Australian First Lady and Academic. Lady Gorton was born Bettina Edith Brown at Great Barrington in Berkshire County, Massachusetts. She was First Lady of Australia as the wife of 19th Australian Prime Minister, John Grey Gorton. She lived her early life at Portland, Maine. Her father, Arthur A. Brown, the President of an American Bank in Cuba, died when she was two years old. Her mother Grace Brown (nee Whitaker) returned to Maine after her father's death, and Bettina studied at Bangor High School and the University of Maine. In 1933, she was studying languages at the Sorbonne in Paris and, while on a holiday in Spain, her brother, Arthur Brown, introduced her to his good friend from Oxford University, John Grey Gorton from Australia. Bettina and John Gorton married at St Giles' Church, North Oxford on February 15, 1935. After John Gorton completed his studies at Oxford, the couple travelled to Australia via the United States, spending some time with her family in Maine. They proceeded in Australia to Mystic Park in Victoria, between Kerang and Swan Hill, where John's father, John Rose Gorton, ran a citrus orchard. They found his father in failing health, and during his illness, John took over the management of the orchard. John Rose Gorton died in August 1936. Mystic Park became their primary residence until John was appointed to the Ministry of the Government of Australia in 1958, when they moved to Canberra. Her mother, Grace Brown, came to live with them at Mystic Park. Daughter Joanna was born in 1937, son Michael in 1938 and son Robin in 1941. John enlisted in the Royal Australian Air Force on May 31, 1940 and soon after, and following the outbreak of World War II, he was sent to the UK. He was discharged from the RAAF on December 5, 1944, and required surgery in late 1944 for serious facial and other injuries. Essentially, for the period of the War, Bettina ran the orchard and raised the children. From 1946, Bettina assumed the duties of a Councillor's wife and a Shire President's wife, after John became a member of the Kerang Shire Council between 1946 and 1950. From 1950, she assumed the role of a Victorian Senator's wife, no doubt made more challenging by virtue of living a significant distance from Victoria's major metropolis, Melbourne, and a significant distance from the National Capitol, Canberra. On December 10, 1958, when John Gorton became a member of the Menzies Ministry as Minister for the Navy, John and Bettina moved to Canberra. On January 10, 1968, John Gorton became Prime Minister and the family moved into the Prime Minister's Lodge in Canberra. Bettina became the first foreign born Australian Prime Minister's wife since Dame Mary Cook (1913 -1914). At this time, a white brick security wall was built around the Lodge and Bettina established at the Lodge an indigenous garden of Australian native plants which was named the Bettina Gorton Garden. Lady Gorton had a long association with the Australian National University [ANU], where she was a graduate of the Faculty of Asian Studies, obtaining a Bachelor of Arts degree, with honors, in Oriental Studies in 1965 after five years of study, having first enrolled part time at ANU in 1961. Her interest in oriental languages and cultures was piqued by an official visit with her husband, then Minister for the Navy, to Sarawak in 1960. She obtained a Masters degree in 1968. In 1967 she began work on an English-Malay Dictionary project, and remained involved in that project until it moved to Kuala Lumpur in 1977. The Dictionary was finally completed in 1982. Her interest in oriental studies was widely reported in South-East Asia. She accompanied the Prime Minister on official visits to Indonesia and Malaysia in 1968 and her speeches there and her ability to converse with the local population in their own languages made her very popular in those countries, where she was very warmly received. She demonstrated a deep interest in the cultural life of the region and her warm, open approach to the people she met, combined with the effectiveness of the speeches that she made in the local languages ensured that her input to these diplomatic missions was highly valued. Later, subsequent Labor Prime Minister Gough Whitlam praised her contribution to the Australia-Indonesia relationship. Bettina officially opened the Melbourne Airport at Tullamarine on July 9, 1970. John Gorton's Prime Ministership ended on March 10, 1971 and he left the Australian Parliament upon the double dissolution of the Parliament on November 11, 1975. He was knighted in 1977 whereupon Bettina became Lady Gorton. She was diagnosed with, and successfully treated for cancer in 1974. She resumed work on the English-Malay Dictionary project after the end of the Prime Ministership, lectured part-time at ANU and completed a Master of Arts. Her Master's thesis was on the topic "The Life and Times of Achdiat Karta Mihardja," a well known Indonesian author, novelist and playwright, who had been her one time colleague in the Faculty of Asian Studies at ANU. She also engaged in a study of the Minangkabau dialect as part of her MA qualification work, a mainly literary dialect, still spoken although mainly used in ceremonies, religion and literature. The dialect is a native language spoken by the Minangkabau people on the West coast of Northern Sumatra. In connection with her thesis on Achdiat Karta Mihardja, she visited his birthplace in Java in May 1977 and interviewed many people who had known him and who had grown up with him. His 1949 work "Atheist" is considered one of Indonesia's most important post World War II literary works. She died aged 68 at Royal Canberra Hospital, having made a notable contribution to Australian public life.