Welcome to MAHTHA

The Michael and Honor Thwaites Heritage Association, Inc.(MAHTHA) is a non-profit association, registered in the Australian Capital Territory.

MAHTHA was formed in 2006

  • to promote and preserve the literary heritage of Michael Rayner Thwaites (1915-2005) and of Honor Mary Scott Thwaites (1914-1993);
  • to administer their literary estates in published and unpublished materials; and
  • to maintain documentary and historical resources relevant to their lives and work.

MAHTHA is registered for business transactions with the Australian Taxation Office:
Australian Business Number (ABN): 95 305 608 947.

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The lives of Michael and Honor Thwaites encompassed poetry, music, and commitment to social change in Australia and the world.

Michael Thwaites was a poet widely published and appreciated in Australia and abroad. Whilst a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, he was awarded the Newdigate Prize for Poetry in 1939. Subsequently he was the first Australian to be awarded the biennial King’s Medal for Poetry.

His poetry was published widely throughout his life, including his own four anthologies:

  • The Jervis Bay and other Poems (1942)
  • Poems of War and Peace (1968)
  • The Honey Man and other Poems (1989)
  • Unfinished Journey (2004)

SLightcover

In May 2015 a new high-quality anthology The Singing Light, edited by Joe Thwaites, was published by MAHTHA to mark the centenary of Michael Thwaites’ birth.

Details are at this link.
Michael Thwaites’ prose works include:

  • Truth Will Out (1980), a first-hand account of the defection of KGB operatives Vladimir and Evdokia Petrov to Australia in 1954, and
  • Atlantic Odyssey (1999), his personal account of service in the Atlantic as a British Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve officer during World War II.

Honor Thwaites contributed several fresh translations of hymns, from the original German, to Australian and British hymnals, and also the hymn “For Australia” written jointly with Michael.