About Dame Mary Gilmore
 Mary Gilmore was born near Goulburn, New South Wales. She became a teacher and a writer and was editor of the women's pages of the Australian Worker newspaper for 23 years.
In 1886, Gilmore went to Paraguay in South America to join a group of Australians who planned to set up a new colony where everyone would be equal and would work together. This colony was not successful.
After some years, Gilmore came back to Australia with her husband. She spent the rest of her life writing, doing her editing work and fighting for people who needed help. These included Aboriginal people, children who were forced to work in factories and shearers who were being underpaid. She also fought hard for women's rights.
In 1937 she was made Dame Mary Gilmore by King George VI. A suburb of Canberra is named after her and her picture is on the $10 note (along with Henry Lawson the only 2 Australian writers to be featured) and on a few of Australia's stamps.
Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary
Dame Mary Gilmore, Australia's 'grand old lady of letters', was the author of over twenty books, the subject of a controversial Dobell portrait, and later featured with Banjo Paterson on the first polymer $10 note.
In her final eight years, Dame Mary's life was a succession of visitors and housekeepers, sufficient to tax the health of any ninety year old.
Dame Mary, however, wouldn't have it any other way - she loved company and found several of her housekeepers tiresome and overbearing - a frequently reciprocated feeling.
Towards the end of 1954, after four months convalescence following an operation, Mary returned to her flat in Sydney's cosmopolitan Kings Cross.
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