Summary

Certificate of Australian Citizenship for Martha Mavis Sylvia Motherwell (nee Boyes), awarded 22 September 1975 and signed by an authorised officer and the Minister of State for Labor and Immigration. At the time, a migrant had to live in Australia for five years in order to be eligible for citizenship. On the reverse is the certificate of the Oath of Allegiance, dated 16 December 1975 at St Kilda and signed by Ian Clark, Mayor. Lindsay and Sylvia met in South Africa, married in London in 1969 and then relocated to Australia in 1970 to start their lives together.

Sylvia Boyes (a South African-born orphan) and Lindsay Motherwell (a Melbourne-born drummer) met in Cape Town, South Africa in 1967 through their theatre connections. They fell in love but due to apartheid laws were forced to leave South Africa to marry in London. They subsequently relocated permanently to Melbourne in 1970.

Physical Description

Certificate states that Sylvia had 'satisfied the conditions prescribed by the Australian Citizenship Act 1948-1973. Awarded by the Minister of State for Labor and Immigration. On the reverse is the certificate of the Oath of Allegiance, dated 16 December 1975 at St Kilda and signed by Ian Clark, Mayor.

Significance

Statement of Historical Significance:
This collection provides a significant opportunity to represent political and personal freedom as a motivation for migrating to Australia within the international context of both apartheid in South Africa and the end of the White Australia policy in Australia. The personal narrative is well documented and the objects provide a material way to follow the lives of both Lindsay and Sylvia, both separately and where they coincide in South Africa and onwards together to Melbourne. While this is ultimately a love story, it plays out through the collection against the backdrop of apartheid South Africa, sixties London and an increasingly multicultural Australia.

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