Australian Dictionary of Biography

Maise Chettle and her mother, in Lovegroves Garden

State Library of South Australia, PRG 1176

May (Maise) Venetta Chettle (1906-1997), schoolteacher and camellia gardener, was born in Adelaide on 20 May 1906, eldest of three children of Scottish-born James Edward Robb, horse and cattle farmer, and his South Australian-born wife Jane, née Condell. A member of a well-travelled family, Maise was three when she first visited India, where her father traded horses as remounts for the British Army and for private sale. In 1911 she commenced her education at Nailsworth Infants’ School before attending Adelaide High School. She played tennis and hockey, and preferred horse riding over her studies. At sixteen she rejected a marriage proposal to undertake junior teacher training and attend Teachers’ Training College, Adelaide (1925–27).

Between 1927 and 1930 Robb worked at Nailsworth Central School and studied at the South Australian School of Arts and Crafts. Following a holiday in India with her family, she was appointed to Orroroo (1930–32), Le Fevre Peninsula Central (1933–34), and, briefly, Goodwood Central schools (1934). In late 1934 she accepted a three-year teaching position at Alice Springs, including the task of reopening a school for ‘half-caste’ children. The school, known as The Bungalow, was at the old telegraph station, and was attended by over eighty children, who all received the same lessons despite their diverse needs. After a year, the director of education, William James Adey, offered her a position at the nearby Hartley Street School, where she formed Alice Spring’s first Girl Guides and Brownie troops. In late 1937 she travelled to Malaya (Malaysia) for a holiday with family friends, but the trip was cut short after her brother Walter died from typhoid in Calcutta in 1938. She joined her family in India before returning to Adelaide, where she was again appointed to Goodwood Central School.

At the outbreak of World War II, Robb, who had learned to drive under the direction of a local police officer in Alice Springs, volunteered on weekends as a Red Cross driver and for the Voluntary Aid Detachment. In early 1940 she moved to Sydney and married Alexander Robert Laurie, a soldier and schoolteacher, on 16 May at Hunter Baillie Memorial Church, Annandale. It was, she later remembered, ‘the most stupid’ decision of ‘my life’ (Chettle 1997, 224). They soon separated, and later divorced in 1960. From 1941, after a brief stint helping her father manage the homestead at Granite Downs station near Oodnadatta, South Australia, she worked in Northern Territory schools at Pine Creek, Darwin, and Tennant Creek.

In 1944 Robb was recruited to teach at Methodist Ladies’ College (MLC), Malvern, South Australia. One of the British evacuee students encouraged her to volunteer as an escort for children returning home in the aftermath of the war. In Britain her teaching skills and natural charisma (and a friend’s recommendation) earned her employment through the British Ministry of Information (later the Central Office of Information), and for two years she travelled around the country giving talks to community groups and organisations on topics related to Australia.

Robb reluctantly returned to Adelaide in 1948 and resumed work at MLC, where she became involved in the drama club. She remained there until 1960, when she married Walter Richard Chettle, the Commonwealth Department of the Treasury’s deputy commissioner for taxation in South Australia, on 14 September 1960 at Tusmore Presbyterian Church. The marriage was a considered one for her. Walter was the widowed husband of a close friend, and though she was warned of his temper, egotism, and obsession with money, she ‘regarded the prospect of companionship as more important than Walter’s eccentricities’ (Chettle 1999, 3). It would not always be a happy marriage, but she did enjoy their social outings, shared hobbies, and trips to Japan (1962), South-East Asia (1966), and New Zealand (1969). She also travelled alone to South Africa for her stepdaughter’s wedding (1972).

In 1966 Chettle had joined the South Australian branch of the Australian Camellia Research Society. Following a period as publicity officer and secretary (1972–73) of the Adelaide Plains branch, she served as honorary general secretary (1974–75) and later national editor (1978-81) for the Federal council. Her husband’s health deteriorated in the early 1980s and she endured a difficult but devoted period as his carer. He died on 5 September 1983. She subsequently discovered the extent of his financial control, which left her burdened with the upkeep of his properties (held in trust for his children) until her death. Nonetheless, she went on two more extended overseas trips, in 1985 and 1989, to the United States of America, the United Kingdom, and South Africa. She also volunteered for community organisations and wrote three books, including two autobiographies: Just Me (1997) and The Other Story (1999).

Always dressed for the occasion, with the same short curly hair that she neatly parted on the right, Chettle was ‘warm, intellectually lively’ (Aspinall 1997, 22), and adventurous, and seemed to attract friends and good fortune wherever she travelled. When her friend Terry Pierson asked if he could name a new subspecies of Camellia reticulata after her in 1982, she graciously agreed, exclaiming that it is ‘pink, big and blowzy, like me!’ (Chettle 1999, 97). She loved travelling, the sea, classical music, and visiting wineries. In 1978 the Australian Camellia Research Society had conferred on her the Walter Hazlewood award, and in 1997 she was a fellow of the society. She died at Aldgate on 26 August 1997 and was cremated.