Margaret Carnegie (1910-2002)

Margaret Carnegie was the daughter of Melbourne softgoods merchant Henry Allen and his wife Amelia Burberry.

She married Douglas Carnegie in 1931 and raised four children on their cattle property ‘Kildrummie’ at Holbrook, New South Wales, where she lived for forty years. When her husband travelled to Sydney or Melbourne on business, she went with him, to research in the Mitchell Library and the State Library of Victoria. Along the way, she developed an interest in local history and in the 1970s began writing. Her life as a historian was just beginning.

Marjorie Tipping persuaded her to join the RHSV Council in 1971 and she served until 1975. She also joined the Friends of the La Trobe Library, Tipping noting that her joie de vivre was a ‘refreshing addition to both organisations’. She became an RHSV Fellow in 1983.

A patron of many organisations, including the Friends of the La Trobe Library and the Wagga Wagga Art Gallery, in 1977 Margaret Carnegie was awarded an honorary Bachelor of Arts by the Riverina College of Advanced Education in acknowledgement of her gift of her outstanding collection of Australiana. Twenty years later, she was admitted to the degree of Doctor of Letters at Charles Sturt University.

The Carnegies moved to Melbourne in 1979 where she continued to research and write. Her husband died in 1998. She died in 2002, having spent her final years in a nursing home.

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