Henrietta Drake-Brockman

Henrietta Drake-Brockman
Born	27 July 1901
Died	8 March 1968
Alma mater	University of Western Australia

Henrietta Drake-Brockman (27 July 1901 – 8 March 1968) was an Australian journalist and novelist.

Henrietta Frances York Drake-Brockman was born in Perth, Western Australia in 1901 to Martin Jull and his wife Roberta (née Stewart). She was educated in Scotland, the land of her mother, and at Frensham school for girls in Mittagong. She studied literature at the University of Western Australia and art in Henri Van Raalte's Perth studio. She married Geoff Drake-Brockman, then Commissioner for north western Australia, in 1921.

Both Henrietta and her husband wrote about their travels in articles for The West Australian. The travels were also sources for her novels. By the time the couple returned to Perth in 1926, Henrietta's reputation as a writer had become established. From her experiences of the North-West, she had written sketches and stories, and in the early 1930s published a serial, The Disquieting Sex. Blue North, an historical novel about life in the 1870s, was serialised in The Bulletin and published in 1934, while Sheba Lane used contemporary Broome as its setting. Younger Sons was a carefully documented novel of Western Australian settlement and The Fatal Days (1947) focussed on Ballarat, Victoria, during World War II. Her last novel, The Wicked and The Fair (1957), centred on the voyage of the Batavia in 1629. Her final book, Voyage To Disaster (1963), was largely a biography of the Batavia's captain Francisco Pelsaert. Her extensive research entailed the use of material from Dutch archives and of E. D. Drok's translations of Pelsaert's journals, as well as trips by sea and air to the probable site of the wreck. In an article in Walkabout in January 1955, Henrietta diverged from general opinion and closely estimated the Batavia's correct resting place. Eight years later, in 1963 she became one of the four acknowledged co-discoverers of the Batavia wreck. She used an aqualung to inspect the wreck of the vessel off the Abrolhos Islands. The anchor farthest on the reef was named Henrietta's Anchor. Nowadays it is still there in 3.5 meters depth.

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