MARRIAGE and Career Not Bar To HAPPINESS - (original) (raw)

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Sat 6 Mar 1937 - The Australian Women's Weekly (1933 - 1982)
Page 32 - MARRIAGE and Career Not Bar To HAPPINESS

"But you must be in love, " says

"After eleven years, my husband and I are still in

love," said Miss Essie Ackland, famous Australian

contralto, who arrives in Sydney on Thursday from

London for a concert season with the Australian

"People on the boat thought we were a honeymoon couple,"

compatible in the life of an

Last week she and her hus-

band, Reginald Morphew, the

eleventh anniversary of their

marriage, and are still very

The famous Australian contralto

says that all those who give up

thought of marriage for the sake of a

career are not only making a big

mistake, but depriving themselves of

great happiness. "Marriage and a

career can and do mix. But the

parties must be genuinely in love."

Many artists are afraid of com-

bining marriage and a career.

Recently Eileen Joyce, Australian

pianist, announced that her engage-

ment was off. Her career, she said,

Essie Ackland, who has tried the

experiment of marriage and a

career, thinks otherwise.

What is more, she and her hus-

band have sustained a boy and girl

romance throughout both their

artistic careers, and confess that

THEY agree that as long as both

partners are understanding and

prepared to give as well as take, and

do not interfere, there is no reason

why marriage and a career should

Mr. and Mrs. Morphew are ideally

happy in their married life because

they have followed out those ideas.

Miss Ackland and her husband

were born in the same Sydney

suburb and attended the same

Each went to England to study

While there, they met again, fell

Miss Ackland should be able to

speak with authority on careers.

She has made a success of her

singing and her marriage, and in

her earlier days was carving out a

career for herself in business when

the call of song became too in-

A daughter of Mr. and Mrs. H. J.

Ackland, of Mosman (Sydney),

Essie Ackland took up a secretarial

career after leaving college. But

she wasn't destined to decorate a

typist's desk for any length of

When Sydney Conservatorium

director the late Henri Verbrugghen

heard her he said she had a voice of

liquid gold. Ada Crossley, famous

contralto (to whom in many ways

she is a successor), described her

gift "as a God-given voice."

When she went abroad her suc-

cess was almost instantaneous.

To-day she is a famous concert

performer and considered to be the

most recorded contralto In the

MISS ESSIE ACKLAND, Aus- [portrait]

tralian contralto, who will give a

series of concerts with the Aus-

tralian Broadcasting Commission.

Another Australian, Peter Daw-

son, the baritone, claims the honor

Abroad the Australian singers

stick together. It was Browning

Mummery, operatic star, who in-

troduced Essie Ackland to the

gramophone studios and perhaps

the most lucrative side of her career.

Essie Ackland was the last soloist

to sing at the historic Crystal Pal-

ace, London, before it was de-

Now world-famous, she has

slipped quietly and unobtrusively

back home for a short concert seas-

Already, days before the concert

season is due on March 13, the

demand to hear this superb Aus-

tralian contralto is so great that

the A.B.C. has changed its plans.

The Sydney Conservatorium will be

too small to hold the crowds, and

the concerts will be transferred to

the Town Hall, while thousands

more will listen to her on the radio.