Out of the shadows

"Millicent Baxter was the pivot and driving force of her husband and sons' lives. In some ways they lived in her shadow. Throughout her 96 years, Millicent was surrounded by fame but untouched by it. Son James K. Baxter, was arguably the country's most celebrated poet. Husband Archie was New Zealand's most renowned WW1 conscientious objector, subjected to shocking brutality. Mother was the first woman in the British Empire to earn a degree with honours. Father was a founding professor of the University of Canterbury and Chancellor of the University of New Zealand. Millicent's surviving son Terence, also has a story to tell as a man transformed by his experiences of being imprisoned as a 'conchie' in World War 2. 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 live with a poor rabbiter from a remote part of New Zealand's South Island" --Publisher's description.