Who was Isabel May Hackett?

It was an act of remarkable generosity - a gift of prime seaside land to help children with disabilities and the wider community, that has seen the Hackett name remembered - most recently with the naming of a street in honour of this local philanthropist.

In 1934, Isabel May Hackett - the daughter of a prominent Brighton farmer - donated the family home and 14 hectares of land to the neighbouring Minda Home for children with disabilities.

But her generosity did not stop there.

She also gave 65 hectares to Brighton Council to expand the Esplanade and the North Brighton Cemetery, as well as another gift of land for the now Brighton Secondary School.

Known as May, she lived all her life in Brighton and was the youngest of eight children of Walter and Emmeline Hackett. According to local history book Vanishing Sands by Averil G. Holt, Miss Hackett’s father had arrived from England via the Victorian goldfields in 1852.

When he died in 1915, he left his Brighton property to his daughter May and son George. For the next two decades, she lived there caring for her disabled brothers Elisha and Samuel.

With the loss of Samuel in 1934, and her brother George five years earlier, Isabel no longer needed such a large property and decided to donate it to Minda.

Holt says it was “a gesture which took her family by surprise. Her reasons for doing so are not known but her father had been a life founder member of Minda”.

“A quiet, reserved lady, she shunned publicity and refused any suggestion that her name be commemorated in any way. But after her death (in 1953), the oval at the Brighton High School was named Hackett Oval,” Holt writes.

Her home, Avenue House on King George Avenue, is now part of the Minda site. Last year, Council named a road Hackett Way in her honour following community consultation.

The road is located at a new housing development on Sturt Road – not far from Hackett’s final resting place at Brighton’s St Jude’s Cemetery.

Minda – a place of shelter and protection

The word Minda is today associated with the state’s largest not-for-profit disability service provider, Minda Inc.

But the organisation has had Minda in its name since it was first established in 1898.

Now, connected to the organisation’s Brighton site are the Minda Dunes and the Minda Coast Path, which was completed in 2019

To acknowledge the importance of the organisation and the fact that Minda is a Kaurna word meaning shelter and protection, Council commissioned the Imprints of Time artworks for the Minda Coast Path.

The artworks demonstrate the connection to the coastal environment, Kaurna culture and reflect the natural environment of the Minda site.

Created by artists Allan Sumner and Karl Meyer, the series of ‘pebble’ sculptures include two gently resting together which symbolise the community coming together.

Minda artists were also involved in developing the imprints that reflect the coastal dunes.