Alison Hale Art Trail

Art made by Pymble women now has a permanent home at Pymble.  

Pymble Alumni is delighted to introduce the Alison Hale Art Trail, the first project of the Pymble Alumni Arts Initiative. Made possible by the Alison Hale Bequest, it expands the College’s permanent collection of artworks created by our alumni, and our artists have shared their time and ideas with current students along the way. 

Thank you to our alumni artists for giving so generously of their time and talent. 

Who was Alison Hale? 

Pymble Ladies’ College has a long association with giving – of everything from time and kindness to the gift of giving back. It is often the case that a Pymble girl feels inspired to give back in so many ways (to her cohort, to the community, to those less fortunate) and carries that trait with her for life.

As each student passes through the College gates for the final time, they become an alumni. And sometimes, our beloved alumni choose to make the ultimate gesture of ‘giving back’ by making a bequest. One such alumni is Alison Hale.  

Alison Hale: A Life of Generosity

For over seventy years, Alison Hale gave herself to Pymble Ladies’ College – as a schoolgirl, as a leader, and ultimately as a benefactor whose final act of generosity continues to shape the College today.

Alison Hope Hale (nee Nield) first walked the Colonnade of Pymble as a boarder in Lang House in 1939, aged just thirteen. Over the next four years, she threw herself into school life with characteristic energy, immersed in the Arts and Crafts Club, the Mothercraft Club and the Student Christian Movement, and she contributed to the war effort through the Comforts Fund and Knitting Club. A peer fondly recalled her walking the length of the Colonnade laden with khaki wool, knitting scarves as she went, a small but telling glimpse of the industrious spirit that would define her life. By 1943, she had risen to School Prefect and Senior Marden House Prefect.

After school, Alison trained as a stenographer and worked in England before marrying Alban in 1962. The couple settled in Brisbane, where they remained until Alban’s death in 1970, after which Alison returned to Sydney. Yet Alison’s connection to Pymble never wavered. She served as President of the Ex-Students’ Union in 1961 to 1962 and later devoted an extraordinary twenty-nine years to the College as Secretary of Council, from 1990 to 2009. In recognition of this remarkable service, the Alison Hale Meeting Room in the Administration Centre was named in her honour in 2010.

A tireless organiser of reunions and a familiar face at College and ESU events well into her later years, Alison lived by a motto that captured her generous, dependable nature: “If it’s to be, it’s up to me.”

When Alison passed away in July 2018, aged 91, she left a bequest to support Boarding at the College she had cherished since girlhood. The artworks showcased here were purchased through her generosity, stand as a lasting tribute to a woman whose devotion to Pymble spanned a lifetime.

By Kate Murray
College Archivist