Nettie Palmer



Janet Gertrude "Nettie" Palmer (née Higgins) (18 August 1885 - 19 October 1964) was a poet, essayist and Australia's leading literary critic. She was married to novelist, essayist and literary critic Vance Palmer.

Vance and Nettie Palmer were two of Australia's best-known literary figures from the 1920s to the 1950s. Between them they did more to promote Australian literature, particularly (in Nettie's case) literature by women, than anyone else of their generation.

Early life
Nettie Higgins was born in Bendigo, Victoria, the niece of H.B. Higgins, a leading Victorian radical political figure and later a federal minister and justice of the High Court of Australia. A brilliant scholar and linguist, she was educated at the Presbyterian Ladies' College, Melbourne, the University of Melbourne and studied phonetics in Germany and France for the International Diploma of Phonetics. She was active in literary and socialist circles on her return to Melbourne and formed a deep and long term relationship with the visionary poet Bernard O'Dowd. While her brother Esmonde Higgins was a prominent early Australian Communist, neither Nettie nor Vance ever joined any political party: they were much more interested in broad social change. To suggest Nettie and Vance were liberals is to misrepresent them: in their young adulthood, before their children, they were extremely active in a number of radical causes (later in textual representation).

Vance and Nettie met in 1909 and married in London in 1914. When World War I broke out they returned to Australia, where their daughters Aileen and Helen were born in 1915 and 1917. In 1918 Vance joined the Australian Army, but the war ended before he saw service. Vance, Nettie and Esmonde all campaigned against the Hughes government's attempt to introduce conscription into Australia.

Writing career and later life
Both Vance and Nettie had begun to publish poetry, short stories, criticism and journalism before the war, but in the 1920s, living in the fishing village of Caloundra, Queensland, to save money, they dedicated themselves to literature full-time.

In 1924 Nettie published Modern Australian Fiction, at that time the most important critical study of Australian literature. With her two daughters then attending school she returned to writing full time. Writing regularly for numerous newspapers all round Australia, she wrote on a wide range of topics, from environment to cultural events, reviewing all important books being published in Australia, America, Europe and elsewhere. 1928 saw the publication of her selection of 'An Australian Story-Book' drawing on short-stories which had only found form in ephemeral publications. In 1931 she published an important biography of her uncle, Henry Bournes Higgins. She also became the centre of a network of correspondence with many other writers, mainly women. She was an important confidante and mentor for such writers as Marjorie Barnard and Flora Eldershaw.

In 1935 the Palmers travelled to Europe, and they were holidaying near Barcelona when the Spanish Civil War broke out. Aileen and Helen had both joined the Communist Party as students, and Aileen stayed behind to volunteer for service with the British Medical Unit in Spain when the rest of the family returned to Australia. On their return to Melbourne Nettie devoted herself to supporting the Spanish Republic.

During World War II Vance and Nettie were strongly opposed to the advent of fascism, whether in Australia or overseas. Because they had witnessed the loss of democratic rights during the Great War their work was to strength the Australian belief in egalitarianism. Nettie published The Memoirs of Alice Henry (1944) and Fourteen Years: Extracts from a Private Journal (1948), perhaps her best work.

Vance and Nettie were remembered by those who knew them for their great compassion and generosity. They were instrumental in the recognition of Australian literature as a subject wo rthy of serious study and teaching in the academy. While Vance and Nettie's last years were clouded by their own ill health and by worry about their daughter Aileen, who suffered a mental breakdown in 1948 and became an alcoholic, Aileen Palmer was also an established poet in her own right and wrote extensively on the Spanish Civil War. Helen Palmer went on to edit Outlook, an important critical journal, write several books and have a career in education. Nettie died in 1964, universally mourned by Australian writers and readers.

Recognition
The Victorian Premier's Literary Award for fiction is named the Vance Palmer Award, while the prize for non-fiction is the Nettie Palmer Prize.