by Elizabeth Lhuede

Another in our series of posts on authors with works published in 1924.

Eleanor Mackinnon (1871 to 1936) is better known for her charitable work and political activities than she is for her writing. Born Eleanor Vokes Irby Addison, a descendant of Joseph Addison of Spectator fame, she spent her earliest years in Tenterfield in Northern NSW. In 1882 her family moved to Sydney, where she attended Sydney Girls’ High School, along with fellow writers Louise Mack and Ethel Turner. In 1896, she married physician R R S Mackinnon with whom she had two sons.

In the early years of Mackinnon’s marriage, she was involved in a number of charitable institutions, and, in 1914, became foundation honorary secretary to the NSW division of the British Red Cross, and founded the Junior Red Cross Division, an organisation arm which spread throughout the world and gave her international acclaim. During WWI, she was active in rallying women to join the war effort and, in 1918, was awarded an OBE. In the 1920s she continued her charitable works, establishing homes for children suffering from tuberculosis and polio, and became a representative on the senate of the University of Sydney. In 1925, she was chosen as an Australian delegate to the League of Nations and, in 1935, was awarded King George V’s Silver Jubilee Medal.

In addition to her many and varied charitable works, Mackinnon was both a published poet and journalist, and actively promoted literacy via her association with the Bush Book Club. Her writing career began with journalism, her first pieces appearing in several Sydney newspapers in the early part of the century. She chose to write on subjects considered typically of interest to women, her initial essays including such pieces as “The domestic servant problem”, and “Holiday homes for the children of the bush towns”. Later, her writing turned more political and, during WWI, she wrote in favour of the 1916 referendum on conscription, her sympathies unapologetically nationalistic, even imperialist. In 1917, she advocated for the “Federation of Australian women,” championing such aims as “equal pay for equal merit” for women. In the 1920s, she published pieces inspired by her travels to France and the Middle East, identifying very as much as a “Britisher” in essays such as “Our Empire: Red Sea and the Soudan”. In the 1930s, her journalism continued to champion what she considered to be women’s issues, including the health and welfare of children.

In addition to her journalism, Mackinnon published two collections of verse, The Lilies of France and other poems (North Sydney, Eleanor Mackinnon [1917]) and ‘The Golden Land’ and other verses (Sydney, W Docker, 1924), with several of her poems appearing in the Sydney Morning Herald. During 1924, the same year ‘The Golden Land” appeared, Mackinnon published one essay and three poems. The prose piece, “Balmain from another angle”, looks back at the history of the waterside Sydney suburb to the time when it was settled by retired ships’ captains. Perhaps of most interest to history buffs, it’s nevertheless a well-written, nostalgic and evocative piece, its passages giving us a glimpse of Mackinnon’s interests and preoccupations, bringing to life a time gone by.

Her three poems of 1924 also appeared in The Sydney Morning Herald: “The pursuit”, a traditional poem which personifies the months of September and October, which unfortunately has an illegible ending in Trove; “The roses of England”, a nationalistic poem which identifies with the sacrifices made in war by British soldiers; and “The Red Cross bell”, a poem which refers to the – often overlooked – contribution made by women to the war effort, “gallant deeds… that were not alone confined to men”, a theme also touched on in the essay on Balmain where she writes of the recent death of the local resident, Miss Ethel Trouton, and the toll her war efforts took on her health:

[Trouton] was an active worker-on the Bush Book Club, Girl Guides, Red Cross, and other societies. Her life was lived for others, and there is little doubt that the strain of unremitting war work broke down her fine constitution.

In these brief lines, I sense, is a wealth of pain for the sacrifices women such as Trouton and Mackinnon herself made during that time.

The poem, “The Red Cross Bell”, commemorates both the organization to which Mackinnon devoted much of her life, as well as those female comrades whose work so often went unsung and whose fellowship she so greatly valued.

~

THE RED CROSS BELL
by Eleanor Mackinnon

One day from out the town, the noble peal,
A sweet carillon o’er the city’s din,
Will find its echo in the hearts that feel
Attuned to memories of those years within.

Or, when the evening shadows softly fall,
And quiet comes, the full, clear notes will swell
In rising melody, and to us all,
The tale renewed of gallant deeds will tell.

Deeds that were not alone confined to men,
In grave-like trench, pursued by mur’drous shell;
But tender thoughts and tireless efforts then,
Will be recorded by the Red Cross bell.

The days of comradeship, the nights of pain,
With loved ones far away — how can one tell
The story of Gethsemane again?
We leave the message to the Red Cross bell.

~

References
— “Eleanor Mackinnon”, AustLit entry: https://www.austlit.edu.au/austlit/page/A44466
— “Eleanor Mackinnon”, Wikipedia entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleanor_MacKinnon
— Eleanor Mackinnon, “Balmain from another angle”: Sydney Morning Herald, 8 March 1924: 14, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/16123383
— Eleanor Mackinnon, “The pursuit”, 4 Oct 1924: 13, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/16169816
— Eleanor Mackinnon, “The Red Cross bell”, Sydney Morning Herald, 26 July 1924: 11, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/16165912
— Eleanor Mackinnon, “The roses of England”, Sydney Morning Herald, 13 Sep 1924: 13, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/16173190
— Image of the author courtesy Stanton Library Historical Services: https://stanton.imagegallery.me/site/welcome.me?search=~text:(103020)&search_str=103020
— Jacqueline Abbott, ‘MacKinnon, Eleanor Vokes (1871–1936)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/mackinnon-eleanor-vokes-7398/text12863, published first in hardcopy 1986, accessed online 26 June 2024.

~

Elizabeth Lhuede has a PhD in Australian Poetry from Macquarie University. In 2012, she instigated the Australian Women Writers Challenge as a contribution to overcoming gender bias in the reviewing of works by Australian women. More recently she has focused on bringing to light the life and works of forgotten Australian women writers.