Sarah Elizabeth Jackson: an Occasional Diary
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Sarah Elizabeth Jackson An Occasional Diary 1906-1918 This book is available as a free fully searchable ebook from www.adelaide.edu.au/press The Letters of Sarah Elizabeth Jackson (1910-1922) with an introduction by Barbara Wall Published in Adelaide by University of Adelaide Press Barr Smith Library The University of Adelaide South Australia 5005 [email protected] www.adelaide.edu.au/press The Barr Smith Press is an imprint of the University of Adelaide Press, under which titles about the history of the University are published. The University of Adelaide Press publishes peer‑reviewed scholarly books. It aims to maximise access to the best research by publishing works through the internet as free downloads and for sale as high‑quality printed volumes. © 2018 Barbara Wall for the Introduction This work is licenced under the Creative Commons Attribution‑NonCommercial‑ NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY‑NC‑ND 4.0) License. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by‑nc‑nd/4.0 or send a letter to Creative Commons, 444 Castro Street, Suite 900, Mountain View, California, 94041, USA. This licence allows for the copying, distribution, display and performance of this work for non‑commercial purposes providing the work is clearly attributed to the copyright holders. Address all inquiries to the Director at the above address. For the full Cataloguing‑in‑Publication data please contact the National Library of Australia: [email protected] ISBN (ebook: pdf): 978‑1‑925261‑85‑1 DOI: https://doi.org/10.20851/jackson‑diary Book design: Midland Typesetters Cover design: Emma Spoehr Cover image: University of Adelaide Archives, Series 1388, Elizabeth Jackson BA (1911), Photographer Van Dyck. Contents Introduction vii Note to the reader xi List of abbreviations/contractions xii The diary 1 Introduction Elizabeth Jackson was not yet sixteen when she wrote: ‘This isn’t the first diary I’ve started’. She was writing in a new exercise book, a large thick red‑covered book, with the Methodist Ladies’ College crest at the top, the words ‘Methodist Ladies’ College’ printed across the centre, and Name and Form spaces near the bottom. She was to write in it, off and on, for the next twelve years. Elizabeth called it a ‘diary’ but it is not a diary in the sense that the word is usually used. It is far from a day‑to‑day record of the happenings in her life. Her first entry was on Saturday 2 June 1906 and she gave herself three months before she ‘abandoned this attempt’; and indeed she did write fairly consistently for the first three months, at weekly or monthly intervals. She wrote about some of the happenings in her life, about things that interested her and what she thought about them, about her family and her pet cat, Pluto. As time went on she wrote less frequently, but often in more detail. She obviously kept the book because she liked having somewhere to write when the spirit moved her, but perhaps she did not always carry it with her when she moved from place to place, as she often did. In some years she wrote rarely, if at all. The entries jump from June 1907 to June 1910. There are few entries for 1911 to 1915 and only one for 1916. In 1917 and 1918 she wrote at greater length, and rarely about the happenings in her life. The diary had become a repository for her thoughts and ideas, sometimes about ideas she was thinking of turning into fiction. Several times she appears to be writing drafts of letters, although usually she does not say to whom the letters are to be sent. Often she is thinking about worries and concerns and we are caught up in the difficulties and preoccupations of her life. She loved walking in the country and obviously enjoyed the descriptive accounts that she was able to write. She is always engaging and stimulating and I felt it a privilege to be allowed to share her thoughts and experiences. Right from the beginning her personality emerges — her honesty, her forthrightness, her sense of humour and her ability to look at life with a measure of optimism. On the first page we find: Rain! rain! rain! A steady downpour. Good for the farmers, but if you happen to be a minister’s daughter, & it rains on Saturday night, you naturally fear for the morrows congregation — & collection. Not that I am mercenary, but even a minister’s family must live — at least its more pleasant than starving, & that Mother would rather do than go into debt ever so little. That thoughtful, questioning, accepting voice remains with us to the end. When the last page of the diary had been written — and it has very much a ‘last words’ feel about it — Elizabeth was twenty‑eight and far from well. If she ever began another volume it has not survived. Elizabeth died in January 1923 of tuberculosis, aged only thirty‑two. She was not aware, until after she had filled her ‘diary’ book, of the gravity of her condition, and it became clear in the letters she wrote to her brother Canning that she had been made to feel that she had been exaggerating her health problems. But she had been ill, apparently, from her early twenties, without knowing it. Yet her thinking was almost always positive; even when she was writing in hospital she managed to write entertainingly. Everyone enjoyed receiving letters from her. In an unsigned article in The Woman’s Record on 8 February 1923 an anonymous friend wrote after her death: Her letters were delightful — it brightened a dull day to see the familiar handwriting (‘so characteristic as to be almost illegible’) on an envelope — for one knew that inside was a feast of ideas and of nonsense, and that subtle communication of the writer’s personality which so few achieve. With her death South Australia lost someone who was already much known, loved and respected. If she had lived she would surely have made a memorable impact on South Australian society. I have tried to type the diary exactly as it is written1, but I have not found it easy. Her handwriting at its best is not difficult to read but she is frequently thinking and writing fast and her script is then smaller and more compressed; and she crosses out and squeezes in new ideas. This adds to our understanding of her ideas and thought processes, but it is often difficult to decipher. I have included her crossings‑out to the best of my ability, for this too helps to illuminate the way she is thinking and to show how much she cared about style. *** Sarah Elizabeth Jackson was born in 1890. Her father was a Methodist minister who was frequently transferred from one parish to another, so that Elizabeth never lived for long in one place. She seldom refers to the place she is living, but when she was at university she often had to board in Adelaide away from her family. She was very attached to her parents and to her brother, George Canning Jackson, usually known as Canning. Canning moved to Western Australia about 1909 and was overseas during 1 I have also therefore retained any errors that Elizabeth made in punctuation or spelling. viii THE LETTERS OF SARAH ELIZABETH JACKSON the war years. Elizabeth wrote to him frequently and he kept her letters, which have recently been published. This ‘diary’, which he had also kept, adds to our knowledge and understanding of Elizabeth. She attended Methodist Ladies’ College (M.L.C.) as a boarder and afterwards attended the University of Adelaide where she had as distinguished a career as was possible for a woman at that time. She gained the ordinary degree of B.A. in 1911 and was awarded the Tinline Scholarship for History. In 1914 she became an M.A. and Tinline Scholar and she was awarded the David Murray Prize in Philosophy. The same year she became a tutor in philosophy at the University under Professor Mitchell, a position she held for nine years. She was the first woman to hold an academic post in an Australian philosophy department. She was also tutor in psychology and philosophy for the Workers’ Educational Association, both in Adelaide and at Broken Hill. In 1918 she was awarded the John Lorenzo Scholarship for Economic Research. She published two little books of sketches of country life: At Petunia and Petunia Again. She wrote many amusing and informative articles for Adelaide papers and journals and in her last year was acting honorary editor of the Red Cross Record of South Australia, which she had helped to become The Woman’s Record. Unfortunately it did not survive her death. At the University she was recognised as a leader. She had wide interests. Among other initiatives she became a founding member of the Women Graduates Association. She was a member of the Women’s Non‑Party Association and of the Social Efficiency Committee and took an interest in many South Australian organisations. She cared very much about the miseries and difficulties of mentally handicapped or abnormal children. She visited Minda2 and endeavoured to persuade its committee to employ fully trained psychologists. But it soon became clear to her that she was the wrong sex for her talents. She was obviously the sort of person who had the ability to become a university lecturer and professor, but that was not possible for a woman in the early 1900s. When she finally realised that her only hope of earning a living was school teaching, her misery was vividly expressed in this journal.