Fitzpatrick, Kathleen Elizabeth (1905 - 1990)

Appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for her service to education, particularly in the field of history, on 26 January 1989, Kathleen Fitzpatrick was the first woman council member of the National Library of Australia, and a foundation member of the Australian Humanities Research Council (later the Australian Academy of Humanities).

• Pitt, Kathleen (maiden name, 7 September 1905 - 28 August 1932)

Following the failure of her marriage, Fitzpatrick was advised by the University Appointments Board that ‘the only demand for female workers was for good secretaries'. It was recommended that she become proficient in typewriting and shorthand if she wanted to find employment. She enrolled at the Melbourne Technical School (now the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology), completed the required subjects and became a teacher of Shorthand and Commercial English at the school. In 1938 Fitzpatrick was offered her old position at the University of Melbourne. Before retiring in 1962 she held positions of lecturer, senior lecturer and associate professor of history.

During World War II Fitzpatrick was president of the Council for Women in War. She negotiated with employers on behalf of University of Melbourne women students working at Shepparton under Manpower regulations. In her retirement Fitzpatrick concentrated on research and writing and was disappointed in not being able to find a publisher for her magnum opus, a book on the novelist Henry James.

Former student, professional historian and close friend Manning Clark read the eulogy at the Requiem Mass for Kathleen Fitzpatrick held at St Thomas Aquinas, South Yarra on Friday 31 August 1990.

Chronology

1926	Graduated BA (Hons) from the University of Melbourne
1928	Graduated BA from Oxford University
1929	Temporary lecturer in the history department of the University of Sydney
1930 - 1932	Tutor in the English department of the University of Melbourne
28 August 1932 - 1940	Married Brian Fitzpatrick a journalist and later historian
1933	Graduated MA from Oxford University
1935	Separated from her husband
1936	Became a student in the business section of the Melbourne Technical School (now the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology) learning typing and shorthand
1937	Teacher of shorthand and commercial English at the Melbourne Technical School
1938 - 1942	Lecturer of History at the University of Melbourne
1942 - 1948	Senior lecturer of History at the University of Melbourne
1948 - 1962	Associate Professor of History at the University of Melbourne
1949	Publication: Sir John Franklin in Tasmania published by Melbourne University Press
1956	Foundation member of the Australian Humanities Research Council (later Australian Academy of the Humanities)
1958	Publication: Australian Explorers published by Oxford University Press
1975	Publication: PLC Melbourne: The First Century published by PLC (Melbourne)
1983	Publication: Solid Bluestone Foundations and Other Memories of a Melbourne Childhood, 1908-1928 published by Macmillan
26 January 1989	Appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia for her service to education, particularly in the field of history

Membership

• Australian Federation of University Women - Victoria Inc. (1922 - )
• Lyceum Club (Melbourne) (1912 - )

  [1925 - 1990]

Books

• History for the homeless : Kathleen Fitzpatrick's vocation and ours., Dept. of History, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Vic., 1995, 19 pp. [ Details... ]
• Carey, Jane, 1972- and Grimshaw, Patricia, 1938-, Women historians and women's history : Kathleen Fitzpatrick (1905-1990), Margaret Kiddle (1914-1958) and the Melbourne History School, Dept. of History, University of Melbourne, Carlton, Vic., 2001. [ Details... ]
• Fitzpatrick, Kathleen, 1905-1990, Australian explorers : a selection from their writings with an introduction, Oxford University Press, London ; New York, 1958, 503 pp. [ Details... ]
• Fitzpatrick, Kathleen, 1905-1990., Sir John Franklin in Tasmania, 1837-1843, Melbourne. [ Details... ]
• Fitzpatrick, Kathleen, 1905-1990., Martin Boyd, Lansdowne Press, Melbourne, 1963, 31 pp. [ Details... ]
• Fitzpatrick, Kathleen, 1905-1990., PLC Melbourne : the first century, 1875-1975, Presbyterian Ladies' College, Burwood, Vic., 1975, 289 pp. [ Details... ]
• Fitzpatrick, Kathleen, 1905-1990., Solid bluestone foundations and other memories of a Melbourne girlhood, 1908-1928, Macmillan, South Melbourne, 1983, 210 pp. [ Details... ]
• Pitt, Kathleen Elizabeth, The Ballad revival in the XVIIIth century, 1925, 26 pp. [ Details... ]

Book Sections

• Fitzpatrick, Kathleen, 'Webb, Jessie Stobo Watson (1880-1944)', in Australian Dictionary of Biography. [ Details... ]

See also

• Alexander, Joseph A (ed.), Who's who in Australia 1950, 14th edn, The Herald, Melbourne, 1950, 816 pp. [ Details... ]
• Clark, Manning, 1915-1991. (ed.), Dear Kathleen, dear Manning : the correspondence of Manning Clark and Kathleen Fitzpatrick 1949-1990, Melbourne University Press, Carlton South, Vic.,, 1996, 182 pp. [ Details... ]
• Dalziell, Rosamund., Shameful autobiographies : shame in contemporary Australian autobiographies and culture, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, Vic., 1999, 302 pp. [ Details... ]
• Flesch, Juliet and McPhee, Peter, 150 years, 150 stories : brief biographies of one hundred and fifty remarkable people associated with the University of Melbourne, Department of History, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, 2003, 168 pp. [ Details... ]
• Grimshaw, Patricia and Strahan, Lynne (eds), The Half-open door : sixteen modern Australian women look at professional life and achievement, Hale & Iremonger, Sydney, c1982, 344 pp. [ Details... ]
• Hooton, Joy W. (Joy Wendy), 1935- (ed.), Australian lives: an Oxford anthology, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1998, 298 pp. [ Details... ]
• Lofthouse, Andrea (ed.), Who's who of Australian women, Methuen Australia, North Ryde (NSW), 1982, 504 pp. [ Details... ]
• Maneschi, Lorna., The letters of Lorna Maneschi to her family in Australia, J. Maneschi, Mosman, N.S.W., 1999-2000.. [ Details... ]
• Paper-Clip Collective., Melbourne University portraits : they called it "The Shop", Dept. of History, University of Melbourne with the assistance of the History of the University Unit, Parkville, Vic., 1996. [ Details... ]