Dame Alexandra Margaret Martin Hasluck, Lady Hasluck, (née Darker; 26 August 1908 – 18 June 1993), also known as Alix Hasluck, was an author and
social historian
Social history, often called the new social history, is a field of history that looks at the lived experience of the past. In its "golden age" it was a major growth field in the 1960s and 1970s among scholars, and still is well represented in his ...
Paul Hasluck
Sir Paul Meernaa Caedwalla Hasluck, (1 April 1905 – 9 January 1993) was an Australian statesman who served as the 17th Governor-General of Australia, in office from 1969 to 1974. Prior to that, he was a Liberal Party politician, holding min ...
,
Governor-General of Australia
The governor-general of Australia is the representative of the monarch, currently King Charles III, in Australia.Perth, Western Australia, the only child of John William Darker and Evelyn Margaret ( Hill) Darker, she attended Presbyterian Ladies' College from 1916 to 1918, followed by Perth College, and was a graduate of the University of Western Australia.
In 1932, she married
Paul Hasluck
Sir Paul Meernaa Caedwalla Hasluck, (1 April 1905 – 9 January 1993) was an Australian statesman who served as the 17th Governor-General of Australia, in office from 1969 to 1974. Prior to that, he was a Liberal Party politician, holding min ...
, who (as Sir Paul) was
Governor-General of Australia
The governor-general of Australia is the representative of the monarch, currently King Charles III, in Australia.Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam, and he was willing to serve an extra two years, but Lady Hasluck (as she then was) refused to remain at Yarralumla longer than the originally agreed five years. 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".
Dame Alexandra Hasluck's published works included talks to the Royal West Australian Historical Society as well as 11 books and numerous articles. Another achievement was the editing of ''Audrey Tennyson's Vice-Regal Days'', written by Lady Audrey Tennyson, wife of Hallam Tennyson, 2nd Baron Tennyson, who was Governor-General from 1903 to 1904.
Death
She died in 1993. Dame Alexandra and Sir Paul Hasluck are joint eponyms of the Western Australian Federal House of Representatives
Division of Hasluck
The Division of Hasluck is an electoral division of the Australian House of Representatives, located in Western Australia.
History
The division was proclaimed at a redistribution of Western Australia's electoral divisions on 20 November 2000, ...
.
Publications
* ''Georgiana Molloy: Portrait with Background'' (1955)
* ''
Unwilling Emigrants
''Unwilling Emigrants'' is a book by Alexandra Hasluck. It is both a general study of Western Australia's convict era, and a biography of a particular convict, William Sykes (convict), William Sykes. First published in 1959 by Oxford Universit ...
'' (1959)
* ''Thomas Peel of Swan River'' (1965)
* ''Audrey Tennyson's Vice-Regal Days'' (1978)
* ''Portrait in a Mirror'' (1981).
See also
*
Spouse of the Governor-General of Australia
The viceregal consort of Australia generally assists the governor-general in welcoming ambassadors and their spouses, and in performing their other official duties. The governor-general's spouse traditionally participates in celebratory occasions, ...