Patricia Hackett was the daughter of Sir Winthrop Hackett, newspaper editor and benefactor of the University of WA. Her mother's family (the Drake-Brockmans and the Bussells) were among the earliest pioneers of WA.
After leaving school she studied law in London and was admitted to the Bar in the Inner Temple in London. She returned to Australia and came to Adelaide to practise her profession. She disliked office work, and in particular divorce cases, and would spend hours persuading clients to resolve their differences (see radio broadcast script, "Personalities Remembered", Mortlock Library). Her partners complained that she would charge her clients low fees, and often forego them. She turned to the theatre for excitement, becoming an actor and a producer. She made her Adelaide debut with the Adelaide Repertory Theatre in 1932 in The Man With a Load of Mischief, and throughout the 1940s she worked as a producer and actor with the University of Adelaide Theatre Guild at The Hut. She founded her own theatre, The Torch, in a converted basement in Claridge Arcade, in 1934, and for two seasons produced a number of plays there, usually taking the leading role herself.
She visited England in 1936, and on returning was asked to do some legal work at Tulagi in the Solomons, a place she came to love. She was the first woman lawyer to be accepted to the Bar in the Solomon Islands. She leased the island of M'Bangai in the harbour of Tulagi, and for some years she spent about three months of each year there. On returning from her work in the Solomons she offered her services to the army, but as women lawyers were not acceptable, she joined up as a munitions officer. She was discharged, however, after a flare-up in her knee of the arthritis which was to trouble her for the rest of her life. She rejoined the University Theatre Guild. She and Dr Mildred Mocatta bought a house at 69 Hackney Road, St Peters, and here, in 1952, she rebuilt the Torch Theatre in the basement (wine-cellar) for small audiences of about 45 people.
Hackett also was co-author of books on school music instruction and the fundamentals of music, wrote the lyrics of The Apple Tree (1944, music by Miriam Hyde), compiled a collection of melodies and produced a number of sound recordings covering poetry readings and English language study for migrants.
Patricia Hackett was a complex, eccentric and flamboyant character, who felt that she should have been born in another age - possibly the Middle Ages, or Egyptian times. Peter Goers described her as 'an aristocrat, ... actress, director, designer, costumier, ... feminist, socialite, hostess, art collector, eccentric, manic depressive, poet, and author of belles lettres.' ('Agnes and Hackett: Biographical Profiles', Barr Smith Library, University of Adelaide). She developed heart trouble and died in 1963. The Patricia Hackett Prize for poetry was established in her memory in 1965.
