Identity area
Reference code
Title
Date(s)
- 1913-1957 (Creation)
Level of description
Series
Extent and medium
1 box.
Context area
Name of creator
Biographical history
Emily Caroline Watson was born in Manchester in 1899, she moved to Australia in the 1920s and became involved in the theatre, first in Brisbane and then in Sydney. During this time, she used her mother's maiden name and was known as Carrie Tennant. In 1929, Caroline married Francis Kelly and took his surname. She founded the Community Playhouse, the first theatre in New South Wales devoted to producing Australian drama, in 1929, followed by the Play Society in 1931. She edited The Community Magazine: Official Magazine of the Community Play-house from 1930 to 1931. In the 1930s she enrolled in a Diploma in Anthropology at the University of Sydney and went on to conduct anthropological fieldwork in Aboriginal communities at Fraser Island and Cherbourg in Queensland and at Burnt Bridge in New South Wales. During the Second World War she began a major survey of non-British settlement in Australia for the Commonwealth Government, a project that continued until the late 1940s. Towards the end of her working life, she served as a consulting anthropologist to the State Planning Authority of New South Wales. Caroline Kelly died on 1 September 1989 in Kyogle.
Repository
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Content and structure area
Scope and content
Items relating to Kelly's career in theatre.
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Item 1: 1931 Woods' diary containing newspaper cuttings on theatre with particular reference to Caroline Kelly, then known as Carrie Tennant.
Item 2: Plaque on the topic of 'specialisation', originally framed.
Item 3: Pillowcase.
Item 4: Framed certificate from Trinity College of Music (London), issued to Carrie Watson for passing music theory, junior division, with honours, Dec 1913.
Item 4: Copy of The Theatre, Society, and Home, 1 January 1926, featuring a photograph of and reference to Carrie Tennant.
Folder 1: Newspaper cutting on theatre, 1929; Manuscript of untitled handwritten playscript, author unknown, undated; Manuscript of article, ‘George Barrington and the First Australian Theatre’, author unknown, undated; flyer for School of Arts, West End, Grad Benefit Concert, 19 Jul 1922; flyer for Burdekin House Little Theatre presentation of 'A Christmas Miracle Play', from 16 to 23 Dec 1925; Programme for Her Majesty's Theatre with Dame Nellie Melba and J.C. Williamson, Grand Opera, undated.
Folder 2 : Theatre programs - Burdekin House Little Theatre 'Second Seaon, from 15 to 20 Mar, undated; Miss Carrie Tennant presents 'A series of one-act Australian plays at Burdekin House Little Theatre', undated; "The understudies" present a programme of modern one-act plays at The Aeolian Hall, 26 to 27 Jul, undated (2 different copies); Carrie Tennant presents at the Community Play House a programme of The First Season, 1929 to 1930 (2 copies, one signed). Playscript (3 copies), 'A Disturber of Pools' by Furnley Maurice, published in The Triad, 1 Oct 1926.
Folder 3: Records of the Wine and Food Society of New South Wales, 1954-1957.
Folder 4: Seven pencil sketches of dogs and cats.
Folder 5: Twelve cardboard posters promoting productions at the Community Playhouse, Darlinghurst, Sydney.
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Unrestricted access.
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In copyright. Contact the Fryer Library. Can be reproduced for personal research and study. For other uses see About copyright. Please attribute the Fryer Library.
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- English
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Note
Box 6 Folders 1-4
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Dates of creation revision deletion
Converted from PDF finding aid, AM, 19-May-2020.