Ann Moyal (HURLEY) AM BA
1943 - 1945
Ann Moyal has had an exhilarating life. A noted scholar of the history of Australian science and telecommunications, and a biographer, she began her career (after graduating in history with first class honours at Sydney University), as a personal research assistant to the famous British press lord, Lord Beaverbrook, joining him in the writing of his books on British political history and travelling with him as he entertained such figures as Sir Winston Churchill and the Kennedys in America. She returned to Australia in 1958 to help found the Australian Dictionary of Biography at the Australian National University and then to pioneer a new field of the history of this country’s science. She has taught and researched in a number of Australian Universities and her many books include A bright & savage land: scientists in colonial Australia, Clear across Australia: a history of telecommunications, Women and the telephone, Portraits in science and Platypus.
Ann was awarded a Doctor of Letters from the ANU in 2003 for her published work, and received an AM and a Centenary Medal for her contribution to science and technology in Australia, particularly the writing of its history. Her autobiography, Breakfast with Beaverbrook, recalls the charm and lively stimulus of The Women’s College in wartime Sydney under the distinguished Principal Camilla Wedgwood. Ann reflects that she enjoyed the benefits of a scholarship while a student at College and she is bequeathing a scholarship for a future generation.
From the Women’s College Journal, 2005