Ashfield

Distinguished and Famous people from Ashfield

Ashfield's connections with tennis and children's literature share an unexpected institution: Normanhurst School. It was part of the education of both champion Daphne Akhurst and the future creator of Mary Poppins.

🎾 Daphne Akhurst

Daphne Akhurst was born in Ashfield in 1903 and attended Normanhurst School. A talented pianist, she trained at the State Conservatorium and became a music teacher and performer. Tennis supplied a second, exceptionally successful career: she won five Australian singles championships, with further titles in doubles and mixed doubles. The Australian Open women's singles trophy bears her name. Few schoolgirls can have had quite such convincing grounds for dividing practice time between the piano and the tennis court.

📚 P. L. Travers

P. L. Travers, born Helen Lyndon Goff in Queensland, boarded at Normanhurst School in Ashfield from 1912. School performances and reading Shakespeare helped develop an interest in theatre before she worked as an actress and writer. She adopted Pamela Lyndon Travers as her professional name and became internationally known for the Mary Poppins books. Ashfield belongs to that educational and theatrical beginning, well before the character acquired a famous screen umbrella.

📷 Max Dupain

Max Dupain was born at Ashfield in 1911 and attended Ashfield Preparatory School. The family lived on Parramatta Road, close to relatives, and he accompanied his mother to St John’s Church. An uncle gave him his first camera in 1924, opening the way to a career that reshaped Australian photography. Dupain became known for dramatic light, modernist experiments and later architectural and industrial work. His photograph Sunbaker eventually became one of the country’s most familiar images. Ashfield’s connection is the family and school environment of his early life, before apprenticeship and a professional studio in central Sydney.