Roll call of class acts
FROM a royal princess to some of the world’s leading researchers, Tasmanian schools have produced alumni to be truly proud of.
To celebrate the start of the school year, the Mercury is launching a three-part series highlighting our state’s high achievers, starting today with an honour roll of Tasmania’s finest leaders in their field.
THE long list of leaders to have graduated from Tasmanian schools reads like a Who’s Who across the fields of science, politics, business, law and academia. They range from a royal princess to premiers, governors, high-profile lawyers and industry leaders, as well as leading researchers and clinicians in medicine and other fields of science.
Here is a snapshot of some of our finest former students who completed Years 11 and 12 and have been nominated by their schools as being among their star alumni.
ELIZABETH BLACKBURN Medical researcher Launceston Grammar
PROFESSOR of Biochemistry and Biophysics at the University of California in San Francisco, Elizabeth Blackburn has been honoured many times for her pioneering research.
In 2009, Elizabeth and her USbased colleagues Carol Greider and Jack Szostak were jointly awarded the 100th Nobel Prize for Medicine.
Professor Blackburn is also the first female of Australia’s handful of Nobel laureates and the only Tasmanian recipient.
DALE FISHER World expert on COVID-19 and WHO adviser The Hutchins School DALE Fisher graduated in medicine and completed his intern year in Darwin before completing specialist training at the Royal Prince Albert Hospital in Sydney.
He is now one of the world’s leading experts on COVID-19, advising the World Health Organisation’s director general as a professor and senior consultant in infectious diseases at Singapore’s National University Hospital.
Prof Fisher was instrumental in the successful Singaporean approach to controlling coronavirus.
ERROL STUART
Tasmanian developer Launceston Grammar
ERROL Stuart was born at Smithton in 1952 and attended Launceston Church Grammar School as a boarder. During the Christmas holidays in 1967, he got his first job as a parts delivery boy with the Ford dealership in Devonport.
As an aspiring Victorian Football League player, Errol moved to Melbourne as an 18-year-old to play with Hawthorn in the seconds.
Mr Stuart went on to run his own car dealership, firstly in Gippsland, Victoria, before returning to buy the Ford dealership in Launceston.
Over time, his car business expanded statewide, with dealerships in Hobart, Burnie, Devonport and Launceston.
He then diversified into property and has become one the state’s biggest developers.
ASHLEY NORRIS Scientist Claremont College
AFTER completing a degree in physics at ANU, Ashley Norris went on to do a PhD in planetary chemistry at the University of Oxford.
He has worked as a scientist in the UK, Canada, the US and Australia for 15 years, and recently established a scientific services company, Norris Scientific, providing software and hardware for research scientists worldwide.
SANDRA TAGLIERI Lawyer (SC) St Mary’s College
SANDRA Taglieri was educated at St Mary’s College from 1978-83, after which she completed a combined economics/law degree at UTAS.
After wide experience in the law, in 1995 she became a partner in Phillips Taglieri.
In 2009 Ms Taglieri retired from partnership and established herself as a barrister.
In 2018, she accepted the invitation to become Senior Counsel (previously known as Queen’s Counsel) and became only one of three women to have achieved this appointment to date in Tasmania. She saw this as an opportunity to model to other women the possibilities achievable in the law.
WILL HODGMAN
Former Tasmanian premier, now Australia’s High Commissioner to Singapore
The Hutchins School
MR Hodgman was recently announced as Australia’s High Commissioner to Singapore after a brief stint as chair of the Australian Business Growth Fund.
He was previously Tasmania’s 45th premier until his retirement from politics in January 2020. Mr Hodgman was a member of the Tasmanian parliament from 2002 to 2020 and before that practised law.
SIR WILMOT HUDSON FYSH Co-founder of Qantas Launceston Grammar THE outbreak of WWI saw Sir Wilmot (right) enlist as a trooper in the 3rd Regiment of the 1st Australian Light Horse Brigade.
He served in Gallipoli, Egypt and Palestine and won the Distinguished
Flying Cross and graduated as a scout pilot at Heliopolis, Egypt, in 1919.
After returning to Australia, he, along with another ex-service airman — Paul McGinness — and western Queensland graziers Fergus McMaster, Ainslie Templeton and Alan Campbell formed the Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services (Qantas) on November 16, 1920.
In 1923 he was appointed managing director of Qantas.
LIONEL NICHOLS Internationally known lawyer Elizabeth College
MR Nichols was a Rhodes Scholarship recipient (2008) who studied international human rights law and international criminal law.
He has worked on some of the biggest cases of our time, including the News of the World phone hacking case, the Rolf Harris case, and the “Blood Diamond Trial”.
MALCOLM McCUSKER 31st governor of Western Australia
Hobart College AUSTRALIAN barrister, philanthropist and 31st governor of Western Australia, Malcolm McCusker attended Lenah Valley Primary School and Hobart High School until his family returned to Western Australia in 1953.
EMILIE McDONNELL Lawyer Guilford Young College
MS McDonnell graduated from UTAS in 2015 with a Bachelor of Arts and a Bachelor of Law, with first-class honours in law. She was admitted to practise in the Tasmanian Supreme Court in 2016, as well as being awarded a Rhodes Scholarship to study at the University of Oxford.
Her main areas of interest include refugee law, human rights law and public international law.
DAVID WALSH Professional gambler, art entrepreneur and businessman Elizabeth College
MR Walsh (below) is the multi-millionaire founder of the Museum of Old and New Art (Mona), which is now the most popular tourist attraction in Tasmania.
His museum, which was funded from his earnings as a professional gambler, has become the spark for a surge in tourist interest in Hobart and Tasmania.
ALICE EDWARDS Human rights lawyer Fahan School
THE youngest woman ever to hold the position of chief legal adviser to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Dr Edwards also spent five years in the UK in teaching and research positions at the University of Oxford, the University of Nottingham and the London College of Law.
She is now the UN’s Head of the Secretariat for the Convention Against Torture Initiative in Geneva.
OLIVIA McTAGGART Tasmania’s first female chief coroner Fahan School
MS McTaggart was appointed as a permanent magistrate in 2005, filling the position made vacant by Shan Tennent. In 2013, she became the state’s first female full-time coroner, handing down findings into sudden and unnatural deaths.
SUE HICKEY
Former Hobart mayor, Liberal state MP and Speaker of the House Elizabeth College LORD Mayor of Hobart from 2014-18, Ms Hickey was elected to state parliament in 2018 and sensationally grabbed the position of Speaker on the first sitting day.
In 1979 she won the Miss Tasmania Quest, then in 2007 she was named Tasmanian Businesswoman of the Year.
KATE WARNER
Governor of Tasmania
St Michael’s Collegiate School PROFESSOR Warner was sworn in as the first female governor of Tasmania in 2014. She was also the first female dean of the Faculty of Law at UTAS and the first female law
faculty professor.
DOUG LOWE Former Tasmanian premier
St Virgil’s College THE former electrician was the 35th premier of Tasmania and held the position from December 1977 to November 1981. His time as premier coincided with controversy over a proposal to build a dam on Tasmania’s Gordon River. The ensuing crisis saw Mr Lowe overthrown as premier and resign from the Labor Party.
WILLIAM COX
Former chief justice and former Tasmanian governor
St Virgil’s College
MR Cox was appointed to the Supreme Court of Tasmania in 1982 and was the state’s chief justice from 1995 until 2004. His most high-profile court case was the murder trial following the massacre at Port Arthur on April 28, 1996.
He was appointed lieutenant governor of Tasmania in 1996. In 2004 he became acting governor upon the resignation of Richard Butler, becoming only the state’s second Tasmanian-born governor.