Daphne Gollan

Eileen Daphne Gollan (4 May 1918 – 4 October 1999) was an Australian feminist, historian and activist and member of the Communist Party of Australia. She studied Russian language and politics and spent much of her career, between 1954 and 1983, working at the Australian National University.

Biography Gollan was born in Birmingham, in England, and was the youngest child of Marjorie Emmeline, née Gold, and Montague Morris who worked as a munitions worker. The family immigrated to Australia in the 1920s where they settled in Sydney where they experienced difficult times during the Great Depression which saw both her father and her siblings lose their jobs and her mother dying of cancer in 1930. Also during this period, Gollan and her brother both suffered with tuberculosis in 1934. Gollan would later state that growing up in the Depression "radicalized [her] for life".

In 1937, after completing school, Gollan studied English, history and philosophy at the University of Sydney and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in 1941. During her studies she worked as a library assistant at the Mitchell Library.

Bwtween 1945 and 1947 Gollan worked as a librarian for the Federated Ironworkers’ Association within their research department and, as a part of this role, was one of the transcription stenographers for legal proceeding about the Balmain ironworker's strike, led by Nick Origlass, in 1945. She would later write extensively about this strike, and her views on it, in the journal Labour History (1972).

In 1950 Gollan moved with her husband to England where he was completing his doctoral thesis and the London School of Economics and, on their return to Australia, they settled in Canberra as he had accepted a position at the Australian National University (ANU).

Gollan continued to work at the university, in various roles, until 1961 when she resigned to become a full-time student there, receiving a Master of Arts in 1967. During these studies she became a postgraduate exchange scholar with the Moscow State University between 1962 and 1963 and, on her return to Canberra wrote her thesis: Bolshevik Party Organisation in Russia, 1907–12 (1967) which was drawn on research conducted during this exchange. In 1967 Gollan and her husband divorced.

During this period she was also in a relationship with Nick Origlass, who remained married and they became a discreet and permanent part of each other's lives and they would meet weekly at a house in Mittagong. Their relationship continued until his death in 1996.

In 1983 Gollan retired from ANU and returned to Sydney where she joined The Greens NSW, which was first registered in 1984. She unsuccessfully stood for the seat of Sydney in the NSW House of Representatives having pledged to demolish the Sydney Monorail. Later, in 1984 and 1987, she would also run for Senate.

Gollan died on 4 October 1999 in Glebe. On her death Susan Magarey said of her:

Collections Gollan's papers, along with those of her husband and Nick Origlass, are held at the State Library of New South Wales.