Letter from Mrs F.W. Boykett to Ethel Bruce 8-12-24
Dear Mrs Bruce
I daresay you will be surprised at this letter from an absolute stranger to you but I want to know if you would ask Mr Bruce the Prime Minister if he could get my husband a position in the motoring in the Government. When Mr Bruce came in power he put my husband off the Commonwealth and ever since I have had dreadful luck. I have 8 children altogether the baby being only one month old and it is hard that Mr Boykett who is steady, a teetotaller and a good worker should be put off. He has been in a few millets since but it is not enough money.
Mr Bruce can get his character from the Commonwealth. He was in employment at Commonwealth when Mr Hughes was the Prime minister. He was considered a good, reliable, steady mechanic and driver. I would be so glad Mrs Bruce if you could talk it over with the Prime Minister he is great and powerful. It is not myself but the children, I can’t get enough clothes for them. I am not one for telling my troubles bit I am stranded with a husband out of work and 8 children to keep – one has just got over pneumonia very bad as ill as I was I got from my bed – I had to watch her night and day.
I am so sorry to bother you but I hope and trust you will try and do something for me. Mr Boykett doesn’t know I am writing this but I felt I must for my children’s sake. Hoping I am no trouble, I am, yours truly,
Mrs F.W. Boykett.
The exhibition, Mrs Prime Minister: Public Image, Private Lives was first shown at the Museum of Australian Democracy at Old Parliament House in 2005.
More information is available on the exhibitions page.