Amy Eleanor (Mack) Harrison (1876 - 1939)

Born 6 Jun 1876 in Port Adelaide, South Australia (Australia)

Ancestors

Wife of Launcelot Harrison — married 29 Feb 1908 in St Leonards, New South Wales, Australia

Died 4 Nov 1939 at age 63 in Darlinghurst, New South Wales, Australia

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Biography

Amy (Mack) Harrison has Irish ancestors.

Amy Eleanor Mack was born in 6th June 1876 in Port Adelaide, South Australia (Australia). She was the fourth daughter of Hans Mack and Jemima James. ^[1] The family settled in Mosman, New South Wales in 1882, where the girls were educated by their mother and a governess before being sent to the Sydney Girls' High School. Like her eldest sister, Louisa, Amy became a noted writer. ^[2]

Soon after leaving school she began work as a journalist and from 1907 to 1914 was editor of the Women's Page of the Sydney Morning Herald.

On 29th February 1908, yes Leap Day, Amy married Launcelot Harrison; ^[3] there were no children.

She soon published two collections of essays, A Bush Calendar (1909) and Bush Days (1911) which had previously appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald, and two very popular children's books, Bushland Stories (1910) and Scribbling Sue, and Other Stories (1915).

With her husband Amy left in 1914 for England where Launce did postgraduate work at Cambridge. While he served in Mesopotamia during the (First World) War, she worked in London as publicity officer for the ministries of munitions and food.

The Harrisons returned to Sydney in 1919 and lived in Gordon, New South Wales in a house full of books, antique furniture and Persian carpets. From 1922 Launce was professor of zoology at the University of Sydney. That year Amy published The Wilderness. She regularly contributed to the literary page of the Sydney Morning Herald, was honorary secretary in 1920-23 of the National Council of Women of New South Wales and accompanied her husband on scientific expeditions.

Though Amy continued to publish occasional articles after he died in 1928, the impulse to write faded as her health declined and on 4th November 1939 she died of arteriosclerosis in St Vincent's Hospital, Darlinghurst, New South Wales. ^[4]

Sources

1. ↑ South Australia Birth Index #167/167 1876
2. ↑ 'Mack, Amy Eleanor (1876–1939)', Obituaries Australia, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University; accessed 4 Aug 2019
3. ↑ New South Wales Marriage Index #2741/1908
4. ↑ New South Wales Death Index #21947/1939

See also

• Phelan, Nancy. 'Mack, Amy Eleanor (1876–1939)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, published first in hardcopy 1986; accessed online 14 Jul 2019.