Out of the Shadows - The Life of Millicent Baxter

Millicent Baxter was the pivot and driving force of her husband’s and sons’ lives. Although famous in their own right – Archie as a conscientious objector in World War I, Terence as a ‘conchie’ in World War II and James as New Zealand’s most celebrated poet – in some ways they lived in her shadow. Throughout her 96 years, Millicent was surrounded yet untouched by fame.Millicent spurned the fame that came early to her poet son having grown up with famous parents. Her mother was the first woman in the British Empire to earn a degree with honours, her father, a founding professor of the University of Canterbury and Chancellor of the University of New Zealand.A forceful and sometimes daunting character with a crushing wit, lucid intellect and sharp political mind, Millicent declined an MA at the University of Cambridge and became a leading promoter of pacifism in New Zealand at a time when women just did not do such things. A strongly independent young woman, she defied her controlling father and turned her back on a life of privilege and prosperity to marry a poor rabbiter from a remote part of New Zealand’s South Island.

Penny Griffith was born in England but emigrated to New Zealand in 1987. She graduated BA Hons at University of Canterbury in 2005. This book grew from an MA thesis on pacifism and the Baxter family. She moved to Wellington in 2011 after Christchurch was devastated by numerous earthquakes in 2010 and 2011 and was finally able to finish the book on more stable ground. She lives in Wellington with her dog ‘Bollie’ on top of a large hill overlooking Cook Strait between the country’s two main islands. After writing, her great passion is travelling the world, whenever the bank balance allows it.