OMG: what a woman! ‘Annette Kellerman: Australian Mermaid’ by Grantlee Kieza
Have you heard of Annette Kellerman? I knew a few things about her: that in the early 1900s she had broken swimming records, amazed and shocked with her one-piece swimsuits (very risque for the times), and wowed with her high-diving acts.
But this new biography by Grantlee Kieza introduced me to so much more about this truly astounding Australian woman.
For example:
- She began life as a sickly, weak child, with lower limbs deformed by rickets, the horrible disease that ravaged many children then. Swimming was her way out of a life of disability but to begin with, she was terrified of the water! From this dubious start she went on to outswim male record holders and compete with leading swimmers on attempts to cross the English Channel, among other gruelling marathon events.
- She grew up in a family where entertainment and performance were givens; her mother an accomplished musician of French background who demonstrated ‘chutzpah’ from an early age; her father also a talented musician.
- These entertainment genes led her into a career in vaudeville, where she showed off her ballet skills along with her diving prowess (diving from heights into glass tanks, for example), later adding juggling diablo, high wire walking and other accomplishments to her repertoire. For a time she was the biggest name on the New York vaudeville scene.
- As well as her incredible swimming career, she became a star of Hollywood, creating and appearing in sell-out and critically acclaimed silent movies. Through these efforts she became one of the highest paid movie stars in the world, mixing with some of the household names of Hollywood (Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Mae West, to name just a few).
- Alongside all of this activity she advocated strongly for women’s health and fitness, promoting excercise and healthy diet as the key to happiness and beauty. Keep in mind that this was at a time when women were discouraged from swimming and taking part in active sport of any kind, and the typical feminine outfit included whalebone corsets and multiple layers of petticoats.
‘Swimwear’ consisted of long bloomers, a full dress and other covers that impeded movement. So when Annette adopted what was essentially the same swimsuit as men were wearing (a one piece that covered from shoulders to knee but not much else) which then got shorter and more revealing over the years, you can imagine the amazement it generated! She was absolutely a trailblazer and never stopped in her public advocacy for woman’s participation in physical activity, especially swimming, which she regarded as the ‘perfect exercise’.
I have a few more OMG facts for you. I know some people who admire modern-day actors who do their own stunts on movie sets. Well, let me tell you – those actors have nothing – NOTHING – on this woman from Australia who, in the early years of movie making, not only did all her own stunts but – given the deplorable lack of safety standards on workplaces then – did so with no regard to her own safety.
She dived into a pool full of live Jamaican crocodiles. She survived a perilous cascade down a 60 foot waterfall with her hands tied behind her back. She leaped into the ocean from a high wire suspended from a 30 metre structure called the Tower of Kives and Swords over treacherous rocks . All done without a single double, dummy or safety net. Most, if not all, of these hair raising stunts were her own ideas.
Tom C et al, eat your collective hearts out.
Another way in which she beat today’s performers at their own game, decades before they’d even been born, is the way in which Annette kept her performances fresh – ‘reinventing’ herself, if you will. As she grew older and long-distance swimming lost its charm, she switched focus to her stage acts. In the 1920s she toured Great Britain and Europe giving lectures on health and fitness – in German, Swedish and Dutch. Later still, her lifelong love of dance and ballet training saw her perform the Dying Swan dance alongside world famous Anna Pavlova.
Was there nothing this woman couldn’t do?
I should point out that along with Annette’s own personal drive and quest to learn and achieve, her success was assisted by the unwavering support of her father Fred. Despite his own uncertain health, he accompanied his teenaged daughter to England in 1905 in a bid to launch her international swimming career, and he stayed with her, managing her affairs through thick and thin even as his health failed.
And her later manager and eventual husband, Jimmie Sullivan, was another stalwart supporter, though her impulsive ideas and fearlessness must have driven him to the edge of a nervous breakdown on many an occasion.
Annette was often promoted as the ‘Perfect Woman’ (by which was meant her bodily proportions, not her character) and the front and back cover photos of this book do capture the incredible combination of strength, grace and joy which she possessed.
There is a very funny anecdote concerning an Ohio husband and wife brought before the courts soon after the release of one of Annette’s more famously provocative films involving sheer (invisible or perhaps non-existent) costumes. The husband made the mistake of seeing the film three times in three days and compounded his error by remarking to his wife each night what a ‘pretty form’ Annette Kellerman had.
The couple ended up in front of the magistrate, he sporting bandages on his head and she explaining why she had wielded a potato masher at her husband!After such an active life in the public eye, Annette and Jimmie retired to the Gold Coast in Queensland in the 1960s, then a sleepy coastal backwater. After Jimmie died she continued the fundraising work she had always done, though ‘many of those who attended the events knew her only as the nice little old lady from Labrador, rather than a woman who was once one of the most famous and daring entertainers in the world.’ (p295)
In a very fitting end to a life that revolved around water, Annette’s ashes were scattered by her beloved sister from a small plane over the waters of the Coral Sea.
As always with Grantlee Kieza’s books, Annette Kellerman: Australian Mermaid is a thoroughly researched and engagingly written biography about an Australian figure of note. I had so many ‘OMG’ moments reading this book, that by the end I had to admit that what I’d thought I knew about Annette Kellerman had been a drop in the proverbial ocean – or swimming pool.
Annette Kellerman: Australian Mermaid was published by HarperCollins in April 2025.
My thanks to the publishers for a review copy.
- She began life as a sickly, weak child, with lower limbs deformed by rickets, the horrible disease that ravaged many children then. Swimming was her way out of a life of disability but to begin with, she was terrified of the water! From this dubious start she went on to outswim male record holders and compete with leading swimmers on attempts to cross the English Channel, among other gruelling marathon events.
Not just ‘The Birdman’ or even ‘the man’ ‘Mr & Mrs Gould’ by Grantlee Kieza
When I was in primary school I was a member of the ‘Gould League’, an organisation set up to promote interest in, and conservation of, Australia’s marvellous array of birdlife. When I think about it, it seems a little ironic that I joined this organisation, because as a child I’d developed a bird phobia (long story, but a psychotic nesting mapgie, persistent attacks from said magpie over many weeks, and my father’s rifle all played a part.) Odd, then, that I signed up to a group celebrating all things feathered.
To be honest, I think the attraction was getting club newsletters, pins and stickers in the mail.
But my memories of this time did make me keen to read Grantlee Kieza’s fat volume Mr & Mrs Gould, which tells the story of the Goulds and their family, and their own adventures with birds. Though, not just birds. John Gould developed his knowledge of many more of Australia’s unique fauna, particularly its remarkable marsupials.
So, not just The Birdman, although he was certainly known as such in his lifetime and beyond. He was acknowledged as one of the most important ornithologists of his time and one of the most important publishers of scientific works.
He and his wife Elizabeth visited Australia and he named 328 of the 830 Australian bird species, and almost all newly identified Australian birds passed through his hands during his life. (Mr & Mrs Gould p366)
A couple of years ago I read Melissa Ashley’s fictional account of the life of Elizabeth Gould, The Birdman’s Wife, so I was keen to follow with this non-fiction book. This is where the ‘not just the man’ bit of my title comes in.
Because Elizabeth played a vital role in her husband’s success.
A talented artist and devoted wife, she drew and painted many of the extraordinarily beautiful illustrations in his scientific publications, until her untimely death from an infection after giving birth to her eighth baby in 1841. Her husband was a hard taskmaster and even being heavily pregnant, or recovering from childbirth, had never been a reason for downtime; her output was astonishing and brought to life the wondrous creatures her husband was collecting, classifying and naming.
She accompanied him on collecting trips while in Australia, when transport was difficult, the climate challenging and conditions even more so.
Kieza makes the point that John’s success in his chosen field was even more notable given his relative lack of formal education and his father’s lowly status as a gardener. He attributes much of this to the man’s personal drive and ambition, hard work and a streak of ruthlessness, but also includes Elizabeth’s unwavering support and sacrifice as a crucial factor.
Modern readers may well be horrified by the accounts of the jaw-dropping number of creatures that perished in the name of scientific research then. So many beautiful and even rare creatures died at the point of John’s double-barrelled shotgun, or those of his collectors. My feelings of revulsion were only slightly tempered by remembering that this was a time before photography, when specimens had to be killed and their skills preserved in order to be studied, classified and drawn. Taxidermy was hugely popular among natural scientists, but also collectors, hunters and the wealthy who followed the dictates of fashion and fads. John himself began his career as a taxidermist. I understand the context and limitations of the era, but still experienced a stomach-turning dismay at the many accounts of mass slaughter of creatures in the name of science.
Like many ambitious young men of his day, Gould spent as much time as he could hunting for wildlife to trap and kill, ironically in order to make them as lifelike as he could. If trapping didn’t work, he had his muzzle-loading shotgun.
Mr & Mrs Gould, p21
There is much in this book to enjoy for those interested in the history of this period, including Gould’s connections with many famous people from the era. Joseph Banks, Sir Stamford Raffles, Edward Lear, Tasmania’s Governor and Lady Franklin, the eccentric and doomed explorer Ludwig Leichhardt and Charles Darwin are all figures from history whose stories connected with the Goulds.
The narrative is engrossing, though rather detailed in parts; however it always returns to the very human story at its centre. Gorgeous glossy coloured plates demonstrate the talent of Elizabeth and the other artists who worked so hard to bring Gould’s newly identified creatures alive on the page.
Mr & Mrs Gould was published by HarperCollins in October 2024.
My thanks to the publishers for a review copy.
As I sit down to write this review, it is leading up to ANZAC Day in Australia, an annual day of commemoration of those who served in military campaigns in Australia’s name. Up until recently, those who served as medical staff and nurses in wartime seem to have been ‘add-ons’ in our military histories.
Take the story of Sister Vivian Bullwinkle. Her name should come easily to Australians thinking about their nation’s involvement in war, like Simpson and his donkey in the ANZAC story, or ‘Weary’ Dunlop in WWII.
There is now a statue of Sister Vivian in the grounds of the Australian National War Memorial. But when it was unveiled in 2023 – last year! – it was the first statue of a woman at the memorial.
I’ll move on from my bewilderment at why it took such a long time to recognise this woman, and onto Grantlee Kieza’s story of her life. What a tale it is.
Vivian Bullwinkle completed her nursing and midwifery training at Broken Hill Hospital in the 1930s. Then came the announcement in September 1939 that Australia was at war with Germany. From the Melbourne hospital where she was working, Viv enlisted as an army nurse. By 1941 she was on her way to Singapore, where she would face the new enemy of the war, Japan.
The book includes vivid descriptions of the rapid and vicious attacks on Malaya and Singapore by Japanese troops. On reading these pages I had a sense of the fear that must have been in every heart, knowing that the Japanese were moving south at a rapid rate, killing anyone who stood in their way. I also felt anger at the apparent lack of preparation on the part of Allied authorities; the complacent belief of Western superiority which was then prevalent, certainly worked in favour of the Japanese. Rumours began spreading about the merciless nature of the Japanese soldiers.
On a personal note, an uncle of mine was involved in that first encounter with the Japanese on Singapore Island; he was reported missing, presumed dead; a fate confirmed by the Australian Army at the war’s end. His mother and siblings never got over the loss of smiling, kind, lovable Ernest Harvey Newton, known as ‘Snow’ to his family. Learning about the cruelty inflicted on those who survived encounters with the Japanese, perhaps Snow’s fate was preferable. Who can say? All I know is that the whole thing was an shocking savagery that should never have happened.
Eventually the nurses were evacuated from Singapore; it is telling that they apparently felt great reluctance and shame to be leaving the sick and wounded soldiers they’d been caring for. The author paints an appalling picture of the chaos and desperation of a defeated Singapore. The nauseating smell of death and raw sewage, oil fires and explosions, terrified civilians climbing over each other in their panic.
Worse was to come for Sister Vivian and her comrades. Put aboard the Vyner Brooke, formerly a royal yacht of Sarawak, over two hundred people endured a terrifying voyage from Singapore heading for the relative safety of the Indonesian islands not yet occupied by Japanese. The stories of those on board are poignant: sixty-five Australian nursing sisters, including one who was seven months’ pregnant; a family of Polish Jews who had fled to the assumed safety of Singapore only to find themselves refugees once again; and many women and children.
The ship was bombed by Japanese aircraft and went down off the coast of Bangka Island near Sumatra. Viv and her nursing colleagues tried to assist the wounded and terrified civilians, before the inevitable order to abandon ship as it broke up underneath them.
But Viv had never learnt to swim.
Somehow, she survived, with the aid of a life jacket and an upturned lifeboat, despite continued bombing from above and the threat of sharks below. She stumbled onto a beach where she recovered enough to find other survivors washed up on the island by the strong currents. At least twelve nurses had died in the water that night. With no food, shelter, and with many needing urgent medical care, the survivors agreed that they had to surrender to the Japanese and hope that the rumours they’d heard about the Japanese taking no prisoners were not true.
What follows is a story of unbelievable cruelty, even sadism, by some of the Japanese they encounter. Men and women alike were coldly gunned down or bayoneted on Radji Beach, left to bleed out in the shallow water or drift off on the tide. Twenty-one of Viv’s nursing companions were murdered that day.
Amazingly, after being hit through her middle by a machine gun and left in the water, Viv did not die. Some instinct told her not to show that she was alive, and even though she couldn’t swim, she allowed herself to float until the men with guns were satisfied that they had killed everyone. Eventually she was taken to a prison camp where she was reunited with others of her nursing sister colleagues.
Moved from camp to camp, starved, with no medical care, minimal fresh water, no way to preserve their hygiene and health, beaten and abused…this was the experience of nurses and civilian refugees on Bangka Island and Sumatra for three and a half years. They survived by caring for each other, pooling any resources they could scrounge, making efforts to raise the spirits of their companions, burying the dead as one by one, women began to succumb to the ravages of malnutrition, tropical diseases and mistreatment by their captors.
It’s a terrible story of unimaginable hardship and suffering. As I read, I often wondered ‘What would I do in this situation? Could I endure it? Would I have survived?’
It’s also about stoicism, bravery, sacrifice and the comradeship that we often hear about amongst soldiers, but is less often applied to those who care for the sick and wounded.
Of course the war did end, Japan surrendered, and the prisoners were eventually found and returned to Australia. We should remember that in the midst of their suffering, none of the nurses knew what would happen. They had no way of knowing what the eventual outcome of the war – and their fates – would be.
After the war, Viv’s strength of spirit, her compassion and her pride in the nursing profession, did not abate. She devoted the rest of her working life to improving the standing and professionalism of nursing in Australia, as well as speaking at many memorials and events where she kept the memory of her dead sisters alive.
And in 1975, aged nearly sixty, she played an instrumental role as one of twelve nursing volunteers in Operation Babylift, the mass evacuation of orphaned babies and children from South Vietnam, aboard a chartered Qantas jet from then Saigon to Sydney.
I was so happy to learn that just a year or so later, she married and was able to enjoy more than twenty years with husband Frank Statham.
Sister Viv is a gripping account of a woman who endured great suffering but went on to live a full and productive life in spite of her awful wartime experiences. Grantlee Kieza has written a biography worthy of this truly remarkable Australian.
Sister Viv is published by HarperCollins in April 2024.
My thanks to the publishers for a review copy.
He put Australia on the map: ‘Flinders’ by Grantlee Kieza
Imagine being proposed to by letter, then marrying in a small and hasty ceremony, acting on your new husband’s assurances that you would be joining him on his next voyage on a British naval ship; only to learn that you would not, in fact, be granted permission to do so. You bid a sad farewell to your beloved, having been married a matter of weeks. Off he sails, to explore and chart a vast southern continent on the other side of the globe.
You do not see your husband again for nearly a decade.
This is what happened to Ann Chappelle, who married Matthew Flinders in Lincolnshire, England, in 1801. To say that her new husband was impulsive and careless, as Kieza describes him, is an understatement. However it is also true that he was a man of his age, ambitious, curious about the world, passionate about science and the sea, keen to venture into the unknown. And there is no question that he adored his wife.
Reading this detailed and vivid account of the life of an extraordinary figure of Australia’s early colonial history, I discovered some personal links with my own family history. One is that he came from the same part of England from where my paternal ancestors migrated in the mid-1800s, the marshy fens of Lincolnshire. His lifelong mentor, the botanist Joseph Banks, was also born there.
From an early age Matthew wanted more than a small life in a small village, working as a physician like his father. He was attracted to the sea and inspired by the adventures of Captain James Cook and Banks on the Endeavour, and he joined the navy when he was sixteen.
He first served under another famous figure, William Bligh, experiencing terrifying battles against the French, voyages to Van Diemen’s Land (now Tasmania), Tahiti, the Cook Islands, Tonga, Fiji, through the treacherous reefs of the Torres Strait, to Jamaica and then back to England. In most of those places there were encounters with the original inhabitants, as well as astonishing new sights, sounds, smells and foods, and Matthew developed his charting skills which would become such an important part of his work. It is hard to overstate how much these experiences would have affected a youngster from a small, quiet corner of England.
He was to have command of his own ships of exploration: most famously the tiny Tom Thumb, on which (along with surgeon George Bass) he explored areas around the Sydney settlement and beyond. Later they circumnavigated Tasmania and proved it was an island, separate from the mainland of ‘Terra Australis.’
Subsequent voyages took him to parts of the continent still relatively remote today: up the Queensland coast to the furthest reaches of Cape York Peninsula and the islands of the Torres Strait, across the Gulf of Carpentaria to Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory, and around the southern coastline of the continent. On these voyages he was accompanied by the famous Trim, the black-and-white cat who became Matthew’s beloved and loyal companion for many years.
He experienced shipwreck, sickness, injury, thirst and near starvation. None of these deterred his passion for life at sea and for exploration.
Everywhere he ventured he created charts and kept detailed notes of his observations. It’s difficult for us in today’s connected world to understand that to Europeans at that time, ‘Terra Australis’ was largely a mystery – thousands of kilometers of coastline and a vast interior which was – what? Desert? An inland sea? A network of rivers? No Europeans knew.
Another significant feature of Matthew’s experiences was the help given to him and his crews by the indigenous people they encountered. Interactions included warning shots from muskets and some occasions that came close to outright armed conflict; but many times the British mariners had help in the form of fresh water, guidance through difficult country, or exchanges of European goods for food.
Indeed, it is significant that one of the first times the word ‘Australians’ was used, it was to describe First Nations people near what is now called Port Lincoln in South Australia.
And what of Ann, his wife in far-away Lincolnshire?
The couple exchanged letters, full of longing and (on Ann’s part at least) occasional exasperation. The wives of British sea captains had to resign themselves to long periods of separation, though for Ann, this was further prolonged, when on his homeward voyage in 1803, Matthew put in to the French-controlled island of Mauritius for emergency repairs and reprovisioning, only to be placed under guard as a potential British spy. Because news from Europe took so long to reach British colonial outposts, Britain and France were again at war, but Matthew had not known of it.
He was to spend seven long years in captivity of varying degrees of discomfort, before finally being released in 1810.
He and Ann were at last reunited and set up house together, Ann giving birth to a daughter at the relatively old age (for a first-time mother in the 1800s) of nearly forty-one. Matthew’s health, though, was badly affected by his trials at sea. And sadly, he had to battle with the Admiralty to be given the pay owing him while he’d been imprisoned by the French, and for due recognition for his work in mapping Australia.
Matthew Flinders died in 1814 from renal failure following years of kidney and bladder problems. He was only forty years old.
He led an extraordinary life, voyaging through seas and territories previously unknown to Europeans, experiencing many dangers and hardships. He adopted the name Australia for the southern continent he spent so much of his time exploring and he urged the authorities to do likewise.
The aspect of Flinders’ personality that I most admire, though, is that he was a man whose greatest wish was that his work, his charts and discoveries, would be used for the benefit of science and the greater knowledge of humanity in general, not for warfare or domination. In this, of course, he was disappointed, but he lived his life in the service and pursuit of knowledge.
Flinders is a finely researched and well-written account of a fascinating figure of Australian colonial history, the man who – quite literally – put Australia on the map.
Flinders was published by HarperCollins in November 2023.
My thanks to the publishers for a review copy.
Connections: ‘The Remarkable Mrs Reibey’ by Grantlee Kieza
I’d added Grantlee Kieza’s biography of the woman on the Australian $20 note to my ‘Must Read’ list from the moment I heard about it.
The reason?
Apart from the obvious (my abiding interest in Australian history and especially women’s history), I have three points of connection with the subject, Mary Reibey:
1. She hailed originally from near Manchester in England, where my ancestor Elizabeth Lee was also born and raised,
2. Like another of my ancestors, Mary’s crime which had her transported to Australia was the theft of a horse, and
3. She was a contemporary of yet another ancestor, Jane Longhurst. Like Mary, Jane was an emancipated convict in early colonial Sydney who ‘made good’, managing business affairs and a large family within the male-dominated world of nineteenth century Sydney.Mary showed her redoubtable spirit from an early age, running away from a position as maid in a boarding school and in a flight of youthful fantasy, stealing a horse which she thought would be her ticket to a financially independent life.
Of course she was discovered, arrested and tried for the crime; at first receiving the death sentence, later commuted to transportation to the penal colony of NSW. The startling thing about her time in gaol was that she’d been dressed as a boy – and she managed to keep her sex hidden from her male cellmates in a crowded prison! In my view that would take some chutzpah, not to mention ingenuity.
She arrived in the colony full of trepidation as to what life in this frightening place might have in store for a youngster just fifteen years old.
The author paints a fascinating and vivid picture of convict life in Sydney and Parramatta : housing, clothing, rations, and living and working conditions, along with the many larger-than-life characters that peopled the early days of the colonial period.
The class system of Britain was transported here along with their unwanted criminals, and this is seen in attitudes by free settlers towards the convicts.
Also, people in authority struggled to understand many behaviours of the convicts; why did they make such poor choices (such as getting drunk and fighting) which they must know would result in punishment? To middle class eyes this was inexplicable. Why would people jeopardise their futures in this way? To convicts, most of whom came from dire circumstances, having a good time while one could grab it was entirely sensible. Who knew when the next catastrophe could strike? You could die of a disease, accident or violence tomorrow. May as well enjoy tonight while you could.
Mary, however, kept her head down and out of trouble. She married Tom Reibey, a free settler with an entrepreneurial bent, who was involved in trade and real estate. They had a large family together, but Tom nominated his wife to manage the business dealings during his long absences from the colony on trading voyages. She was wife, mother, and trusted co-manager of the family’s business affairs.
After her husband’s death, Mary continued with the various business interests, shipping and trading, buying, selling and leasing real estate, amassing an even greater fortune.
She is the ‘remarkable’ Mrs Reibey because all this activity was at a time when work options for women were severely curtailed and no women were expected to see the inside of a board room or business negotiation. Much to the surprise of her fellow settlers, ‘Mrs Reibey’ proved to be a shrewd negotiator, driving a hard bargain, with a nose for the next opportunity. This was how one survived – even thrived – in the cut throat world of the colony.
I got a thrill from seeing my ancestor, Jane Roberts (nee Longhurst) mentioned along with Mary in the section describing the formation of the Bank Of New South Wales – the first bank in the colony. Jane and Mary were among a handful of women investors in that early bank, much to the surprise and confusion of their male counterparts, as the concept of women investors was a foreign one.
There are moments that made me smile, such as Mary answering a charge by a debtor that she was ‘no lady’ by hitting him over the head with her parasol!
There are also tender, heartwarming moments in the book, as when Mary fulfills a long-nursed ambition to make a return visit to her homeland, with emotional reunions with family members in the ‘old country.’ I found myself wondering how reunions between my convict and immigrant ancestors may have played out, should any of them had the wish and the resources to return to England.
The Remarkable Mrs Reibey is a comprehensive and engrossing portrayal of a colonial women who surely deserves her spot on the $20 note. Her portrait, depicting a grandmotherly round-faced woman with spectacles and a lace cap, belies the adventurous and headstrong spirit of the younger Mary, with the endurance and smarts to not only survive, but thrive, in a colonial environment that was well and truly stacked against women.
The Remarkable Mrs Reibey was published by HarperCollins Publishers in May 2023.
