• Entry type: Person
  • Entry ID: AWE0114

Wright, Judith Arundell

(1915 – 2000)
  • Born 31 May, 1915, Armidale New South Wales Australia
  • Died 26 June, 2000, Canberra Australian Capital Territory Australia
  • Occupation Poet, Writer

Summary

Judith Wright expressed her love of Australia and its people in her poetry. She was also a respected writer on poetry. Later in her life Wright was well known as a conservationist and campaigner for Aboriginal rights. Wright, a descendant of a pioneering pastoralist family, began writing poetry at the age of six for her ailing mother. At the age of 14 she became a boarder at the New England Girls School, and it was during her time there that she decided to become a poet.

After completing an Arts course at the University of Sydney, Wright worked in a variety of positions including that of research officer at Queensland University, where she helped Clem Christesen to edit Meanjin.

In 1975, Wright was the first woman appointed to the Council of Australian National University as the Governor-General’s nominee. She was founder and later president of the Wildlife Preservation Society of Queensland, and member of the National Parks Association of New South Wales and the South Coast Conservation Council. Wright was a patron of many organisations including: Campaign Against Nuclear Power (Queensland); Townsville Women’s Shelter; Amnesty International (Victoria.); Wildlife Preservation Society of Queensland and the National Forests Action Council (Victoria.).

In 1991, Wright became the second Australian – after Michael Thwaites in 1940 – to receive the Queen’s gold medal for poetry.

Joan Williams concludes her obituary on Judith Wright in The Guardian on July 5, 2000 with:
“Judith Wright is not a romantic, but makes her judgement on changes in the economy and lifestyle, the growth of industry and the swing from country to city. In her own way she has taken a step further for us in the expression of Australian national, spiritual and environment values in her poetry.”

Details

Judith Wright, who died in Canberra of a heart attack, had spent much of her time there from the early 1970s when her daughter Meredith went to study at the Australian National University. Her long relationship with H.C. ‘Nugget’ Coombs was an added incentive for her to be close to Canberra. In 1973 she was appointed Chairman of the Australia Council. In 1975 She bought the property Edge 100 kilometres east of Canberra and spent much of her time there. By 1998 she was living in a small flat in Canberra.

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Events

  • 1980 - 1980

    Awarded the Alice Award by the Society of Women Writers of Australia

  • 1980 - 1980

    Awarded the Order of the Golden Ark, degree of Ridder by Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands

  • 1984 - 1984

    Awarded the Indian Asan World prize for poetry

  • 1992 - 1992

    Awarded the Queen’s Gold Medal for poetry

  • 1970 - 1970

    Awarded Fellow Australian Academy of Humanities (FAHA)

  • 1980 - 1980

    Awarded Hon. Life Member Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF)

  • 1938 - 1942

    Stenographic and secretarial work in Sydney

  • 1972 - 1972

    Awarded the Grace Leven Prize from the Braidwood Historical Society

  • 1962 - 1976

    President of the Wildlife Preservation Society of Queensland

  • 1964 - 1972

    Council member of the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF)

  • 1975 - 1979

    Council member of the Australian National University (ANU)

  • 1979 - 1983

    Member of the Aboriginal Treaty Committee

  • 1963 - 1963

    Foundation council member of the Australia Society Authors (ASA)

  • 1973 - 1974

    Member of the Committee of Enquiry into the National Estate

  • 1949 - 1949

    Awarded the Grace Leven Prize from the Braidwood Historical Society

  • 1976 - 1976

    Awarded the Robert Frost Memorial Award from the Fellowship of Australian Writers (FAW)

  • 1949 - 1949

    Awarded a Commonwealth Literary Fund Fellowship

  • 1976 - 1976

    Awarded the Senior Anzac Fellowship

  • 1965 - 1965

    Awarded the Encyclopedia Britannica Prize for literature

  • 1977 - 1979

    Awarded the Senior Writers Fellowship by the Literature Board of the Australia Council

  • 1944 - 1948

    Statistical research officer with the Queensland University

Published resources

  • Edited Book
    • Who's Who of Australian Women, Lofthouse, Andrea, 1982
    • Monash Biographical Dictionary of 20th Century Australia, Arnold, John and Morris, Deirdre, 1994
    • Biographical register : the Women's College within the University of Sydney, Annable, Rosemary, 1995
    • Who's Who in Australia 1998, Neto, Maryanne (researcher), 1997
  • Book
    • The Moving Image, Wright, Judith, 1946
    • Woman to Man, Wright, Judith, 1950
    • The Gateway, Wright, Judith, 1953
    • The Two Fires, Wright, Judith, 1955
    • Birds, Wright, Judith, 1960
    • Birds, Wright, Judith, 1960
    • Five Senses, Wright, Judith, 1960
    • Selected Poems, Wright, Judith, 1963
    • The Other Half: Poems, Wright, Judith, [1966]
    • Collected Poems, Wright, Judith, 1971
    • Alive, Wright, Judith, 1972
    • Fourth Quarter, Wright, Judith, 1976
    • Fourth Quarter, Wright, Judith, 1977
    • The Generations of Men, Wright, Judith, 1955
    • The Nature of Love, Wright, Judith, 1966
    • Preoccupations in Australian Poetry, Wright, Judith, 1964
    • Because I was Invited, Wright, Judith, 1976
    • Charles Harpur, Wright, Judith, 1978
    • The Cry for the Dead, Wright, Judith, 1981
    • The Oxford Book of Australian Verse, Wright, Judith, 1954
    • New Land New Language, Wright, Judith, 1956
    • Witnesses of Spring: unpublished poems by John Shaw Neilson, Wright, Judith (Editor), 1970
    • Kings of the Dingoes, Wright, Judith, 1956
    • Range the Mountains High, Wright, Judith, 1960
    • The Day the Mountains Played, Wright, Judith, 1959|| 1976
    • The River and the Road, Wright, Judith, 1963
  • Documentary
    • The Coral Battleground, Wright, Judith, 1977
  • Resource
  • Resource Section
  • Newspaper Article
    • Lines from the bush, Cadzow, Jane, 2004
  • Site Exhibition

Archival resources

  • National Library of Australia, Manuscript Collection
    • Papers of Dymphna Clark, circa 1930-2000 [manuscript]
    • Papers of Dorothy Green, 1943-1990 [manuscript]
    • Papers of Judith Wright, 1944-2000 [manuscript]
    • The generations of men [manuscript] / [by] Judith Wright
    • Papers of Judith Wright, 1949-1951 [manuscript]
    • Letters, 1986-1989 [manuscript]
    • Papers of Nancy Cato, 1939-1995 [manuscript]
    • Papers of Elyne Mitchell, circa 1928-2002 [manuscript]
    • Papers of Nonie Sharp, 1980-2000 [manuscript]
    • Correspondence of Barbara Blackman with Judith Wright, 1950-1998 [manuscript]
    • Literary papers 1969-1981 [manuscript]
    • Papers of Patricia Clarke, 1887-2010 [manuscript]
  • Fryer Library, The University of Queensland
    • Papers relating to Oodgeroo Noonuccal
  • Special Collections, Academy Library, UNSW@ADFA
    • Craig Powell manuscript collection
    • Nancy Cato manuscript collection 1967-1992
  • National Library of Australia, Oral History and Folklore Collection
    • Dymphna Clark interviewed by Heather Rusden and Elizabeth Cham [sound recording]
  • State Library of New South Wales
    • Southern Africa Defence and Aid Fund in Australia - records, 1961-1981, together with the records of Community Aid Abroad (Australia). Southern Africa Group, 1981-1987

Related entries


  • Sponsored
    • National Foundation for Australian Women (1989 - )
  • Related Women
    • Blackman, Barbara (1928 - )
    • Sharp, Nonie O
    • Oodgeroo Noonuccal (1920 - 1993)
    • Sutherland, Margaret Ada (1897 - 1984)
  • Friend and Colleague
    • Devanny, Jean (1894 - 1962)