A promise kept - a Canberra daughter's last gift to her father

Even in the final days of his life in the John James Hospital, retired high-ranking public servant and Raiders chair Dr Allan Hawke wanted to make sure the family history he had started writing in the 1990s was finished once he was gone.

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Dr Stephanie Hawke (right), with her mother Maria, has completed a family history started by her father, the late Dr Allan Hawke. Main picture by Karleen Minney

His only child, Stephanie, took up the challenge, knowing it would not be easy as she and her husband Matt Whittaker were also parents to two young children, Rosa and Harry.

"When he was in hospital, he was really sick and I would be there with a folder of the manuscript and we'd go through it, - 'What are we doing with this? What are we doing with that?'," Stephanie, 41, remembered.

"When he had had enough, and said, 'I don't want to do this anymore', we said, 'Okay, we promise you we will finish this'. So, it's taken four years. I didn't think it was going to take so long, but it just does."

The cover of the book features a painting of Westlake by Lucy Stackpool, a friend of Stephanie's from their Canberra Girls Grammar School days. Picture supplied

The book, From Penzance to Araluen and Afar, co-authored by father and daughter, was launched on October 7 by retired diplomat and public servant and current Raiders chair Dennis Richardson at the Raiders Centre of Excellence in Braddon.

Mr Richardson, a friend of Dr Hawke's for more than 30 years, said Stephanie did "an absolutely brilliant job" finishing the book.

"In reading the book, you cannot tell where Allan's voice ends and Stephanie's starts. It is totally seamless," he said.

In 2019, Dr Hawke had published another family history, Calamity and Conquest, which traced his mother's side, the famous Blundell family of Blundell's Cottage fame.

The book includes 'a murderer or two'

From Penzance to Araluen and Afar focuses on his father's side, the Hawke family. It starts with a young seaman James Henry Hawke in 1856 leaving his home in Penzance, Cornwall, arriving in Sydney at the height of the gold rush.

Hawke deserts his ship, heads inland to the gold mining town of Araluen, south-east of Canberra, marries Matilda Anderson and together they raise a family of 10 children, the start of the antipodean family dynasty that continued with the birth of Allan in Canberra on February 18, 1948.

Dr Allan Hawke in his role as chairman of the Canberra Raiders, a position he held until his death in 2022. Picture by Jamila Toderas

Dennis Richardson said it was a book anyone interested in the history of Australia would enjoy.

"The book is one not only of a family history, it's a social history," he said.

"Allan and Stephanie have gone to a lot of trouble to put the family history in the wider social context. It has a great summary of the First Fleet, the challenges they faced and the impact on the First Nations people.

"It takes you right through 20^th century Australia. The Great War, Second World War, Korea, Vietnam, all of that. And it's very clear that the family experience of the Hawkes during the war years, I think had a clear influence on the way Allan approached his jobs as secretary of Veterans' Affairs and as secretary of Defence.

"Another interesting thing is that doing a family history, especially one that goes back a long way, is not for the faint-hearted because anyone who thinks that the story of an extended family, going back a couple of hundred years, is going to be all sweetness and light, is kidding themselves. Families are complex social organisms and you get the full range of characters, including in this book, the odd murderer or two."

From Bruce Street to the corridors of power

Allan grew up in Queanbeyan with his two brothers in the same street as John McIntyre, the trailblazing CEO of the Raiders.

"The Bruce Street boys," Maria Hawke said.

Remarkably, both Allan and John would go on to serve as chair of the Canberra Raiders.

"The family history is at the centre of the book but, actually, it places the family in the context of Canberra and the development of Canberra, which is quite cool," Stephanie said.

Allan Hawke growing up in Queanbeyan. Picture supplied

Dr Hawke started the research for From Penzance to Araluen and Afar in the 1980s.

It was sidetracked as his career in the public service flourished, including as chief of staff to Prime Minister Paul Keating and later as secretary of the Department of Veterans' Affairs, secretary of the Department of Transport and Regional Affairs, secretary of the Department of Defence, high commissioner to New Zealand and, finally, chancellor of the Australian National University.

But there was always something to investigate about the family history.

Dr Allan Hawke in 2002 when he was secretary of the Department of Defence. Picture by Graham Tidy

"We would go on these family holidays to the South Coast and he would bring these briefcases full of newspaper clippings and birth, death and marriage notices and he'd be going through all those things," Stephanie said.

"Mum was remembering how he used to write to people, snail mail, and then he'd have to wait three months for a response. So everything took a really long time.

"Then with technology and the internet, Ancestry, Trove, digitisation of war records, he was able to get a bit more information quicker. So he kind of just plodded along."

Maria and Stephanie Hawke at Maria's home in Yarralumla. Picture by Karleen Minney

An inquiring mind

Maria remembers she and Allan even travelled to Penzance on the south-west coast of England to locate more details about the family.

"Here I was thinking we were going on this lovely trip - it was a lovely trip, by the way - but we spent so much time in cemeteries," she said, with a laugh.

Allan simply didn't give up, even taking DNA kits overseas to try to locate long-lost family connections.

"It was all part of his inquiring mind," Maria said.

Maria was "absolutely" proud of Stephanie for finishing the book. Stephanie is now a psychologist with Defence. Rosa is now nine and Harry seven. The family lives in Deakin.

In completing such a heartfelt project, Stephanie said she discovered that her father was truly a product of his genes.

"Dad was a very hardworking person and I just think that's part of his DNA because everyone I've read about in this book, they're all hardworking people, and I think they just wanted to leave the next generation better off than the one before it," she said.

Then ANU chancellor Dr Allan Hawke in 2006 when he conferred a bachelor of psychology (with honours) to his daughter Stephanie. Picture by Richard Briggs

• From Penzance to Araluen and Afar is published by Echo Books. To purchase a copy, email Stephanie Hawke at steph.hawke@gmail.com

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