AustLit

Eunice Hanger was born on the 8th of March in 1911, at Mount Chalmers, Queensland (Fotheringham). She is the middle child to Thomas Hanger and Myfanwy, née Granville-Jones (Fotheringham). She has an elder sister named Gwen Hopkins, an elder brother named Mostyn Hanger, and two younger sisters named Van Tanner and Winifred Sparkes (Hanger Correspondences, Box 15). Her father was a very well respected person in the education field and her elder brother was a prominent person in Queensland's legislative field.

She attended Gympie High School where her father was the headmaster. In December 1928, it was announced that she was one of 25 people who were being offered a UQ scholarship based on the results of Queensland University Senior Public Examinations ("Open Scholarships"). Hence, she commenced her Bachelor of Arts the year later and graduated in 1932. Upon her graduation, she became an outstanding teacher at her father’s school.

Later on, she went back to UQ to pursue her Masters and as soon as she graduated in 1940, she was transferred to Rockhampton High School. In that particular year, her career as a playwright began to take off as she started joining the local little theatre. As years go by, she became even more involved in different roles in the drama field, whether as a writer, actress, producer or director.

In 1948, she was appointed to teach in Brisbane High School and became a member of the Twelfth Night Theatre. Due to her active involvement in the Twelfth Night Theatre, she became the secretary of the organization in 1949. In 1954, she became involved in the establishment of J.J Stable Memorial Tree Theatre in St Lucia. On the 23rd and 24th of April 1959, Hanger produced the theatre's first play, Love's Labour's Lost which was written by Shakespeare, one of Hanger's all time favourite playwright.

In 1955, she started working as an English lecturer in UQ and in 1958, she was appointed as a drama lecturer (Tarling and Sykes).

Eunice Hanger also spent a period of time in 1964 on travelling, particularly to countries in Europe and USA. During her stay overseas, she visited a few plays and university drama department and observed the differences in the drama culture practiced in Australia and overseas. Some of the program booklets that she collected during her visit can be found in box 14 of her collection in Fryer. Hanger demonstrated a strong relationship with her parents in many letters. Since she remained single throughout her life, she also stayed with her parents most of the time and often assisted her father in writing his memoirs (Fotheringham). Sadly, her father passed away in 18 July 1964, few months after she left Brisbane (Hanger Correspondences, Box 18).

After her return, she was promoted to senior lecturer in UQ (Fotheringham). Unfortunately, she died of cancer on the 16th of October 1972 in Toowong, Queensland.