Mabel Hookey, the daughter of Vernon William Bligh, was an accomplished painter in oil and watercolour. On completion of her formal education in Tasmania, she moved to Sydney to study as an art student with A. H. Fullwood, after which she returned to live in Tasmania. She travelled by ship to Flinders Island, New South Wales, Queensland, and overseas to Europe, Africa, Asia and the Pacific, documenting her travel experiences in a series of watercolours now exhibited in the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery. She has exhibited with the Tasmanian Art Society, the Society of Women Artists and in Paris, at the Old Salon in 1928.
Hookey was also one of the first female journalists in Tasmania (at one time she was the sub-editor of the Launceston Daily Telegraph). She managed the large family farm and wrote and illustrated books on Tasmanian history, such as The Romance of Tasmania (1921) and The Romance of Old St. David's (1920), and edited the diaries of the Rev. Robert Knopwood, Bobby Knopwood and His Times (1929). She also published poetry, including English versions of the Song of Solomon.
Hookey is the sister of Dora Hookey (qv).
