The Australian Women's Register

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

Events

• 1980

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

• 1980

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

• 1984

  Awarded the Indian Asan World prize for poetry

• 1992

  Awarded the Queen’s Gold Medal for poetry

• 1970

  Awarded Fellow Australian Academy of Humanities (FAHA)

• 1980

  Awarded Hon. Life Member Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF)

• 1938 - 1942

  Stenographic and secretarial work in Sydney

• 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

  Foundation council member of the Australia Society Authors (ASA)

• 1973 - 1974

  Member of the Committee of Enquiry into the National Estate

• 1949

  Awarded the Grace Leven Prize from the Braidwood Historical Society

• 1976

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

• 1949

  Awarded a Commonwealth Literary Fund Fellowship

• 1976

  Awarded the Senior Anzac Fellowship

• 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