Flora Marjorie (Marnie) Bassett (1889-1980)

Flora Marjorie (Marnie) Bassett (1889-1980) was the daughter of professor of chemistry David Orme Masson and his wife Mary Struthers. Hers was a rarefied education – taught by governesses, surrounded by eminent scholars and travelling extensively in Europe.

Marnie’s interest in history and her facility as a writer were encouraged by history professor Ernest Scott, who was a foundation councillor of the Historical Society of Victoria. In 1910, aged 21, her piece on ‘Port Phillip Discoverers’ was published in the Age. Two years later she joined the HSV and in the following year published a pamphlet on the foundation of the University that had been her childhood home. Then, in May 1914, Marnie became the first woman, and the youngest for many years, to present a paper at an HSV meeting.

In 1923 Marnie married engineering lecturer Walter Bassett (later Sir Walter) and as her children grew, she began to write. The Governor’s Lady, Mrs Philip Gidley King published in 1940 was the first of a number of thoroughly researched, beautifully written books of Australian history. Her output was such that she was awarded Doctorates of Letters from Monash University (1968) and the University of Melbourne (1974), despite never having undertaken any formal education. She became a Foundation Fellow of the Australian Academy of Humanities in 1969 and an RHSV Fellow in 1971.

She was writing to the end. When she died in 1980 aged 91, she was part way through a biography of Henry Fyshe Gisborne.

Kaleidoscope exhibition text by Cheryl Griffin, February 2022. Full entry to follow.