Ernestine Hill (21 January 1899 — 21 August 1972) was an Australian journalist,

travel writer The genre of travel literature encompasses outdoor literature, guide books, nature writing, and travel memoirs. One early travel memoirist in Western literature was Pausanias, a Greek geographer of the 2nd century CE. In the early modern per ...

and novelist.

Life

Born Mary Ernestine Hemmings in

Rockhampton, Queensland Rockhampton is a city in the Rockhampton Region of Central Queensland, Australia. The population of Rockhampton in June 2021 was 79,967, Estimated resident population, 30 June 2018. making it the fourth-largest city in the state outside of the ...

, she attended

All Hallows' School , motto_translation = God and Duty , city = Brisbane , state = Queensland , postcode = 4000 , country = Australia , coordinates = , type ...

Brisbane Brisbane ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Queensland, and the third-most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of approximately 2.6 million. Brisbane lies at the centre of the South ...

, and then Stott & Hoare's Business College, Brisbane.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. On completing her studies, she worked briefly in the public service, 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. In 1924 her son Robert was born. Rumoured to be R.C. Packer's son, although never publicly acknowledged. Ernestine assumed the surname Hill. During the 1930s she travelled extensively around Australia, writing as she went, primarily for Associated Newspapers. Hill then worked for the ABC from 1940 from 1944, on the ''A.B.C. Weekly'' and as a commissioner. After resigning from the ABC, she resumed her travels, but published little from her work during this period. She was awarded a

Commonwealth Literary Fund The Commonwealth Literary Fund (CLF) was an Australian Government initiative founded in 1908 to assist needy Australian writers and their families. It was Federal Australia's first systematic support for the arts. Its scope was later broadened to e ...

fellowship in 1959.Ernestine Hill Collection, UQFL18
Fryer Library, The University of Queensland Library. However, while this provided her with a small pension, her final years were characterised by financial and health problems. She died in

in 1972.

Writing career

The majority of her writing, which comprised books as well as articles for newspapers and such journals as ''

Walkabout Walkabout is a rite of passage in Australian Aboriginal society, during which males undergo a journey during adolescence, typically ages 10 to 16, and live in the wilderness for a period as long as six months to make the spiritual and traditiona ...

'', resulted from her wide travels across Australia. They recorded her adventures and focus on the Australian landscape. She could also be controversial. For example, her reporting of a gold strike at the Granites in the Northern Territory in 1931 contributed to financial ruin for some and was branded irresponsible. She is best known for ''The Territory''. However, her only novel, ''My Love Must Wait'', a fictionalised biography of sailor and navigator Matthew Flinders, sold well overseas as well as in Australia. During the 1930s she formed a friendship with Daisy Bates and later claimed to be mostly responsible for Daisy Bates' ''The Passing of the Aborigines'', although this is a contentious issue. AustLit: The Australian Literature Resource claims that Bates eventually confirmed that Hill did ghost-write the book.Author record, Ernestine Hill, AustLit
www.austlit.edu.au
, St Lucia: The University of Queensland, 2002-. etrieved 22/06/2017

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 Clause of Christmas Creek'' in ''Australian Radio Plays'' (1946)

References

External links

Ernestine Hill papers (UQFL18)
held at Fryer Library, The University of Queensland Library, and digitise
material
from collection. *Ernestine Hil
AustLit entry
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Hill, Ernestine 1899 births 1972 deaths Australian travel writers Australian women writers People from Rockhampton Women travel writers 20th-century Australian journalists 19th-century Australian women 20th-century Australian women People educated at All Hallows' School