Our featured Diaspora Scot this month is Quentin Bryce
Governor- General of Australia.
Quentin Alice Louise Bryce, AC (born 23 December 1942) is the current Governor -General of Australia (the first woman to hold the position) and a former Governor of Queensland. Born in Brisbane, she spent her first years in Ilfracombe, with her family subsequently living in a number of country towns around Australia. She attended the University of Queensland, where she completed a Bachelor of Arts and a degree in Law, becoming one of the first women accepted to the Queensland bar.
In 1968 she became the first woman to be a faculty member of the Law school where she had studied, and in 1978 she joined the new National Women’s Advisory Council. This was followed by a number of positions, including the first director of the Queensland Women’s Information Service, the Queensland director of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission and the Federal Sex Discrimination Commissioner in 1988. Her services to the community saw her appointed as an Officer of the Order of Australia in 1988, and as a Companion of the Order of Australia and Dame of the Order of St John of Jerusalem in 2003.
Bryce was appointed as the Governor of Queensland in 2003, her five year term was to be extended until 2009. However, on 13 April 2008, before the completion of the initial five years, it was announced that Bryce was to become the next Governor-General of Australia. On 5 September 2008 Bryce was sworn in, succeeding Major General Michael Jeffery, becoming the first woman to be the Governor-General.
Born Quentin Strachan she married Michael Bryce in 1964 and together they have two daughters, three sons, and five grandchildren, the describe themselves as “members of a proudly Scottish-Australian family.”