Ernestine Hill
Ernestine Hill | |
---|---|
Brisbane, Queensland | |
Occupation | journalist, travel writer and novelist |
Nationality | Australian |
Education | All Hallows' School, Brisbane |
Children | 1 son |
Ernestine Hill (born Mary Ernestine Hemmings, 21 January 1899 — 21 August 1972) was an Australian journalist,
Life
Born Mary Ernestine Hemmings in
Hill first attended school at a Catholic state school in Townsville before, following winning a bursary in the Queensland State School examination she was able to attend the more prestigious All Hallows' School in Brisbane as a boarder from 1910. Her father passed away in the same year.
While attending All Hallows', around 1914, Hill published her first poem in The Catholic Advocate and became a regular contributor to its children's page. In 1916 her poems where published as a volume, Peter Pan Land, and she was called a 'Queensland girl poet par excellence' and a 'genius unspoiled'. The proceeds from its sale were set aside to fund her studies in additional to her existing scholarship.[3]
Following the completion of her schooling there she attended Stott & Hoare's Business College, Brisbane where she gained high passes in shorthand and typing skills.[1] On completing her studies, she worked briefly in the public service (as a typist at the Department of Justice Library), and then for Smith's Weekly, Sydney, first as the secretary to the literary editor, J. F. Archibald, and later as a journalist and subeditor.
On 30 October 1924 her son Robert was born. Rumoured to be
During the 1930s she travelled extensively around Australia, writing as she went, primarily for Associated Newspapers and she is recorded as having travelled to places such as the East Kimberley (a record of 'Mrs Hill' appears in an October 1930 diary entry of Michael Durack) and Port Hedland; Hill recalled of this time that many of the people she met during this period were: "unaccustomed to the ways of the new woman and deceived by my outback shirt and trousers"; she was often mistaken for a man. The articles she produced appeared in the Sydney Sun and syndicated to other major city newspapers. She also regularly published pictorial essays in Walkabout (magazine)[4] and amassed a collection of over three thousand photographs in which she documenting the landscape and her encounters with Aboriginal people.[5]
In 1931 her sensationalist reporting of the discovery of gold in The Granites, north-west of Alice Springs in the Northern Territory, contributed to a gold rush and a stock-market boom. This rush resulted in a major failure which left many prospectors stranded and destitute, and Hill was attacked for irresponsible journalism.[1] This story is told, in detail, in Tragedy track: the story of The Granites by FE Baume (1933).[6]
It is also during this period that Hill first formed a relationship with
Hill then stopped travelling and worked for the
After resigning from the ABC, she resumed her travels, now with her son Robert by her side as a research assistant, but published little from her work during this period. The pair lived together as travellers in a caravan for many years.[1]
She was awarded a Commonwealth Literary Fund fellowship in 1959.[9] However, while this provided her with a small pension, her final years were characterised by financial and health problems and, in 1970, she returned to Brisbane to be cared for by her family and died in their care in 1972.
Legacy
The majority of her writing, which comprised books as well as articles for newspapers and such journals as
She is best known for The Territory (1951). However, her only novel, My Love Must Wait (1941), a fictionalised biography of sailor and navigator Matthew Flinders, sold well overseas as well as in Australia.
Hill's portrait, painted in 1970 by Sam Fullbrook, is in the Queensland Art Gallery[10] an image of this portrait is available through the National Archives of Australia.[11]
Works
Non-fiction
- The Great Australian Loneliness (London: 1937; Australia:1940)
- Water into Gold (1937)
- Australia: Land of Contrasts (1943)
- Flying Doctor Calling (1947)
- The Territory (1951)
- Kabbarli: A Personal Memoir of Daisy Bates (1973)
Fiction
- My Love Must Wait (1941)
Radio plays
- Santa Claus of Christmas Creek in Australian Radio Plays (1946)
Works about
The following books have been written about Hill and her life:
- Van Velzen, Marianne (2016). The call of the outback: the remarkable story of Ernestine Hill, nomad, adventurer and trailblazer. Allen & Unwin.
- Hogan, Eleanor (2021). Into the loneliness : the unholy alliance of Ernestine Hill and Daisy Bates. NewSouth.[3]
See also
References
- ^ a b c d e Margriet R. Bonnin and Nancy Bonnin, 'Hill, Mary Ernestine (1899–1972)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/hill-mary-ernestine-10503/text18637, published first in hardcopy 1996, accessed online 22 June 2017.
- ^ "Ernestine Hill :: biography at :: at Design and Art Australia Online". www.daao.org.au. Retrieved 15 November 2023.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-74223-659-9.
- ^ "Trove". trove.nla.gov.au. Retrieved 15 November 2023.
- ^ a b "Hill, Ernestine". AWR. Retrieved 15 November 2023.
- ^ Baume, Eric; Flynn, John, 1880-1951, (former owner) (1933), Tragedy track : the story of the Granites, Frank C. Johnson, retrieved 15 November 2023
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: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) - OCLC 713030311.
- ^ Author record, Ernestine Hill, AustLit (www.austlit.edu.au), St Lucia: The University of Queensland, 2002-. [Retrieved 22/06/2017].
- ^ Ernestine Hill Collection, UQFL18, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland Library.
- ^ "Ernestine Hill :: biography at :: at Design and Art Australia Online". www.daao.org.au. Retrieved 15 November 2023.
- ^ Art - Paintings - Ernestine Hill - Samuel Fullbrook, 1979, retrieved 16 November 2023
Further reading
- Debra Adelaide, Australian Women Writers: A Bibliographic Guide, London, Pandora, 1988.
- Marianne van Velzen, Call of the Outback: The Remarkable Story of Ernestine Hill, Nomad, Adventurer and Trailblazer, Crows Nest, N.S.W., Allen & Unwin, 2016.
- Eleanor Hogan, 'Into the Loneliness: The Unholy Alliance of Ernestine Hill and Daisy Bates'. Sydney: NewSouth Publishing. 2021.
External links
- Ernestine Hill papers (UQFL18) held at Fryer Library, The University of Queensland Library, and digitised material from collection.
- Ernestine Hill AustLit entry
- Hill, Ernestine at The Encyclopedia of Women and Leadership in Twentieth-Century Australia