• Entry type: Resource
  • Entry ID: AWH000089

Dame Enid Lyons interviewed by Mel Pratt in the Mel Pratt collection [sound recording]

  • Repository National Library of Australia, Oral History and Folklore Collection
  • Reference ORAL TRC 121/30
  • Date Range 13-Mar-72 - 22-Mar-72
  • Description

    Dame Enid comments on her husband’s schooling, interests and persuasiveness; George Pearce; Joe’s “illiteracy”; his character; myth of support of Victorian establishment; his relationship with Casey; his qualifications for political eminence ; her conversion to Catholicism; accusation of her dominating Joe; conscription; Father O’Donnell; her early life in Tasmania; King O’Malley; educational changes in Tasmania; Mr Neale; honeymoon at the Premiers’ Conference; Mrs Holman; the Labor Party and class consciousness; interest in politics; Blackburn interpretation; problems faced by Joe as Premier; relationship with trade unions; Lyons entry into Federal government; difference between Federal and Tasmanian Labor Parties; Lyons as Acting Treasurer; break with Labor Party; standards of values in politics; Theodore; Albert Ogilvie; conversion of loan campaign; Nationalist Party; relations between UAP and Country Party; Frank Green; Catholic education; Australian Women’s National League and United Australia party; preparing Australia for war; Lyons’ relationship with Menzies; Menzies and Murdoch; Menzies and Mussolini; Munich Crisis; Germany and Czechoslovakia; Chamberlain; Lyons’ death; the Baldwins; her running for Parliament; opposition from the Labor party; Dorothy Tangney; attitude of colleagues to women in parliament; Calwell and immigration; her relationship with Menzies; Menzies’ attacks on Curtin; her maiden speech; workload as a politician; endowment for first child; inclusion in Cabinet; Henry Gullet; leakages from Cabinet; retirement from politics; experiences in journalism; Australian Broadcasting Commission; Boyer; being made Dame Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire.

  • Access Access open for research, personal copies and public use.
  • Finding Aid Timed summary (11 p) and uncorrected transcript (typescript, 62 leaves)

Related entries


  • Primary Creator
    • Lyons, Enid Muriel (1897 - 1981)