Biography offers a glimpse into the life of trailblazer Dame Quentin Bryce

2 months ago 5

By Mark McGinness

December 23, 2025 — 12.00pm

BIOGRAPHY
Quentin Bryce
Juliet Rieden
Penguin, $55

Vice-regal memoirs are a relatively rare phenomenon in the history of Australian letters: from Sir William Denison’s two-volumes in 1870 to more recent autobiographies from Kerr, Cowen, Hayden and Cosgrove; and a few consorts: Lady Tennyson, the Duchess of Gloucester, Lady Cowen and notably Alexandra Hasluck’s elegant Portrait in a Mirror (1981). The hallmark has generally been discretion. One wishes there were less of it and more glimpses of the real experience shining light upon the magic. Like Henry Duke of Gloucester, returning home after two years as the 11th governor-general, was asked by Queen Mary, “How was it out there?” “Wretched, Mother, wretched.”

Biographies - even authorised ones – are more forthcoming, among the best Zelman Cowen’s life of his hero, Isaac Isaacs (1993); and Philip Ayres’ Fortunate Voyager (2013), a superb account of the life of Ninian Stephen. Now Juliet Rieden’s biography of the 25th governor-general, Quentin Bryce, has joined the canon.

Bryce was the first female law faculty member at the University of Queensland; founding member of the National Women’s Advisory Council; founding Director of the Queensland Women’s Information Service; founding Chair and CEO of the National Childcare Accreditation Council; first female Federal Sex Discrimination Commissioner (these latter two proved especially testing); second female Governor of Queensland; and first female governor-general. If Bill Hayden said it was Stephen who had taken the starchiness out of the office, it was Quentin Bryce who offered an alternative to the military moustache, the ministerial portfolio and the judicial wig.

What was arresting, unexpected and unsettling was the beauty and glamour of this feminist – probably the most stylish woman in Australian public life.

Her antecedents and early years are fascinating and evocative. The second of four daughters of Norman Strachan, son of an Ayrshire-born master mine engineer, and Naida Wetzel, daughter of a competitive swimmer and manager of St Alban’s Baths in Brisbane, Bryce had two formative influences - a fastidious mother with exacting standards and an idyllic post-war country childhood in close-knit Ilfracombe in Central Queensland, where Norman managed a wool scour.

When, decades later, she showed a visiting Prince Philip a photograph of her beloved home town, waxing lyrical about the wide horizon and the grassed plains; the duke shot back, “If you ask me, it looks ready for development.”

One of her sisters told her never to forget where she came from, but there was no need. Her official secretary joked that every viceregal speech somehow included a mention of Ilfracombe. In her five-and-a-half-year term she visited 249 places in Australia and 98 locations in 50 countries. She delivered 830 speeches and assumed 325 patronages. Women, children, and the indigenous were at the core of her mission.

In addition to striking “a balance between observing traditions and protocol and being thoroughly contemporary”, she made her mark with her speeches. Her closest peer? Sir William Deane. Sir Paul Hasluck had quipped that a governor-general was required to talk a lot without saying too much but Bryce, and her splendid speechwriter, Kate Chapple, changed all that.

Her respect and affection for the military and veterans were deep and abiding. Her address on Anzac Day 2013 commemorating the Kokoda Trail was a tour de force. Vivid, poetic and powerful, Bryce’s speeches deserve to be published - these are her legacy.

Bill Shorten gets sworn in as assistant treasurer by Quentin Bryce - his mother in-law at Government House in Canberra, 2010.

Her first move was to appoint her own Official Secretary, diplomat Stephen Brady, breaking with the courtly rule of the incumbent. The resistance was considerable - even the Queen questioned it – but her choice was inspired. Bryce’s term, following the Republican Referendum, led to the “Australianisation” of the Queen - a de facto headship of state which could be comfortably converted to a presidency.

It is remarkable that, given the political divisiveness at the time, when her son-in-law, Bill Shorten, became Leader of the Opposition and she offered to resign to avoid any perception of bias, then Prime Minister Tony Abbott refused, and she completed her term in March 2014 with a damehood - at his urging.

If there is a previously unsung hero here it is Michael Bryce, Quentin’s husband of six decades. He was the outstanding feminist in this story. Selfless, supportive, reassuring; invariably at home for their five children. He even changed his name to Strachan Bryce to honour the wife he worshiped.

Although her memories and impressions shine through the text of this handsome book, her own account would have been even more welcome.

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