It is with great sadness that we acknowledge the passing of Dr Shirley Patricia Walker (1927- 2024), who died peacefully in Alstonville, NSW on Monday15 April at the age of 96 years.
Shirley had a long and distinguished career in the former English Department of the University of New England, and has left a legacy of pioneering research on Australian women writers, prize-winning creative contributions to the field Australian Literature and culture, and regional, national and international engagement and service to the profession.
Although Shirley grew up in the Northern Rivers of NSW and lived there in the last decades of her life, she was never reticent about saying that her heart was in Armidale. She trained as a teacher at the Armidale Teachers’ College during World War Two, and after returning to Grafton from Ayr (North Queensland) where she and her husband Les had taken up a cane farm after the war, she began studying as an external student of the University of New England.
Shirley’s life was a series of stunning firsts: she was first in her immediate family to attend university, she achieved ‘a first’ in her undergraduate degree (as a ‘non traditional’ student), before becoming the first successful PhD candidate in Australian Literature at the University of New England. In 1972 she lived in Duval College, with her teenage daughter Brenda, as a full-time internal student in order to complete her Honours year in English. Shirley achieved a first-class Honours result, a university medal and the Edgar Allan Booth Prize for the most distinguished academic record during enrolment at the university. She then enrolled as a PhD candidate and in 1977 successfully completed her thesis on the Australian poet, Judith Wright (2015-2020) under the supervision of Emeritus Professor Julian Croft. The thesis was subsequently published as a monograph entitled The Poetry of Judith Wright: a Search for Unity (Melbourne: Edward Arnold, 1980). Shirley spent a year as a lecturer at the then Northern Rivers College of Advanced Education in Lismore, before returning to UNE as a tenured lecturer in the English Department, one of the largest Departments of its kind in Australia at the time, and where she was a staunch advocate for UNE as a centre of excellence in Australian studies.
Shirley wrote brilliantly about what she knew best. Her memoir Roundabout at Bangalow, published in 2003, covers her childhood in the northern rivers area, her memories of World War Two in Grafton, and her time as a cane farmer’s wife on the Burdekin River in Queensland. The Ghost at the Wedding (Penguin, 2009), has been described as a ‘companion piece’ to this memoir. It won the 2010 Kibble Literary Award, shared the Asher Award and was shortlisted for the Prime Minister’s Award, and has been described as a major work of Australian literature and a major contribution to Australian history. Shirley’s depictions of the great battles of two wars – Gallipoli, the Western Front, the Kokoda Track – are grittily accurate, written with the emotional power of a novelist, documenting the tragedy of war and the extraordinary strength of spirit of those at home, especially the women who lost sons and husbands.
In addition to her 1980 book on Judith Wright, other sole authored scholarly works included Judith Wright (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1981), The Flame and Shadow: a Study of Judith Wright’s Poetry (St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1991), and Vanishing Edens: Responses to Australia in the Works of Mary Gilmore, Judith Wright, and Dorothy Hewett (Colin Roderick Lectures), Foundation for Australian Literary Studies, 1992. Edited works include Who is She? Images of Women in Australian Literature (1984) and The Talespinners: An Anthology of Country Life and Humor (AuthorHouse, 2007). Shirley also published numerous articles and book chapters, and was a prolific reviewer of Australian literature for the Australian Book Review, among other publications.
Shirley was an energetic and passionate ambassador for Australian literature, and was active in local as well as national literary circles. She was President of Association for the Study of Australian Literature (ASAL) (1958-7) and was the founder of the Centre for Australian Literature and Language Studies at UNE. She developed partnerships between UNE and several universities in Europe including the University of Oviedo and the University of Barcelona, and did much to actively foster the research in Australian Literature of the first wave of postgraduate Chinese students to Australia during the early 1980s.
Shirley was a formidable woman of great energy and determination who treasured her association with UNE, and believed in its social access mission to deliver education to all irrespective of geographical location and social circumstances. She particularly valued the opportunities UNE provided her as a ‘mature age’ student who was not expected to attend university, let alone become a lecturer in one. Shirley was also a hard-working colleague who had very clear ideas of how things should be done, but was open to compromise and accommodation, an ideal combination which underpinned her successful career at local and national levels.
Shirley was the loving wife of Les (deceased) and cherished mother of Donald, Richard and Brenda. Her loyalty to UNE was passed onto her children, two of whom completed degrees at UNE before going onto to successful careers as creative practitioners: the musician and author Don Walker and novelist and academic, Brenda Walker. Don Walker was awarded an honorary doctorate by UNE in 2020 for his contribution to Australian music and commented in his occasional address that UNE was ‘holy ground’ in his family.
Vale Shirley, you will be much missed.
Associate Professor Jennifer McDonell and Emeritus Professor Julian Croft
21 April 2024