Tessa Fowler

Tessa Fowler is a Vanuatuan former politician. She and Mary Gilu were the first women elected to the New Hebrides Representative Assembly in 1975.

Biography Born Tessa Franklin, Fowler earned an MA in philosophy, politics and economics at the University of Oxford. She subsequently worked as a researcher in the United States and England. She relocated to the New Hebrides in 1958 to work as an economist for the British administration. Although she moved onto Hong Kong in 1959 and then returned to England, she returned to the New Hebrides permanently in 1961. She married an Australian builder and artist. She was subsequently contested the Port Vila constituency for the UCNH in the November 1975 legislative elections. Alongside Mary Gilu, she was one of the first two women elected to the territory's legislature.