WILLIAMSON, ADA JEAN HOUNSELL (1891-1977), journalist, was born on 31 October 1891 at Belmont, New South Wales, eldest of five children of native-born parents John Alexander Williamson, contractor, and his wife Ada Mary Theobald, née Hannell. Known as Jean, to distinguish her from her mother, she was privately educated at Newcastle. She began her career as a freelance contributor to the Australian Town and Country Journal, Evening News and Sunday Sun. In 1916 she joined the staff of the Sydney-based Farmer and Settler newspaper, where for two years she conducted the women's page. John Fairfax & Sons Ltd offered her a cadetship on the Sydney Morning Herald in 1918. She soon succeeded Florence Baverstock as social editor, working in a tiny corner of the Herald building, which she maintained was the office broom-cupboard.

Baverstock's daughter Dolly, who worked with Williamson, remembered her as 'a big, lazy, sweet-natured woman' who ...

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Source:

Australian Dictionary of Biography