Jarrett, Pat, (Patricia Irene Herschell) (1911-1990)

Also known as
Jarrett, Pat (1911-1990)
Jarrett, Patricia (1911-1990)
Jarrett, Patricia Irene Herschell (1911-1990)
Field of activity
Journalist and Print Journalist; columnist; journalist; private secretary; radio commentator; sports writer; swimmer; television journalist; war correspondent
Libraries Australia
http://nla.gov.au/anbd.aut-an35725511
NLA Persistent Identifier
http://nla.gov.au/nla.party-560278

Biographies

JARRETT, PATRICIA IRENE HERSCHELL (1911-1990), journalist, was born on 9 March 1911 at Albert Park, Melbourne, elder daughter of Victorian-born parents Cyril Chalmers Jarrett, station manager, and his wife Jessie Mabel, née Herschell. Although her Christian names were registered as Irene Herschell, she was always known as Patricia. Her family lived with Cyril’s parents on their property near Kyneton, where the fair-haired, blue-eyed Pat had an idyllic early childhood. In 1917 she moved with her mother and sister to Melbourne. Educated at Middle Park State and Elwood Central schools, she excelled at sport. The Olympic champion (Sir) Frank Beaurepaire encouraged her as a swimmer. In 1927 she began work in Herschell’s Film Laboratories, owned by an uncle, while also free­lancing for the Sporting Globe, in which she soon had her own column. At the same time she successfully competed in championship swimming and athletics.

View the full record at Australian Dictionary of Biography

In 1958, Pat Jarrett celebrated 25 years of continuous service with the Herald and Weekly Times. She was the only woman alongside seventeen men on the staff to have served so long.

As a child, Pat Jarrett had a love for sport and a love for country life. She left school at 16 and worked at her uncle's film laboratory, but an interest in writing about championship swimming led to a job on the Herald as a sports journalist. Jarrett took on a cadetship under Keith Murdoch and Sidney Deemer. In 1940, she took something of a sabbatical from journalism and took up a position as press agent for Australian ambassador Richard Casey in Washington. Casey's post there came to an end with the entry of the United States into the Second World War. Jarrett returned to Australia to work as a war correspondent for the Herald and covered, among other things, the activities of the WAAF. In December 1942, she recounted the activities of 35 women - from Russia, England, Scotland, Ireland, India, South Africa and New Zealand - who spent four days bivouacking in the mountains, learning how to make an 'Aussie Bunk' out of saplings and chaff bags, and training to deal with the possible evacuation of civilians. 'In civilian life', Jarrett noted, 'the occupations of these trainees ranged from architects to botanists, so that when the daily manoeuvres included the building of a model camp site to accommodate 100 people, with children, in summer, some varying and interesting ideas resulted'.

Jarrett was well connected, both in Australia and abroad. According to her biographer, Audrey Tate, 'she particularly enjoyed having the opportunity to meet the famous, though she always remained a trifle in awe of them'. She was friendly with Sir Hubert and Lady Opperman, and she corresponded regularly with Katharine Hepburn. In 1944 she again joined the Casey family, this time in Calcutta as secretary to Lady Maie Casey following Sir Richard's appointment as Governor of Bengal. Her duties included arranging a meeting between Ghandi and Casey, and travelling to the Front to interview Generals Slim and Merserbe on the recapture of Mandalay. Casey was decommissioned at the end of the War, and Jarrett spent the three years from 1945 working as a journalist in New York.

In 1948, Jarrett was employed to edit the women's pages at the Sun News-Pictorial. She retained her post until December 1973. Rejecting the title of 'Social Editoress', she called herself instead the Leader of the Women's Staff, and refused to be pushed into frivolous writing on fashion and social events. With the aim of informing and entertaining her women readers, she added commentary on broader social issues to the regular pieces on clothing, cooking and sewing. Though she did not call herself a feminist, Jarrett published stories on equal pay for women, higher education for girls, and the possibility of seeking a fulfilling career in addition to marriage.

Jarrett became famous for her lively and provocative 'Fair Comment' column, in which she tackled all manner of questions. On 5 June 1965 she was discussing the need for spontaneous affection between husband and wife to avoid divorce, citing marriage guidance expert Dr Dick Glover. Three weeks later she was giving a voice to underpaid Victorian teachers. They, not their pupils, 'appear to be the ones who got the cane this week - and women teachers in particular'. The recent pay rise offered by the Teachers' Tribunal was minimal, said Jarrett: 'I reckon that while Australia's economic wizards keep telling us that ours is now such an affluent society, teachers (and any other group of salaried workers for that matter) can't be blamed for expecting a bit of it to rub off onto them, and for feeling let down when it doesn't'. In 1967, Jarrett was able to air her thoughts and opinions on talkback radio as co-host of 3DB's 'Talk It Over'.

In the early 1970s, Pat elected to retire but was persuaded to stay on part-time as editorial adviser on women's affairs to the Herald and the Sun. She continued to act as a loyal friend and helper to the Caseys, right through to the death of Maie Casey in 1983. By 1985 she was exhausted, suffering from a long bout of influenza as well as osteoporosis, diverticulitis and psoriasis. She retired permanently in December that year, after fifty-two years with the Herald and Weekly Times. Pat Jarrett died in 1990, aged 79.

  • c. 1930 - 1985 Career in journalism active
  • 03 June 1972 MBE for services to journalism

View the full record at Australian Women's Register

Related people and organisations

Australian Dictionary of Biography

Resources for Pat Jarrett

Selected resources (14)

Australian Dictionary of Biography

Australian Women's Register

  1. WAAFs Learn to Use Tablet FoodHerald : WAAFs Learn to Use Tablet Food
    Jarrett, Pat
    [1942]
  2. WAAF Officers Gain BushloreHerald : WAAF Officers Gain Bushlore
    Jarrett, Pat
    [1942]
  3. On Convoy with the AWASHerald : On Convoy with the AWAS
    Jarrett, Pat
    [1942]
  4. Supremo on Asian FrontHerald-Sun : Supremo on Asian Front
    Jarrett, Pat
    [1979]
  5. The Queen's Smile was Loveliest YetSun News-Pictorial : The Queen's Smile was Loveliest Yet
    Jarrett, Pat
    [1954]
  6. White Woman in BurmaHerald : White Woman in Burma
    Jarrett, Pat
    [1945]
  7. Tough Training at RAAF Commando SchoolHerald : Tough Training at RAAF Commando School
    Jarrett, Pat
    [1943]
  8. The Women's Pages: Australian Women and Journalism since 1850
    Australian Women's Archives Project
    [2008]
    Published: Australian Women's Archives Project
    Series: http://www.womenaustralia.info/exhib/cal/cal-home.html
  9. Fair Comment: The Life of Pat Jarrett, 1911-1990
    Tate, Audrey
    [1996]
    Published: Melbourne University Press
  10. Faith, Hope and Charity Australian Women and Imperial Honours: 1901-1989
    Australian Women's Archives Project
    [2003]
    Published: Australian Women's Archives Project
    Series: http://www.womenaustralia.info/exhib/honours/honours.html
  11. National Library of Australia: Correspondence of Pat Jarrett, 1955-1991 (1955 - 1991)
    Letters from Sir Robert Helpmann, 1955-1965; telegram from Helpmann, 1962; photocopy of a postcard from Vivien Leigh, February 1965; newspaper cutting from the Sun-Herald 29 September, 1991 "Hepburn: I was first of the new women". Also included are letters from Katharine Hepburn, 1955-1990 in security binding.
    NLA MS 8619
  12. State Library of Victoria: Papers of Lord and Lady Casey
    Papers of Lord and Lady Casey, including itineraries, programmes, and speeches given by Lord and Lady Casey; extracts from Lord Casey's personal diary, press cuttings including ones relating to his death, a copy of Lady Casey's will, documents concerning valuations, includes miscellaneous material; also selection of transcripts of speeches concerning the Australian Broadcasting Commission "Guest of Honour" series; also material relating to Pat Jarrett, a journalist, and secretary to Lady Casey in the 1940s, including press cuttings. Includes photographs of Lord and Lady Casey and Pat Jarrett taken in 1941(MC 6, DR 6)
    MS 12565
  13. National Library of Australia: Interview with Pat Jarrett, journalist [sound recording]/interviewer: Mark Cranfield (1984)
    Jarrett speaks of her happy early years and her preference for country life, her love and early aptitude for sports, how she learnt to swim and her sports prizes giving her self-confidence, left school at 16, work at her uncle's film laboratory and her enduring love of photography, how her interest in writing about championship swimming lead to a job on the Herald as a sports journalist, her cadetship days under Keith Murdoch and Sidney Deemer, playing cricket herself on tour with women cricketers, how she became Women's Editor of the Sun, how she came to go overseas to the United States and met Dick Casey, Australian ambassador, in Los Angeles who offered her a job as his press agent, her life in Washington with the Casey family in 1940-1941, how America's entry into WWII finished Casey's Washington posting, her decision to return to Australia and become a war correspondent, requiring the rank of captain. Jarrett also speaks about her decision to rejoin the Caseys in Calcutta in 1944, how the Caseys handled the Indian unrest, how she organised for Ghandi to meet with Casey, her impressions of the Viceroy Wavell and wife as well as the Mountbattens, how she was sent to the Front to interview Generals Slim and Merserbe on the recapture of Mandalay before returning to Australia with the Casey children, how she got Rohan Rivett back to Australia, how they travelled together after Casey was decommissioned at the end of the War.
    ORAL TRC 2661

Resources by Pat Jarrett (4)

  1. Red book
    Jarrett, Pat (Patricia Irene Herschell), 1911-1990
    [ Unpublished : 1954 ]
    At State Library of VIC
    This resource is very relevant to your query (score: 31.717)

    This resource is very relevant to your query (score: 31.717)

  2. Interview with Pat Jarrett, journalist / interviewer: Mark Cranfield
    Jarrett, Pat (Patricia Irene Herschell), 1911-1990
    [ Sound : 1984 ]
    At National Library
    This resource is very relevant to your query (score: 22.567)

    This resource is very relevant to your query (score: 22.567)

  3. Australian women's cricket tour of England and Holland : March to September 1937 / compiled by Kathleen Commins
    Commins, Kathleen
    [ Published : 2005 ]
    At State Library of NSW
    This resource is very relevant to your query (score: 7.792)

    This resource is very relevant to your query (score: 7.792)

  4. The Portland sesquipedalian sesquicentennial stuffing book : one hundred and fifty years in a foot and a half and seventy pages of stuff stuffing and nonsense for cooks of all calibres / Beppie Hedditch, Pat Jarrett, Bren Jarrett ; new illustrations ...
    Hedditch, Beppie
    [ Book : 1984 ]
    At 3 libraries
    The Portland sesquipedalian sesquicentennial stuffing book : one hundred and fifty years in a foot and a half and seventy pages of stuff stuffing and nonsense for cooks of all calibres / Beppie Hedditch, Pat Jarrett, Bren Jarrett ; new illustrations Georgie Wain
    This resource is very relevant to your query (score: 7.333)

    This resource is very relevant to your query (score: 7.333)

Resources about Pat Jarrett (6)

  1. Fair comment : the life of Pat Jarrett 1911-1990 / Audrey Tate
    Tate, Audrey Patricia, 1927-
    [ Book : 1996 ]
    At 45 libraries
    Fair comment : the life of Pat Jarrett 1911-1990 / Audrey Tate
    This resource is very relevant to your query (score: 60.29)

    This resource is very relevant to your query (score: 60.29)

  2. Red book
    Jarrett, Pat (Patricia Irene Herschell), 1911-1990
    [ Unpublished : 1954 ]
    At State Library of VIC
    This resource is very relevant to your query (score: 32.079)

    This resource is very relevant to your query (score: 32.079)

  3. Interview with Pat Jarrett, journalist / interviewer: Mark Cranfield
    Jarrett, Pat (Patricia Irene Herschell), 1911-1990
    [ Sound : 1984 ]
    At National Library
    This resource is very relevant to your query (score: 22.674)

    This resource is very relevant to your query (score: 22.674)

  4. Correspondence of Pat Jarrett
    Jarrett, Pat (Patricia Irene Herschell), 1911-1991
    [ Unpublished : 1955-1991 ]
    At National Library
    This resource is very relevant to your query (score: 15.139)

    This resource is very relevant to your query (score: 15.139)

  5. Carol Valentine, Molly Hide (both on the English women's cricket team), and Pat Jarrett (the Herald writer on women's sport), 1934
    Women's Cricket Association
    [ Photograph : 1934 ]
    View online
    At National Library
    Carol Valentine, Molly Hide (both on the English women's cricket team), and Pat Jarrett (the Herald writer on women's sport), 1934
    This resource is very relevant to your query (score: 10.572)

    This resource is very relevant to your query (score: 10.572)

  6. Papers of Lord and Lady Casey
    Casey family
    [ Photograph ]
    At State Library of VIC
    This resource is very relevant to your query (score: 6.193)

    This resource is very relevant to your query (score: 6.193)

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