Ann Moyal

Ann Moyal AM (1926-2019), historian of Australian science, graduated from the University of Sydney in 1947. Moving to London on a scholarship to the Institute of Historical Research, she spent several years researching at Chatham House and from 1954 to 1958 was personal research assistant to the press baron, politician and historian, Lord Beaverbrook, as he wrote Men and Power 1917-1918. She returned to Australia to the Research School of Social Sciences at the Australian National University in 1958 where as Research Fellow, she helped Sir Keith Hancock found the Australian Dictionary of Biography. In 1962 she was appointed jointly Research Associate of the Department of History and the Australian Academy of Science, to unite the humanities and science in the history of Australian science. Director the Science Policy Research Centre at Griffith University from 1977 to 1979, she founded the Independent Scholars Association of Australia in 1995. Her many books include "A Bright and Savage Land": Scientists in Colonial Australia (1986); Clear across Australia: A history of telecommunications (1984); Portraits in Science (1994), Platypus: The Extraordinary Story of how a curious creature baffled the world (2001) and The Web of Science (2004). She wrote two sparkling autobiographies, Breakfast with Beaverbrook: Memoirs of an independent woman (1995) and A woman of Influence: Science, men and history (2014). She was awarded a Doctorate of Letters by the ANU for her publications in 2003 and an honorary D.Litt by the University of Sydney in 2007.

Gift of Ann Moyal 2012. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.