Identity area
Type of entity
Person
Authorized form of name
Healy, Connie
Parallel form(s) of name
Standardized form(s) of name according to other rules
Other form(s) of name
- Healy, Constance
- Lovegrove, Constance de Mestre
- Watson, Constance de Mestre
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Description area
Dates of existence
1923-2016
History
Constance (Connie) Lovegrove was born in Sydney on 30 May 1923, third daughter to Eric and Kate Lovegrove. Together with her sisters, Connie grew up in Brisbane, attending the Graceville State School and then, on full scholarship, attended the Brisbane Girls' Grammar School. She finished grade 12 at the age of 15. Connie and her older sisters, Florence and Pat (Patricia), were all involved with the Workers' Education Society classes and the Unity and New Theatre (which opposed capitalist injustice and fascism). Connie first husband, Reginald Kenneth Watson, died in World War Two. She married Michael Healy, a Queensland Union leader, on 5 October 1945.
On 22 January 1942 Constance de Mestre Lovegrove married Reginald Kenneth Watson, a navigator on bombing raids in the Second World War. He died while flying over Belgium, leaving Connie a widow at the age of 19.
In 1945 she married prominent Queensland union leader, Mick Healy, who was General Secretary of the Queensland Trades and Labour Council. They had two sons, Jim and John.
Her interest in theatre and her involvement in political activity continued throughout the postwar decades. During the 1940s, she was involved with the Communist Party of Australia, the Eureka Youth League (which operated from South Brisbane), and the Queensland Peace Council. She worked for trade unions and later in legal offices as a conveyancing clerk. She later went on to study politics, law, history and language at university while working fulltime. Connie received her Bachelor of Arts from the University of Queensland in 1978. She was particularly active in the struggle for justice for Aboriginal people. For 16 years, until her retirement in 1988, Connie worked at the University of Queensland.
Jim Healy, the eldest of the Healy children died in 1988 and then Mick Healy, husband of 43 years, died in the same year. In her retirement, Connie returned to university studies.
In 1991, Connie graduated with a Diploma of Australian Studies from the University of Queensland. She was the joint winner of the Dennis Murphy Labour History scholarship in 1992. On 14 October 1994 she was awarded a Master of Arts. In 2000 Connie Healy's masters thesis on the history of Brisbane working class and radical theatre was published as 'Defiance: Political Theatre in Brisbane 1930-1962'. She was a regular contributor to the Queensland Journal of Labour History and in 2009 was awarded life membership of the Brisbane Labour History Association. She died on 5 December 2016.
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Mandates/sources of authority
Internal structures/genealogy
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Rules and/or conventions used
Status
Revised
Level of detail
Partial
Dates of creation, revision and deletion
Revised, Linda Justo, 15-May-2020
Language(s)
Script(s)
Sources
Healy, John. Connie Healy's life. Queensland Journal of Labour History, No. 24, Mar 2017: 66-71. [cited 05 Nov 19]