Kathleen Fitzpatrick

Kathleen Elizabeth Fitzpatrick (7 September 1905 – 27 August 1990) was an Australian academic and historian.

Biography Fitzpatrick (born Kathleen Elizabeth Pitt) was born in the town of , Victoria in 1905. She was educated at Loreto Convent in South Melbourne and Portland, Presentation Convent in Windsor, and Lauriston Girls' School in Armadale. However, the honours program in English did not appeal to her, so she enrolled also in history, studying under Ernest Scott; this second subject would become her favourite after a holiday to Tasmania at the end of her first year, when she was inspired by a visit to the ruins of Port Arthur.

On her return to Australia in 1929, Fitzpatrick was employed as a temporary lecturer at the University of Sydney, teaching history. She also taught a second-year honours level subject on the French Revolution up until the Second World War. and the first in Australia outside the natural sciences. Shortly after this she commenced work on a biography of Charles La Trobe, but it was never published. it would become a standard text for Australian history courses. and in 1983 published Solid Bluestone Foundations, part memoir and part social history, which was warmly received by critics.

Awards, honours and legacy

In 1983 Fitzpatrick was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Laws by the University of Melbourne,

She was awarded a University of Melbourne Award, which "recognises those individuals who have made an outstanding and enduring contribution to the University and its scholarly community". A bronze plaque honouring her is on the wall along the Professors' Walk at the Parkville campus of the University.

Fitzpatrick died in 1990. From her estate she bequeathed a fund to the University of Melbourne for the purchase of history books for the library; she dedicated it in the name of her father, Henry Pitt, "in gratitude for allowing her the university education of which he had been deprived." in addition to the ARC Kathleen Fitzpatrick Australian Laureate Fellowship, and the Kathleen Fitzpatrick Lecture.