11 Facts About Gwen Meredith

Gwenyth Valmai Meredith OBE, known by her married name Gwen Harrison, was an Australian writer, dramatist and playwright, and radio writer.

Gwen Meredith is best known for her radio serials The Lawsons and the longer-running Blue Hills.

Gwen Meredith was educated in Sydney, first at Sydney Girls High School then the University of Sydney from which she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in 1929.

Gwen Meredith's father believed that, with the Great Depression, there were too many people needing jobs and that she should stay at home.

Gwen Meredith therefore managed the housekeeping and from 1932 to 1939, owned and operated a bookshop.

Gwen Meredith married Sydney engineer, Ainsworth Harrison, on 24 December 1938.

Gwen Meredith proved to be "a devoted and supportive husband" and travelled around Australia with her as she researched her serials.

Gwen Meredith lived in Castlecrag for most of her working life in a house known as "the Gingerbread House" which is located at 369 Edinburgh Rd.

Gwen Meredith retired in 1976 when the last episode of her most famous serial, Blue Hills, went to air, and she and her husband moved from their beachside home "Braybrook", in Seaforth, to the Southern Highlands of New South Wales, where she did watercolour painting.

Gwen Meredith died at her home at Bowral on 3 October 2006, aged 98.

Gwen Meredith was then chosen to create the ABC's new radio serial in 1944, The Lawsons, as a propaganda medium to introduce modern agricultural methods to Australian farmers.