Margaret Carnegie was an author and a collector of Australian art, including Aboriginal art. She was born in Melbourne, her father Henry Allen, was a Melbourne trader, and were of Huguenot and Irish origin. She was educated at Lauriston Girls School, and, at 17, a Swiss finishing school. She became fluent in French and her interest in art thrived by visits to the great art museums of Europe.
She returned to Melbourne and to the social life of a wealthy young woman, where she met and married her husband Douglas in 1931. They had four children. After the war, in 1944, Margaret and her husband settled on a 1000 hectare property Kildrummie where they bred Hereford cattle.
Her best-known books were Friday Mount, Morgan: the Bold Bushranger and In Search of Breaker Morant. In 1979, the Carnegies sold the cattle station and moved to Melbourne. In Melbourne, she continued her research and published four books over 13 years. She was made a fellow of the Victorian Royal Historical society and a patron of the Friends of the La Trobe Library, and received an honorary arts degree from the Riverina College of Advanced Education.
In 1988, prior to the Bicentenary she campaigned for an official treaty between the white and black [sic] Australians, and was adopted as a full sister of the tribal elder and artist Nelson (Nosepeg) Tjaparula, becoming Margaret Naparulla of Spring Street, Melbourne.
In 1992, at the age of 82, Margaret published the biography of millionaire William Knox D'Arcy, a mining entrepreneur, and her last book Pacific Gold:California 1848, Australia 1851. When her husband died in 1998, Margaret spent her last years in a nursing home.
(Source: Rockhampton Apartment on website http://www.rockhamptonapartment.com.au)
