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Carrying out the duties of a governor’s wife was the pinnacle of public service for women in colonial Australia. Victoria had ten British governors during the nineteenth century, and all were married men. (One of them, Sir Henry Barkly, was married twice.) Their wives accompanied them to Melbourne as a matter of course, forced to leave behind their homes, their extended families and sometimes their school-age children. While researching Colonial Consorts, Marguerite Hancock made extensive use of letters, diaries, and family papers in libraries and archives in Switzerland, Scotland and Australia.