Ernestine Hill

From Vero - Wikipedia
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates Template:Use Australian English Template:Infobox writer

Ernestine Hill (born Mary Ernestine Hemmings, 21 January 1899 — 21 August 1972) was an Australian journalist, travel writer and novelist. Known for her various travels across Australia and her writings about the diverse landscapes and cultures in the country, she published books such as The Great Australian Loneliness in 1937 and The Territory in 1951. She also wrote a novel, My Love Must Wait, published in 1941.<ref name=":0" /><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Life

Born Mary Ernestine Hemmings in Rockhampton, Queensland, she was the daughter of Robert Hemmings and Margaret "Magde" Foster-Lyman and they spent much of her early life moving up and down the coast, from Mackay to Thursday Island as they both had mobile professions; she was their only child.<ref name=":2" />

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 died 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.<ref name=":2">Template:Cite book</ref>

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.<ref name=":0">Margriet R. Bonnin and Nancy Bonnin, 'Hill, Mary Ernestine (1899–1972)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/hill-mary-ernestine-10503/text18637, published first in hardcopy 1996, accessed online 22 June 2017.</ref> 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 Robert Clyde Packer's son, who she met in her role at Smith's Weekly which he founded, although this has never been publicly acknowledged. Ernestine assumed the surname Hill after the birth to protect herself saying that her husband, Mr Hill, was either overseas or dead.<ref name=":0" /> Following Robert's birth she took a role with The Examiner (Tasmania) with family, including Hills mother, caring for him; this would continue for most of his young life and Hill had little choice but to do so as a single woman.

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)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and amassed a collection of over three thousand photographs in which she documenting the landscape and her encounters with Aboriginal people.<ref name=":3">Template:Cite web</ref>

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.<ref name=":0" /> This story is told, in detail, in Tragedy track: the story of The Granites by FE Baume (1933).<ref>Template:Citation</ref>

It is also during this period that Hill first formed a relationship with Daisy Bates, who she first camped with a Ooldea, South Australia in June 1932; their relationship became an ongoing one throughout the remainder of Bates' life.<ref name=":2" /> Together the produced a syndicated series of articles entitled 'My Natives and I', first published in The Advertiser (Adelaide) in 1936. They worked together closely and Hill later claimed to be mostly responsible as a ghost-writer for Bates' The Passing of the Aborigines, although this is a contentious issue.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> AustLit: The Australian Literature Resource claims that Bates eventually confirmed that Hill did ghost-write the book.<ref>Author record, Ernestine Hill, AustLit (www.austlit.edu.au), St Lucia: The University of Queensland, 2002-. [Retrieved 22/06/2017].</ref>

Hill then stopped travelling and worked for the ABC from 1940 from 1944, first as the editor of the ABC Weekly's women's pages (1940-1942) and then held the position of commissioner (1941-1944).<ref name=":3" /> Hill and her son were both pacifists and much of this war period was spent attempting to help Robert, who had already been conscripted, avoid war service. She lobbied directly to John Curtin for his conscription to be deferred as he was of invaluable assistance to her research and that her work was of 'outstanding value to Australia'.<ref name=":2" /> She also wrote to H. V. Evatt, the then Attorney-General of Australia, asking him to intervene. Despite their efforts Robert was ultimately forced to the Cowra recruit camp in May 1944 but was shortly after discharged as 'mentally unfit' in October 1944.<ref name=":2" />

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.<ref name=":0" />

She was awarded a Commonwealth Literary Fund fellowship in 1959.<ref name=":1">Ernestine Hill Collection, UQFL18, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland Library.</ref> 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 Walkabout, resulted from her wide travels across Australia. They recorded her adventures and focus on the Australian landscape. She could also be controversial.

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<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> an image of this portrait is available through the National Archives of Australia.<ref>Template:Citation</ref>

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

Radio plays

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.<ref name=":2" />

See also

References

<references />

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.

Template:Authority control

Retrieved from "https://wiki.sarg.dev/index.php?title=Ernestine_Hill&oldid=582182"