Bettina Gorton

Bettina Gorton Lady Gorton
John and Bettina Gorton ca. 1968
Spouse of the Prime Minister of Australia
In office 10 January 1968 – 10 March 1971
Preceded by	Dame Zara Holt
Succeeded by	Lady McMahon
Personal details
Born	Bettina Edith Brown 23 June 1915 Great Barrington, Massachusetts, U.S.
Died	2 October 1983 (aged 68) Royal Canberra Hospital, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia
Spouse(s)	Sir John Gorton
Children	3

Bettina Gorton (23 June 1915 – 2 October 1983) was the American-born wife of John Gorton, Prime Minister of Australia 1968-71.

Gorton was born Bettina Edith Brown in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, USA, in 1915 to Arthur A. Brown, the president of an American bank in Cuba, and Grace M. Brown (née Whitaker). Her father died when she was two years old and her mother returned to her home state of Maine. She attended Bangor High School and the University of Maine. In 1933 she was studying languages at the Sorbonne in Paris, and was taken for a holiday to Spain by her brother, Arthur Brown, where they shared a cottage with John Gorton, an Australian friend of Arthur from Oxford University. She married Gorton on 15 February 1935 at St Giles Church, Oxford, and after his studies were finished they returned to his father's orchard near Kerang, Victoria. Her mother Grace Brown came to live with them, and she later revealed that her son Arthur, Bettina's brother and John Gorton's closest friend from Oxford, was a card-carrying member of the Communist Party.

They had a daughter, Joanna in 1937, and two sons, Michael in 1938 and Robin in 1941. During John's war service, Bettina ran the farm and raised the children. He entered Federal Parliament in 1950, as a Senator for Victoria, and was often away in Canberra on parliamentary business. They moved to Canberra in 1958 when he was appointed a minister in the government of Robert Menzies.

In 1958, in a widely publicised court case, the novelist Jean Campbell (the mistress of John Gorton's father, who had died in 1936) sued Bettina for shares in the family company. Campbell alleged that Gorton senior had given the shares to her. The judge ruled in favour of Bettina Gorton.