Australian Dictionary of Biography

Hazel Holyman (1899–1992), air hostess services superintendent, was born on 17 March 1899 at Launceston, Tasmania, eldest of four children of locally born parents Frederick Archer Gaunt, clerk, and his wife Mary Emmeline, née Dodery. Hazel was educated at Broadland House Church of England Girls' Grammar School, Launceston. On 22 August 1921 at Christ Church, Longford, she married Victor Clive Holyman, master mariner, grandson of the founder of the Tasmanian shipping firm William Holyman & Sons Pty Ltd.

In 1932 Victor and his brother Ivan expanded the family's shipping interests to aviation, inaugurating Holyman Bros Pty Ltd and flying a three-seater de Havilland 83 Fox Moth, Miss Currie, twice a week between Launceston and Flinders Island. Hazel supported the family business by driving passengers to the airport and providing them with blankets, biscuits, and coffee for their trip across Bass Strait. She thus ‘became the very first [air] hostess in Australia, without actually leaving the ground!’ (Witcomb 1986, 2). Holyman Bros merged with a rival, Laurie McK. Johnson, to become Tasmanian Aerial Services Pty Ltd in 1932. The firm was renamed Holymans Airways Pty Ltd in 1934. Holyman continued to play her part, which included, she said, ‘literally pushing’ (Teale 1989, 11) passengers into the cramped planes.

On 19 October 1934 Victor was killed while co-piloting the firm's new de Havilland 86 twelve-seater aircraft, Miss Hobart, over Bass Strait. Widowed and childless, Hazel withdrew from the firm and sought solace by travelling in England and America. She spent time in Chicago with officials from United Airlines, one of the pioneers of air hostessing services.

Holymans Airways merged with Adelaide Airways in 1936 to become Australian National Airways Pty Ltd (ANA) (later Ansett-ANA, eventually Ansett Australia), employing Australia's first in-flight air hostesses, Marguerite Grueber and Blanche Due. Called back to Australia by her brother-in-law, Holyman joined ANA in 1939 as superintendent of air hostesses. Her duties included taking charge of stores, catering, laundry, designing uniforms, and even filling in for women too sick to fly. Affectionately known as ‘matron’ by her charges, Holyman was renowned for having 'steely grey eyes’ and ‘X-ray vision' that could 'spot dirty shoes, crooked stocking seams and soiled unpressed uniforms at fifty paces!' (Witcomb 1986, 15). She retired in 1955 having seen the number of ANA air hostesses grow from eighteen to two hundred.

In 1966 Holyman was nominated patroness of the Down to Earth Club formed that year for former Ansett-ANA air hostesses and she continued this involvement for the rest of her life. Appointed AM in 1980, in 1988 she received an Advance Australia Award for her services to aviation. She died on 14 November 1992 at Launceston and was cremated. A portrait commissioned by the Down to Earth Club hangs in the Sir Reginald Ansett Transport Museum at Hamilton, Victoria.