Henrietta Drake-Brockman (1901–1968)

Henrietta Drake-Brockman, née Henrietta Frances York Jull, was born in Perth, Western Australia, the only child of Martin Edward Jull, an English-born public servant, and his wife Roberta Stewart Jull, a doctor and social reformer from Scotland. Henrietta was educated at boarding school in Scotland and at Frensham school in Mittagong. She studied literature at the University of Western Australia and art in Henri Van Raalte's studio in Perth. In 1921, she married Geoffrey Drake-Brockman, a civil engineer and army officer then serving as Commissioner of the new North-West Department. She accompanied her husband on his travels and began to publish sketches and stories in The Western Australian under the pseudonym "Henry Drake." Her experiences also provided material for her novels, beginning with The Disquieting Sex, serialized in the early 1930s. Blue North, an historical novel about Australian life in the 1870s, was published in 1934, followed by Sheba Lane (1936), Younger Sons (1937), The Fatal Days (1947), and The Wicked and The Fair (1957). Her final book, the nonfiction Voyage To Disaster (1963), concerned the 1629 voyage of the Batavia and its captain Francisco Pelsaert, based on extensive research in Dutch archives, Pelsaert's journals, and trips by sea and air to the probable site of the wreck. She edited and selected some Aboriginal tales collected and translated by K. Langloh Parker for a new edition of Australian Legendary Tales in 1953. Henrietta also wrote plays in the 1930s and '40s, some of which were staged in Perth, including The Man from the Bush (1932), Dampier's Ghost (1934) and The Blister (1937). Her best-known play, Men Without Wives, won a drama prize in 1938. She was one of the founders of the West Australian Branch of the Fellowship of Australian Writers, serving as the president in 1941 and again in 1956–1957. She was awarded an OBE in 1967.