 1947. She was the first Queensland woman elected to federal parliament, the second woman elected to the Senate after Dorothy Tangney, and the second woman from the Liberal Party elected to federal parliament after Enid Lyons.[4]

Due to consecutive landslide defeats and the

Opposition Whip
, the first woman to serve as a whip in federal parliament. Because of these very low numbers, the duties of the whip's position were virtually non-existent. This led to one commentator remarking: "Senator Rankin should have an easy job, unless the Leader and Deputy-Leader fall down on theirs".[1]

Rankin was a prominent member of the Australian Women's Movement Against Socialisation (AWMAS), formed by Millicent Preston-Stanley to oppose the Chifley government's proposed nationalisation of the banks.[4]

Rankin in 1967

On 26 January 1966, Prime Minister

High Commissioner to New Zealand, a post she held to 1974. Following her retirement she returned to Brisbane where she continued to be involved in voluntary organisations.[4]

Rankin is the only woman to be

Mother of the Senate, an informal title given to the senator with the longest continuous service. She held the title from 1968 to her retirement in 1971, together with Fathers of the Senate Justin O’Byrne and Bert Hendrickson.[7]

Death

Rankin died in Brisbane aged 78, on 30 August 1986.[5] She was cremated following a State funeral at St John's Anglican Cathedral in Brisbane.

Honours

Annabelle Rankin was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) on 13 June 1957 for political and public services.[8] In 1977 Rankin was made a Life Member of the Queensland Branch of the Children's Book Council of Australia.

Legacy

The Electoral Division of Rankin, which came into effect at the 1984 election, is named in her honour. The Dame Annabelle Rankin Award was inaugurated by the Queensland Branch of the Children's Book Council of Australia in her memory.

See also

Notes

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Marchant, Sylvia (2010). "Rankin, Dame Annabelle Jane Mary (1908–1986)". The Biographical Dictionary of the Australian Senate. Vol. 3. Retrieved 22 November 2019.
  2. ^ "Howard". Queensland Places. Centre for the Government of Queensland, University of Queensland. Archived from the original on 8 August 2020. Retrieved 14 September 2012.
  3. Fraser Coast Regional Council. Archived
    from the original on 8 August 2020. Retrieved 7 December 2017.
  4. ^
    ISSN 1833-7538
    . Retrieved 8 December 2017.
  5. ^ a b "Rankin, Annabelle Jane Mary (1908-1986)". Australian Women. National Foundation for Australian Women. Archived from the original on 8 August 2020. Retrieved 8 June 2015.
  6. ^ "Suffrage without violence". The Canberra Times. ACT. 10 July 1968. p. 17. Archived from the original on 8 August 2020. Retrieved 3 March 2016.
  7. ^ "The Father of the House". Museum of Australian Democracy at Old Parliament House. Archived from the original on 4 October 2020. Retrieved 4 October 2020.
  8. ^ "Annabelle Jane Mary Rankin". Australian Honours Database. Canberra, Australia: Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. 13 June 1957. Retrieved 12 January 2023.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Annabelle Rankin.
Political offices
Preceded by Minister for Housing
1966–1971 		Succeeded by
Kevin Cairns
Diplomatic posts
Preceded by
Australian High Commissioner to New Zealand

1971 – 1974 		Succeeded by
Brian Clarence Hill
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