Patricia Grimshaw

Patricia Ann Grimshaw (born 16 December 1938) is a retired Australian academic who specialised in women's and indigenous people's history. One of her most influential works is Women's Suffrage in New Zealand, first published in 1972, which is considered the definitive work on the story of how New Zealand became the first country in the world to give women the vote.^[1]

Early life

Grimshaw was born on 16 December 1938, to a working-class family in Auckland, New Zealand.^[2]

Education

Grimshaw studied at the University of Auckland, graduating with a BA in 1960 and an MA in 1963.^[2] Her MA thesis on women's suffrage^[3] was later published as Women's Suffrage in New Zealand in 1972, and republished in 1975 and 1987.^[2] The book became a best-seller in New Zealand in 1972,^[4] and continues to be regarded as the definitive work on the story of the New Zealand women's suffrage campaign.^[5]

In 1965, Grimshaw and her husband moved to Melbourne and Grimshaw began her doctoral studies at the University of Melbourne with Greg Dening and Inga Clendinnen.^[2] She completed her PhD in 1987, and two years later published her thesis as Paths of duty: American missionary wives in nineteenth-century Hawaii. This work was the first to consider wives of missionaries as active participants in the colonisation process.^[2]

Career

In 1977, Grimshaw joined the Department of History at the University of Melbourne as a lecturer in women's history.^[2] Two years later she began teaching a course on women's history, which then developed into a centre for women's history.^[2] During her career she supervised approximately 100 thesis writers in women's history, and then engaged her students in collaborative research after they had graduated, thus substantially expanding the field of women's history.^[2]

In 1992, Grimshaw became a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia and in 1997, she became a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities.^[6] From 1995 to 2000, Grimshaw was president of the International Federation of Research in Women's History, an organisation that she had co-founded.^[2][7]

In 1993, Grimshaw was named Max Crawford Professor of History and held this position until her retirement in 2006.^[2]

Since her retirement, she holds the title Emeritus Professor of History, and continues to work on historical projects such as The Australian Women's Register, and to deliver lectures at community events such as International Women's Day.^[8] From 2006 to 2010, she was a member of the Committee of the National Foundation for Australian Women.^[2]

The Patricia Grimshaw Award for mentor excellence is awarded annually to staff at the University of Melbourne to recognise mentoring skills and behaviours.^[9]

References