Joice NanKivell Loch MBE (24 January 18878 October 1982) was an Australian author, journalist and humanitarian worker who worked with refugees in Poland, Greece and Romania in the 1920s and during World War II.
Joice NanKivell was raised in rural Queensland and Victoria and developed her talent as a writer while living and working on family farms. During World War I she lived in Melbourne, where she worked as a writer of articles, reviews, poetry and several books. Joice married the writer Sydney Loch in February 1919, after which the couple travelled to London. Joice and Sydney Loch spent eighteen months in Dublin, researching a book about the struggle for Irish independence. In 1922 and 1923 the couple worked with Quaker organisations in war-torn Poland, providing assistance and humanitarian aid to refugees and villagers in communities devastated by war and famine. In late 1923 the Lochs relocated to Greece, living and working at the American Farm School near Thessaloniki, delivering aid and assisting in the re-settlement of Greek Orthodox refugees from Asia Minor.
On a camping holiday in 1925 the Lochs visited the province of Chalkidiki in north-eastern Greece, during which Sydney was taken on a tour of the monastic community on the Athos peninsula. He received a contract to write an illustrated book on the Mount Athos monasteries, after which the couple regularly visited the area, camping at the nearby village of Pyrgos (modern-day Ouranoupoli), a community of refugees from Turkey. In 1928 Joice and Sydney Loch relocated to Pyrgos and made their home in an old Byzantine tower on the seafront. Joice became involved in the life of the community, holding regular health clinics and establishing a women's rug-weaving co-operative to produce premium hand-woven and naturally-dyed floor coverings, with distinctly Greek designs and motifs, for sale to affluent Greeks and foreigners.
During the early months of World War II the Lochs were responsible for the delivery of humanitarian aid from Quaker organisations to Polish refugees in neutral Romania. By September 1940 the political situation in Romania had become unstable, with pro-Nazi politicians and paramilitary forces becoming prominent in the country. The Lochs organised several mass escapes of Polish and Jewish refugees from Romania, across the Black Sea to Turkey, and onward to Brish-controlled Cyprus and Palestine, with Joice herself in charge of hundreds of refugee women and children. In the last years of the war the Lochs were responsible for the welfare of the large group of Polish refugees in camps near Tel-Aviv in Palestine.
After the withdrawal of Axis troops the Lochs returned to Greece, initially living at the American Farm School during the civil war between a Communist insurgency and government forces. By the end of the civil war in 1949 the couple returned to Ouranoupoli and re-established their home in the Byzantine tower. After her husband's death in 1954, Joice continued to live at Ouranoupoli, writing, occasionally travelling and engaging in the life of the village. She died there in 1982, leaving behind a legacy characterised by compassion and commitment to social justice and the welfare of vulnerable populations. Joice Loch's career included significant contributions as a writer in the form of articles and books that highlighted the plight of refugees and social conditions in Europe. Throughout her life, Loch maintained her Australian identity while becoming a significant voice in humanitarian discourse globally.
Biography
Early years
Joice Mary NanKivell was born on 24 January 1887 at the 'Farnham' sugar cane plantation on the Herbert River, near Ingham in far north Queensland, the eldest child of George Griffiths NanKivell and Edith Ada (née Lawson).Births, The Brisbane Courier, 27 January 1887, page 4. The 'Farnham' plantation was managed by Joice's father and owned by Fanning, NanKivell and Company, of which her wealthy grandfather Thomas NanKivell was a partner.Susanna de Vries (2001), page 120. Joice had a younger brother born in October 1888, Charles George NanKivell, who was known by family members as 'Geoffrey'.Michael Sharkey (editor), 'Joice M. NanKivell' (in) Many Such as She: Victorian Australian Women Poets of World War One, Hobart: Walleah Press, pages 220-232.
Joice NanKivell and her younger brother were born at a time of uncertainty in the north Queensland sugar industry, brought about by government efforts to control and restrict the employment of indentured non-European labourers, most of them native to various Pacific islands, collectively known as Kanakas. The Pacific Islanders Labourers Act had been passed by the Queensland colonial government in 1880 to regulate the indentured labour trade from the Pacific islands to work in tropical Queensland. An amendment to the legislation passed in 1884 sought to limit the employment of Kanaka labourers, with a proposal to phase out 'non-white' recruitment by December 1890. This decision came under sustained pressure from plantation owners and business interests favouring the continuation of the Pacific islands labour trade.Joe Harris (1968), 'The Struggle Against Pacific Island Labour, 1868-1902', Labour History, No. 15, November 1968, pages 40-48.Islander labourers, National Museum Australia website; accessed 10 December 2024.Australian South Sea Islander Historical Chronology, Australian South Sea Islanders - Port Jackson website; accessed 15 December 2024. In February 1892 the Queensland Chief Secretary, Samuel Griffith, issued a manifesto declaring a temporary "resumption of Polynesian immigration... for a definite but limited period of, say, ten years".Polynesian Labor, Western Star and Roma Advertiser, 17 February 1892, page 4.
Despite the temporary reversal of government policy the sugar industry had begun to suffer from labour shortages, excerbated by the mounting opposition from the labour movement in Queensland to the recruitment of Kanaka workers. Amidst these disruptions it was discovered that the 'Farnham' plantation had been heavily mortgaged by Thomas NanKivell. During the banking crisis that began in early 1893 the bank took possession of the plantation in settlement of the outstanding mortgage payments, resulting in George NanKivell and his family walking off the property.Susanna de Vries (2001), pages 120-121.
George NanKivell's initial response to his change in circumstances was to send his wife and children to live with family members while he travelled to the goldfields of Western Australia, then undergoing rapid development after significant gold discoveries at Coolgardie and Kalgoorlie. However his efforts to find significant amounts of gold were unsuccessful and his initial optimism "was worn down by disappointment", eventually returning empty-handed to his wife and children in Melbourne.Susanna de Vries (2000), pages 24-26.
Rural Victoria
George NanKivell accepted the job of manager of his uncle's sheep property near Boolarra, in the Latrobe Valley in the Gippsland district of Victoria. The family moved onto the property, into a rudimentary wooden house with dirt floors.Susanna de Vries (2000), pages 27-29. George NanKivell and his brother Jack spent several years working on the pastoral property at Boolarra, during which George's wife Edith and her children spent considerable periods living in the household of Edith's older sister in Ipswich, Queensland, to escape the primitive conditions on the farm.Susanna de Vries (2000), pages 27-33.
During one of the periods when Edith NanKivell was in Queensland George's uncle sold the Boolarra property and George once again went off to the Kalgoorlie goldfields. On this occasion he became severely ill after succumbing to typhoid fever. George's uncle then purchased a farm in the Myrrhee valley, south-east of Benalla in the Wangaratta district of north-east Victoria, and offered George NanKivell the job of managing it. Once again the family were reduced to living in primitive conditions, in a small three-roomed house with dirt floors. The property was in rough, dry country infested with rabbits.Susanna de Vries (2000), page 33.
Joice NanKivell received her education from her parents and, for a short time, from a governess at a neighbouring station. In her teenage years she wrote verses, with some of them accepted for publication in Victorian newspapers and journals including The Everylady.Miss Joice Nankivell: The Author of "The Cobweb Ladder", The Daily Mail (Brisbane), 10 February 1917, page 12.
When George NanKivell heard of a property for sale near Drouin, in the West Gippsland region east of Melbourne, he borrowed money from his wife's uncle for a deposit. The property included a cherry orchard and a house with running water and an indoor toilet.Susanna de Vries (2000), page 42. In 1906 NanKivell sold the property at Drouin and moved to the Neerim district, 17 miles (27 km) north of Drouin, on a dairy farm of forty acres. In 1908 he purchased the farm, plus an additional fifteen acres, "under the closer settlement scheme".Tillage and Pasture: The North Neerim District, Leader (Melbourne), 8 August 1908, page 6.Susanna de Vries (2000), pages 56-59.
Joice NanKivell continued to live with her family into her mid-twenties, to assist her mother in running the household and, at the insistence of her father, to provide labour on the farm. While living in the Drouin district Joice completed a children's book which she called The Cobweb Ladder and sent the manuscript to the Lothian Book Publishing Company in Melbourne. The company accepted the manuscript and decided to publish the story in large format with full-page black-and-white illustrations by Edith Alsop. Lothian were confident that Joice's book would be a success for the Christmas children's market in both Australia and Britain. After The Cobweb Ladder was accepted for publication, followed by one of her poems being accepted by Contrast, a Melbourne literary magazine, Joice began to dream of leaving her life on the farm and becoming a writer and travel to Europe.Susanna de Vries (2000), pages 52-55. However, the onset of war in 1914 brought paper rationing and the publication of The Cobweb Ladder was postponed.
Melbourne
In 1914 Joice NanKivell, aged twenty-six, successfully applied for a part-time position as secretary to Alexander Leeper, a classical scholar and warden of Trinity College at the University of Melbourne.Ros Pesman (2012), Joice Mary Nankivell Loch (1887–1982), Australian Dictionary of Biography website, National Centre of Biology, Australian National University; accessed 16 December 2024. Joice found lodgings in an East Melbourne boarding house. Her work hours were flexible and Leeper encouraged her writing and enabled her to attend university lectures that interested her. NanKivell had some her poetry published in the The Herald, an evening newspaper in Melbourne, and its literary editor, Guy Innes, commissioned her to write a weekly book review column.Susanna de Vries (2000), pages 60-62.
After the outbreak of World War I Joice's brother Geoffrey enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force and was placed in the 4th Battalion, Australian Infantry. He served at Gallipoli during 1915 after which he was transferred to the Western Front.World War I service record:
In late July 1916 Joice NanKivell reviewed The Straits Impregnable by Sydney de Loghe, a first-person account of the Gallipoli campaign published by the Australasian Authors' Agency. Joice was so intrigued by the description of a soldier's experience, in a campaign in which her brother had fought, that she arranged to meet the author, Sydney Loch, with whom she discovered an affinity.Flyleaves and Footlights, The Herald (Melbourne), 26 July 1916, page 3.Susanna de Vries (2000), pages 66-70.