Patricia Hackett

Patricia Hackett was born in Perth, Western Australia to John Winthrop Hackett M.L.C. and his wife Dr. Deborah Vernon Hackett, née Drake-Brockman, later known as Sir Winthrop and Lady Hackett. Sir Winthrop, who endowed the entire University of Western Australia, died on 19 February 1916 and Lady Hackett married again, on 10 April 1918 to Frank Beaumont Moulden (1876–1932) and moved to Adelaide with her children, living at "Lordello",[1] Palmer Place, North Adelaide. He became Mayor of Adelaide in 1919 and was knighted in 1922.

Patricia began law studies at the University of Adelaide in 1925 without having passed in Latin, which was then a pre-requisite, and applied to enter her articles while deferring this examination. Another student, Claude Joseph Philcox, made a similar request, both no doubt intending to study the subject concurrently.[2] This had for some time been permitted by the great English universities, but the application was denied.

In 1926 Patricia Hackett and her sister, Miss Joan Hackett (23 February 1909 – 19 December 1966), were expelled from the University of Adelaide for impersonation at the Leaving examination in Latin. In other words, Joan Hackett sat the Latin exam for her sister Patricia Hackett.[3]

Barred from further study in Australia, Patricia left for to London, where was admitted as a student to the Inner Temple in May 1928,[4] completed her studies and returned with fellow-graduate Margery Lawrence to Adelaide in late 1929,[5] and was called to the English Bar on 27 January 1930, one of four women (two of them Australian) to be so honoured.[6]

In 1933, as junior to Llandaff Brisbane Mathews (1896–1954), she defended Salem Macksad, a Syrian storekeeper of Gilbert Street, who was accused of murdering his neighbour Richard Joseph Supple, with whose wife he had an illicit relationship. The victim was found on Memorial Drive near the golf course with a fractured skull the evident cause of death. Macksad was convicted of the lesser crime of manslaughter. This has been cited as the first time in Australia a woman lawyer has defended a male accused of a capital crime,[7] but appears to be the only high-profile case with which she was professionally involved.

In 1936 she was invited to do some legal work at Tulagi, Solomon Islands, and returned there for three or four months each year thereafter, staying on the island of M'Bangai on which she took out a 99-year lease (one authority[8] asserts purchased). She took out a practising lawyer's certificate in Fiji, their first woman lawyer.[9] Her last sojourn on the island was cut short by the Pearl Harbor attack of 1941, when she and many other Australians including Mrs. Ragnar Hyne and Mrs. W. H. Baddeley, wife of the Bishop of Melanesia, were evacuated.[10]

The young lawyer Don Dunstan shared chambers with Patricia for a few years from 1952.[11]

Soon after her return to Adelaide, Hackett threw herself into amateur theatre. In April 1930 she appeared in the comedy The Truth About Blayds by A. A. Milne, with the Repertory Theatre Group, their first production at the Australia Theatre in Angas Street. She appeared in half-a-dozen further Repertory productions in the next three years.

In April 1934 she founded, and personally funded, in Gawler Place, "The Torch", Adelaide's first intimate theatre. The venue, seating 150 persons, was previously a sales showroom with an entrance on Claridge Arcade and stage access from Rundle Street via a narrow right-of-way. Membership was one guinea per annum, and entitled the holder to one seat per production and preferential purchase of additional seats for any performance.[12] She created a minor furore in September 1934 after receiving an adverse critique in The Advertiser over her performance in Geza Silberer's play Caprice.[13] (The News had, as usual, given her glowing, not to say sycophantic, reviews).[14] Her response was to fling the contents of a bottle of ink over the hapless journalist Sidney Downer.[15] Patricia then peremptorily barred all journalists from The Advertiser from her theatre.[16] Later that year she took a long sea voyage "for her health", promising that "The Torch" would continue in her absence, but in fact it never reopened.

In 1938 she published These Little Things, illustrated by Rex Wood, a collection of poems about her life in Adelaide and in the Solomon Islands.[8]

Patricia's acting was highly stylized, with an exaggerated gracefulness in the grand style, dominating every scene. She had a priceless collection of authentic Eastern costumes and "hard properties", with which she lavishly decorated her productions, adding to their other-worldly atmosphere. In 1944, following her appearance in Gild the Mask Again, Max Harris wrote in On Dit (the University of Adelaide student newspaper) a strident critique of Patricia's histrionic style:

We have now seen Miss Hackett as a Biblical dame, Virgin Mary, a Moon Woman, Salome, a Grey Sword, Queen Elizabeth, and a Renaissance wife. It only remains for her to play a Life of Stalin, Diaghilev and Little Nell. ... let the Theatre Guild forget the panther passions of the Hackett demi-monde ... (and place) ... more stress on Theatre and less on Art[17]

Hackett sued for libel.[18] On the advice of John Reed, Harris made an abject apology, so avoiding a costly lawsuit. Worse was to attend him: this happened on the eve of his publication of the Ern Malley poems and the ensuing obscenity trials.

In February 1932 she represented her father posthumously at a ceremony in Perth to present his bequest which founded the University of Western Australia. Lady Moulden was conferred with honorary degree of LLD., the first woman to be so honored in Australia.[33]

In late 1934 Patricia took a sea voyage.

She had a serious operation early in 1936, and in late March took a sea voyage to London with her little charge Elizabeth Kennedy (c. 1934– ), a niece of violinist Daisy Kennedy, later Mrs. John Drinkwater.[34] Another report had her taking a voyage on a cargo boat with Dr. Mocatta.[35] Whichever report was true, Patricia was in London in May.[36]

She had a (summer?) cottage "Nepenthe" at Nortons Summit in the 1930s and 1940s, and spent many holidays prior to the Pacific War in 1941 in the Solomon Islands, living in Tulagi harbor on the island of M'bangai, on which she had a long-term lease.[30] One report asserts that she had a legal practice in the Solomon Islands, where she was the first woman solicitor.[28]

At the outbreak of World War II, she formed a Voluntary Service Detachment with several other professional women including Dr. Mocatta.[37]

• Hackett, Patricia; Wood, Rex (1938), These little things, Hunkin, Ellis & King, retrieved 31 August 2016 Five illustrations by Rex Wood.

The Patricia Hackett Prize, endowed in her memory, has been awarded by the University of Western Australia to the best original contribution to Westerly each year since 1965.

• List of first women lawyers and judges in Oceania