Alexandra Hasluck

Australian author and historian

Dame Alexandra Margaret Martin Hasluck, Lady Hasluck, (née Darker; 26 August 1908 – 18 June 1993), also known as Alix Hasluck, was an Australian author and social historian. She published a number of works on the history of Western Australia. She was the wife of Sir Paul Hasluck, Governor General of Australia.

Hasluck was born on 26 August 1908 in North Perth, Western Australia. She was the only child of Evelyn Margaret (née Hill) and John William Darker. Her father was an engineer and her mother was one of the first female graduates of the University of Sydney. Hasluck attended Ormiston College from 1914 to 1918 and Perth College from 1919 to 1925. As a high school student her poetry was published in The Australasian. She went on to attend the University of Western Australia, graduating Bachelor of Arts in 1929. Hasluck was a sub editor of the university magazine Black Swan and enrolled in an honours course, but had to discontinue her research on the Arthurian legend for financial reasons. She subsequently taught English and French at a small private school and later at St Hilda's Anglican School for Girls. Whitlam then appointed Sir John Kerr. Historians of the period are certain that if Hasluck had still been Governor General in 1975, as he would have been had his wife not intervened, the constitutional crisis of that year would have ended differently. Hasluck himself implied this in his book, The Office of Governor General and also in the Queale Lecture. In the 1978 Queen's Birthday Honours, Lady Hasluck was appointed the first Dame of the Order of Australia for "pre eminent achievement in the fields of literature and history and for extraordinary and meritorious public service to Australia".