Jillian Isobel Roe, (10 November 1940 – 12 January 2017) was an Australian historian and academic, who wrote a definitive biography of the Australian writer

Miles Franklin Stella Maria Sarah Miles Franklin (14 October 187919 September 1954), known as Miles Franklin, was an Australian writer and feminist who is best known for her novel ''My Brilliant Career'', published by Blackwoods of Edinburgh in 1901. While ...

Early life and education

Roe was born in 1940, at

Tumby Bay, South Australia Tumby Bay is a coastal town situated on the Spencer Gulf, on the eastern coast of Eyre Peninsula in South Australia, north of Port Lincoln. The town of Tumby Bay is the major population centre of the District Council of Tumby Bay, and the cent ...

. Her grandparents had been early settlers of the western coast of South Australia. Her mother Edna Heath, a nurse, died before Roe was two years old, and she was raised on the

Eyre Peninsula The Eyre Peninsula is a triangular peninsula in South Australia. It is bounded by the Spencer Gulf on the east, the Great Australian Bight on the west, and the Gawler Ranges to the north. Originally called Eyre’s Peninsula, it was named af ...

by her father John Roe, a farmer. At the age of 14, she attended Adelaide Girls' High School. Upon matriculating, she enrolled to study history at the

University of Adelaide The University of Adelaide (informally Adelaide University) is a public research university located in Adelaide, South Australia. Established in 1874, it is the third-oldest university in Australia. The university's main campus is located on N ...

, and in 1963 moved on to the

Australian National University The Australian National University (ANU) is a public research university located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. Its main campus in Acton encompasses seven teaching and research colleges, in addition to several national academies an ...

in Canberra, where she wrote her Master of Arts thesis on "intellectual life of the city of Melbourne between 1876 and 1886", under the supervision of Don Baker and

Manning Clark Charles Manning Hope Clark, (3 March 1915 – 23 May 1991) was an Australian historian and the author of the best-known general history of Australia, his six-volume ''A History of Australia'', published between 1962 and 1987. He has been descri ...

Career

In 1967, Roe joined the newly founded Macquarie University as a lecturer in history. She remained at the university for 36 years, becoming a Professor Emerita upon her retirement in 2003. In 1984, she joined the board of the '' Australian Dictionary of Biography'', serving as the board's president from 1996 to 2006. She also wrote 19 entries for the ''ADB'', and was editor of its 2005 supplement. In December 1982, publisher Richard Walsh of Angus & Robertson commissioned Roe to write a biography of

. Roe delivered the manuscript for ''Stella Miles Franklin: A Biography'' 26 years later in 2008, and it was published by

HarperCollins HarperCollins Publishers LLC is one of the Big Five English-language publishing companies, alongside Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and Macmillan. The company is headquartered in New York City and is a subsidiary of News ...

(which had taken over Angus & Robertson). Roe acknowledged the book has "been a long time coming". A follow-up edition titled ''Her Brilliant Career: The Life of Stella Miles Franklin'' was published in 2009. Roe had previously written Franklin's entry in the ''Australian Dictionary of Biography'', and edited ''My Congenials: Miles Franklin and friends in letters'', a compilation of Franklin's correspondence, which was published in 1993. In 2016, Roe published her memoir, ''Our Fathers Cleared the Bush'', about her childhood on the Eyre Peninsula. Roe died after a long illness on 12 January 2017, at her home in Pearl Beach on the New South Wales Central Coast.

Awards and honours

Roe was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in the 2007 Queen's Birthday Honours. She was elected a Fellow of the

Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia The Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia (ASSA) is an independent, non-governmental organisation devoted to the advancement of knowledge and research in the social sciences. It has its origins in the Social Science Research Council of Austr ...

(FASSA) in 1991 and the

Federation of Australian Historical Societies The Federation of Australian Historical Societies (FAHS) is the peak body for historical societies throughout Australia.The Federation of Australian Historical Societieshome page Retrieved 24 August 2010.Cathy Pryor, "A force for the regions", ...

(FFAHS).''Who's Who in Australia 2016'', ConnectWeb, 2016. In 2013, Macquarie University conferred upon her the Higher Degree of

Doctor of Letters Doctor of Letters (D.Litt., Litt.D., Latin: ' or ') is a terminal degree in the humanities that, depending on the country, is a higher doctorate after the Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degree or equivalent to a higher doctorate, such as the Docto ...

. Roe's contribution to Australian history was recognised by the inauguration in 2014 of the annual Jill Roe Prize.

Selected works

* Roe, Jill, ''Marvellous Melbourne: the emergence of an Australian City'' (1974), Sydney, Hicks Smith & Sons, . * Roe, Jill, ''Beyond Belief: Theosophy in Australia 1879–1939'' (1986), Sydney, New South Wales University Press, * Roe, Jill (ed.) ''My Congenials: Miles Franklin and Friends in Letters: 1879–1938 Vol 1'' (1993), Melbourne, HarperCollins, . * Roe, Jill and Bettison, Margaret, ''A Gregarious Culture: Topical Writings of Miles Franklin: collected and introduced, with annotations'', (2001), St Lucia, Queensland, University of Queensland Press, . * Roe, Jill, ''Stella Miles Franklin: A Biography'' (2008), Sydney, Fourth Estate, . * Roe, Jill (ed.) ''My Congenials: Miles Franklin and Friends in Letters,'' 2 ed. (2010). Sydney, Angus & Robertson, . * Roe, Jill, ''Miles Franklin: A Short Biography'' (2018), Australia, HarperCollins, .

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Roe, Jill 1940 births 2017 deaths Australian women historians 20th-century Australian historians 21st-century Australian historians Academic staff of Macquarie University University of Adelaide alumni Australian National University alumni Officers of the Order of Australia Fellows of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia People from Tumby Bay, South Australia 21st-century Australian women writers 20th-century Australian women writers People educated at Adelaide High School