Biographical entry
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Australian Women
Biographical entry
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Skene, Lillias Margaret (1867 - 1957) |
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| Women's rights activist and Welfare worker | ||
Lillias Skene was a prominent member of numerous women's groups and social welfare organisations in Melbourne from the early 1900s into the 1940s. She intially focussed on philanthropic work, but from the 1920s she devoted most of her energies to the Red Cross and the National Council of Women of Victoria. She was present at the inaugural meeting of the British (Australian) Red Cross on 25 August 1914 and was a member of the Victorian council from about 1920 until 1941. She became assistant-secretary of the National Council of Women in 1914, honorary secretary in 1916, vice-president in 1921 and president in 1924. In this year she also became foundation president of the federal council of the various State-based National Councils of Women. |
Career Highlights | |
| Lilias Skene was born in 1867 at Smythesdale, Victoria. She married David Skene, a sheepmaster, in 1888 and they had 4 children. The family moved several times, at one time running a dairy in Manly, before moving to Melbourne in 1906. Soon after this she joined several philanthropic and reform organisations included the Charity Organisation Society, the Lady Talbot Milk Institute and represented the Guild of Play on the National Council of Women of Victoria until the 1920s. For thiry years, from 1919, she was honorary secretary of the Women's Hospital Committee's board of management. In 1927 she became one of the first seven women Justices of the Peace in Victoria and played an active role in the Women Justices Association. | |
| Sources used to compile this entry: Judith Smart, 'Skene, Lilias Margaret', Australian Dictionary of Biography, vol. 16, 2002. | |
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Published by National Foundation for Australian Women on Australian Women's Archives Project Web Site Comments, questions, corrections and additions: awap@womenaustralia.info Prepared by: Acknowledgements Updated: 19 June 2008 http://womenaustralia.info/biogs/AWE0755b.htm |