Abstract
Ruby Payne-Scott and Bill Hall were happily married for 37 years. Their two children, Peter Gavin Hall and Fiona Margaret Hall, are prominent Australians. It is vital to the understanding of our protagonist that we learn about her family and not just her brief, but vivid career as a physicist and astronomer. The reader must keep in mind that Ruby was forced to make a choice, one that forced her to shear off an entire aspect of her own personality and desire, in favour of another. Ruby made the choice to seek personal happiness in her marriage and children, though doubtless she would have been more than happy to continue her intellectual expansion in the realm of radio astronomy had that been an option. After leaving CSIRO, she put her great breadth and depth of personal knowledge and passion at the disposal of her family, and the world profited by gaining two gifted and giving siblings who have fearlessly approached the world on their own terms.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Based on interviews with Peter Hall in Socorro, New Mexico in May 1998 and with Peter and Fiona Hall in Canberra in February 1999. Additional telephone interviews took place with Peter Hall in Melbourne in February 2007. Extensive interviews in March 2007 in Adelaide were carried out with Fiona, as well as correspondence with both Peter and Fiona in the period 1998–2008. There have also been numerous letters and interviews with Dr. Elizabeth Hall, 1999–2008.
- 2.
210 passengers were on board the iron sailing ship, Bann. Agnes’s parents were James and June Paterson from Lanark, Scotland (about 30 km from Glasgow). The family was Presbyterian. The father’s occupation was listed as agricultural labourer (later documents listed him as miner and later still as railroad worker). At the time of Agnes’s birth, James worked in the Glasgow railway yards. After working in either Inverness or Aberdeen, he decided to emigrate due to the higher wages paid in Australia. Each adult paid £14 for the voyage. Dr. Elizabeth Hall provided many of these details about the family of Bill Hall.
- 3.
National Archives of Australia-NAA: A1/1/1, Part 6.
- 4.
It is not known what work Bill did at Garden Island Naval Base. We assume he worked on maintenance of ships, perhaps as a carpenter. A request to the National Archives of Australia in September 2012 yielded no information.
- 5.
Merle Watman (letter to E. Hall 1999) remembered that Bill worked at the Sutherland PMG exchange, while Arthur Gilroy (letter to E. Hall 1999) suggested that Bill was in charge of the Blakehurst exchange. Peter Hall remembered that in the late 1950s his father occasionally worked on a night shift, leaving home at 6pm. The increased wages were a welcome supplement to the family income.
- 6.
Betty Hall interview, February 2007.
- 7.
This conversation occurred when Fiona’s career was blossoming. At a time when she had been invited to visit Japan to exhibit her work in an art gallery, her brother had just received a prestigious prize from a French mathematical society
- 8.
Butler has described this group in some detail in the delightful reminiscence, The Barefoot Walker: A Remarkable Story of Adventure, Courage and Romance, written by Dorothy Butler 1991. Butler (1911–2008) joined the SBW in 1931 and made a number of major ascents in the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney. The term ‘bush walking’ had only been invented in the late 1920s. Later in her life she went to New Zealand and made a number of ascents, including Mount Cook.
- 9.
Dates of Bill’s and Ruby’s joining the SBW provided by Bill Holland (SBW archivist) to E. Hall, 19 March, 1999.
- 10.
Letter to Goss, 18 March 1999, from Alex Colley. Colley also wrote: “Bush walkers come from all walks of life, but we are all equal on walks”.
- 11.
Elizabeth (“Betty”) Hall has written (19 March 1999) that the SBW “was also a very successful marriage bureau… There is nothing like a hard walk to bring out the best and the worst in people; after you have walked with them a few times you have no illusions about your chosen partner!”
- 12.
Letter to Goss, 15 March 1999.
- 13.
Betty began bush walking with another young woman. On one of their first trips in the Burragorang Valley they returned quite late, missing the last bus from the top of the track. They were rescued by a man in a truck, who told them about the Sydney Bush Walkers; since she knew she needed to develop a network of friends, she became a prospective member in December 1946 and a full member on 30 April 1947.
- 14.
NAA; C3830, A1/1/1 Part 6. Payne-Scott wrote to Pawsey on 18 October 1951 (a month before Peter was born): “We moved in here about 6 week ago without either light or water, but things are gradually straightening out, although I still seem to entertain sundry tradesmen most days of the week.”
- 15.
From the interview on 12 February 2007. It is possible that Payne-Scott was recalling her memories of the sun rise on 26 January 1946 (Australia Day) when interference fringes from the radio sun were observed for the first time.
- 16.
Robert May (now Lord May) was Professor of Theoretical Physics at Sydney University and later President of the Royal Society from 2000 to 2005.
- 17.
Karen Pakula in The Sydney Morning Herald, 1 March 2008.
- 18.
Julie Ewington, Fiona Hall, 2005, page 180. In this book, Ewington has given a thorough description of Fiona Hall’s artistic career.
- 19.
Quote from Fiona Hall to Libby and W.M. Goss at her home, Adelaide, 9 March 2007.
- 20.
Telephone call from the late Marie Alewood, a neighbour of Payne-Scott’s, 12 February 2007.
- 21.
When Peter Hall went through the house in 1999 (after the death of his father), he found numerous architectural books. Though Ruby’s interests ranged from mathematics and physics through particularly biology, a special interest of hers was architecture. She told Betty Hall that if she could have a second life she would return as an architect.
- 22.
In Fiona Hall (2005, page 27), Ewington has written, “In 1974 it seemed that Fiona Hall emerged fully formed as an artist.” At this time she began exhibiting photographs, which were collected and published.
- 23.
Ewington (2005), page 42.
- 24.
An image of this work was used as the cover for Goss and McGee’s Under the Radar—the First Woman in Radio Astronomy: Ruby Payne-Scott.
- 25.
Ewington (2005), page 118: “In a seemingly inhospitable courtyard, formed by the junction of the original National Gallery building of 1982 and the extensions opened in 1998, Hall sited 58 mature … giant tree ferns that are amongst the most ancient plants in Australia.”
- 26.
Fiona has told Goss (18 April 2009) that she often walked through the Royal Botanic Garden (the location of the sculpture) with her father in the early 1990s; she would meet him near Sydney Harbour and they would walk through the Domain to Kings Cross railway station. Bill Hall would then take the train back to his home in Oatley. Fiona thinks that her father was attracted to this location as it was close to Garden Island where he worked at the naval dockyard during World War II.
- 27.
Ewington, page 138. The knitted cloak photograph has the title “The Social Fabric” (1996); Greg Weight was the photographer. Note the same fabric in Fig. 12.10. Fiona Hall has told Goss that she was apprehensive about asking her father to pose in this semi-nude fashion. She was pleased that he was totally at ease during the photographic session.
- 28.
Brook Turner The Australian Financial Review Magazine 27 April 2012.
- 29.
Wentworth Courier, Sydney, 18 June 2008. Drew Sheldrick.
- 30.
Goss met Fiona Hall the following day at the exhibit which ran to 26 November 2011.
- 31.
Brook Turner The Australian Financial Review Magazine 27 April 2012.
- 32.
Ibid.
- 33.
Tim Lloyd The Advertiser (Adelaide Australia) 12 September 2009.
- 34.
The Ruby award is named after Dame Ruby Beatrice Litchfield (1912–2001), a community and arts leader in South Australia.
References
Butler, D.: The Barefoot Bush Walker: The Remarkable Story of Adventure, Courage and Romance. Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Sydney (1991)
Ewington, J.: Fiona Hall. Piper Press, Sydney (2005)
Hall, F.: Force Field. (Exhibition guide with contributions from Fiona Hall, Elizabeth Ann Macgregor, Vivienne Webb, Paula Savage and Gregory O’Obrien). Museum of Contemporary Art (Sydney) and City Gallery (Wellington), Sydney and Wellington (2008)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2013 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Goss, W.M. (2013). The Married Life and Motherhood of Ruby Payne-Scott. In: Making Waves. Astronomers' Universe. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-35752-7_12
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-35752-7_12
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-35751-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-35752-7
eBook Packages: Physics and AstronomyPhysics and Astronomy (R0)