Background
She was born in Wynyard, Tasmania, Australia, in 1930, the only daughter of four children.
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- Works
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- Works
book
The Cavendish Affair
(This story is set in England in the 1960s, in a time befo...)
This story is set in England in the 1960s, in a time before mobile phones, computers and the internet. It is an age when ‘free love’ was known about, but not common, and the interests of a woman in the ‘smart-set’ was more about one’s social circle, romantic aspirations and future partner, than an long-term independent career. When Selena Grant is asked by Portia de Vere to help further her plans to marry Martin Shawcross, Selena indignantly refuses, as she instinctively feels that Portia would not be right for Martin's motherless son, Jonathan. But Selena, although drawn to Martin, becomes engaged to Hamish Parker Davis, the famous women's doctor, whose tenderness and loving care come to mean a lot to her. But after near tragedy Selena finds her true love — but is it Martin or Hamish, Roger the television producer, or Peter whom she has left behind in London? Read this delightful story and find out. Vivienne Rae-Ellis is a writer, television presenter and interviewer from Tasmania, now living in Bath, who has published both non fiction and fiction in Australia and England.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00JSUYKMM/?tag=2022091-20
Trucanini: Queen or Traitor? (Aias New Series)
(In this first published biography of the vivacious Aborig...)
In this first published biography of the vivacious Aboriginal woman who lived to become famous as Queen Trucanini - the Last Tasmanian, V.R.Ellis describes the drama of Trucanini's life against the background of violence, terror and disruption imposed on the Aboriginal tribes of Tasmania by the invasion of Europeans at the beginning of the 19th century. Trucanini was born c. 1812 on Bruny Island in D'Entrecasteaux Channel south of Hobart Town; her early years were passed in a traditional tribal environment but the final years of her childhood coincided with the quickening pace of exploration, exploitation and settlement of Tasmania (Van Diemens Land) by the white man. At this time the Aboriginal people were hunted, killed and finally expelled from their island home, and when she died in 1876 Trucanini had a valid claim to be the last Tasmanian to die in her homeland (though she was survived by others living outside Tasmania). Trucanini was, in fact, never a queen; the Tasmanian Aborigines saw her, rather, as a traitor. Why? And for whom was she a queen? This book tells the tragic story. With Trucanini's death there arose a clamour in medical and scientific circles for possession of her unique skeleton, and the sordid manoeuvrings to obtain her bones are detailed here. At last, but only in 1976, following insistent Aboriginal demands, her remains were cremated and her ashes scattered in D'Entrecasteaux Channel within sight of her birthplace. The book first appeared in 1976, marking the centenary of Trucanini's death. In this new and expanded edition the author has included additional material, an account of Aboriginal land rights claims especially in the Bass Strait islands and the Oyster Cove settlement just south of Hobart, as well as a number of new illustrations depicting Trucanini and other Tasmanians of her generation. She also raises some controversial questions about the true identity of the skeleton cremated as that of Trucanini on 30 April 1976.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0391022423/?tag=2022091-20
Vivienne Rae-Ellis
Edit ProfileEducation
Soon after her birth the family moved to Hobart, where they lived first at Sandy Bay and then at New Town, where Rae-Ellis attended Ogilvy High School.
Career
Her parents were Linda, née James (1908–1982) and Donald Thurstans (1904–1988). After leaving school she worked as a secretary in various Hobart businesses before joining the administrative staff of the School of Physics at the University of Tasmania. There she met, and in 1952 married, William Frank Ellis (1928–2015).
They had two children, Niki Maree Ellis (born 1955) and William Mark Ellis (born 1956).
They divorced in 1978. Since 1952, Vivienne Rae-Ellis worked as a newspaper columnist, radio scriptwriter and broadcaster, television program host and public relations officer
Foreign many years she also worked as an actress in various performing companies including the Launceston Players. In 1954 she undertook the unusual assignment of standing in for Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II during rehearsals for the 1954 Royal Tour of Tasmania.
Her last performance as an actress in a play was in 1969 when she played Mistress
Earlynne in Oscar Wilde"s Lady Windermere"s Fan. Rae-Ellis began writing biographies and novels in the 1960s. In 1967, while promoting a local history exhibition for the Launceston Public Library, she became fascinated by a photograph of the pioneer and philanthropist Louisa Anne Meredith whose biography she decided to write.
Louisa Anne Meredith: A Tigress in Exile was published by Blubberhead Press in 1979, by which time Rae-Ellis had also published several other books
She wrote in many genres including biography, children"s fiction, romance, historical fiction and non-fiction, and she continued to produce articles and broadcasts for newspapers and journals in the United Kingdom and Australia. In 2012 she completed a biography of the wife of the painter Thomas Gainsborough, and shortly before her death she completed a novel set in the whaling industry of the 1800s.
In 1982 Vivienne Rae-Ellis relocated from Australia to the United Kingdom. Foreign several years she lived at Layer Marney Tower, the stately home in Essex.
From 1988 she lived in Bath, Somerset, in a house once occupied by the painter Thomas Gainsborough and his family.
She died at her home on 29 March 2015, taking her own life after developing a terminal illness.
Works
book
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Trucanini: Queen or Traitor? (Aias New Series)
(In this first published biography of the vivacious Aborig...)
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The Cavendish Affair
(This story is set in England in the 1960s, in a time befo...)
- Lively libraries
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Trucanini: Queen or Traitor? (Aias New Series)
Membership
While at school she played the violin and was a member of the school basketball team Vivienne Rae-Ellis was a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and a member of the Society of Authors.
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Born
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Died
March 29, 2015 (aged 84) -
Nationality
Australia