The Lyons den

Literature is full of unexpected coincidences. After a long silence, two books appear within a matter of months that present both a detailed, personal and a deeply investigative account of those unique political partners, Joseph and Enid Lyons.

Enid Burrell Lyons, born in 1897 to Eliza and William Burrell, a sawyer in Tasmania’s northern timber country, is an unexpected candidate for the designation ‘Leading Lady to a Nation’. To an older generation, Dame Enid Lyons is remembered as our second female federal parliamentarian (Dorothy Tangney earlier served in the Senate), linked inevitably at that time with issues relating to mothers and children. For a younger generation, her name holds little resonance. In this new biography, however, Anne Henderson, deputy director of the Sydney Institute and biographer of several politically oriented women, has lifted the veil and revealed how a young woman drawn from a humble rural background, combining spunk, determination and strong girlish appeal, could capture the heart of a senior minister in the Tasmanian parliament, marry him at the age of seventeen, assist him as premier of Tasmania, ride with him as an active consort to the prime ministership of Australia and, with his sudden death in office, carve out a political career of her own.