Lucy Harriet Eatock

Lucy Harriet Eatock (née Lucy Wakenshaw; 7 June 1874 – 12 February 1950) was an Australian political activist with the Communist Party of Australia (CPA). She married an Aboriginal man named William Eatock and had nine children. She and her children Participated in demonstrations and faced discrimination from authorities.

Life Eatock was born in the Central Highlands of Queensland in a town named Springsure. Her Scottish-born parents were said to be Jane Lindsay (née Cousins) and her husband, Alexander Wakenshaw. She was their ninth child. Her father, in time, became a pastoralist. On 18 November 1895, when she was 21 and still living in Springsure, she married an Aboriginal man named William Eatock, who was a stockman.

In 1908, they were in New South Wales where her husband was working in an abattoir. They had nine children and they lived in makeshift huts or tents near Brewarrina, where life was difficult for the family. They agreed to separate, and William took two of their sons, while Lucy took the youngest children and an elder daughter. Lucy could only find work as a domestic worker, and she fostered the children out to a number of places, including the town of Bowral. Lucy was annoyed that the CPA had not done more to look after their members and that Noel, especially, had been badly treated. The family left the CPA. Noel did not renew contact with his mother after he completed his sentence. Her son, Lindsay, remained in politics but the rest of the family retired. Lucy's grandchildren became proud of their Indigenous Australian ancestry and some argued that Lucy had indigenous ancestry, but Lucy herself never claimed this.