The Australian Women's Register

This series consists of scrapbooks, envelopes and folders of newspaper clippings maintained by The Honourable Dame Annabelle Jane Mary Rankin DBE. The collection was developed from articles in the Australian and New Zealand press. It relates to Dame Annabelle’s social life and interests and her political career (as a Senator for Queensland, her fifteen years as Government Whip, and as Minister for Housing in the Holt, Gorton and McMahon governments). It also covers her diplomatic career as Australia’s first woman High Commissioner (her appointment was to New Zealand), and latterly, her retirement in Queensland. The series also contains numerous articles written by Dame Annabelle for the Downs Star, the Courier Mail and other newspapers. Among the other topics of apparent interest to Dame Annabelle, and therefore about which there are several clippings, was the sale of ‘Brookland’, her old family home in Howard, the visits she made to New Zealand, Canada and the United States along with her travels within Australia. Apart from the newspaper clippings, many of the scrapbooks contain telegrams, invitations, brochures and other mementos collected by Dame Annabelle. –