Gwen Meredith

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Gwen Meredith. Image courtesy Orange City Library.


Known Australia-wide as the author of long-running radio plays, Gwen Meredith was born in Orange 18 November 1907 to George and Florence Meredith, and was their only child.

She was educated in Sydney, first at Sydney Girls High School then the University of Sydney where she graduated in 1929. Her father believed that, with the Great Depression, there were too many people needing jobs and that she should stay at home. She managed the housekeeping and, from 1932 to 1939, owned and operated the Chelsea Book Club. This soon expanded to include a drama club, Chelsea Theatre Group, that performed some of her earliest plays.

From 1939 to 1943, she worked as a freelance writer, before beginning a 33 year long career with the ABC writing radio plays, serials and documentaries. She created The Lawsons radio serial in 1943. She is best known for writing Blue Hills, which ran for 5,795 episodes over 27 years from 1949 – 1976.

Meredith was also a noted playwright. She retired in 1976 and moved to the Southern Highlands where she died on 3 October 2006, aged 98.

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