Brookes, Mabel Balcombe (1890 - 1975)

Mabel Balcombe Brookes, who worked for many charitable organisations, was acknowledged as a talented organiser and effective committee member. Her greatest contribution was as president of the Queen Victoria Hospital from 1923-1970. She was appointed as a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1933 and as a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire on 9 June 1955 for Charitable and social welfare services.

She became engaged to Norman Brookes, a tennis player, who was the first Australian to win Wimbledon, at the age of eighteen, and married him in St Paul's Anglican Cathedral, Melbourne, on 19 April 1911. In 1914, with a baby daughter, she accompanied Brookes on his tennis trips to Europe and the United States of America. During World War I, in 1915, she joined her husband in Cairo where he was working as commissioner for the Australian Branch of the British Red Cross. She assisted in the establishment of a rest home for nurses. On her husband's posting to Mesopotamia, she returned to Melbourne in 1917. At this point she wrote three novels and continued to write on a variety of topics during her life.

In 1918 she served on the committee of the Royal Children's Hospital, then became president of the Children's Frankston Orthopaedic Hospital, the Anglican Babies' Home and the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. She was also an original member and a divisional officer of the Girl Guides' Association executive committee, foundation president of the Institute of Almoners and of the Animal Welfare League. In addition, she was a member of the Australian Red Cross Society's federal executive and president of the Ladies' Swimming Association.

Mabel Brookes's major contribution was as president of the Queen Victoria Hospital from 1923-1970, where she presided over the addition of three new wings within ten years.

During World War II the Brookes's home became a Red Cross convalescent home. The Brookes family lived in Elm Tree House and entertained Australian and American officers, including Lyndon Baines Johnson, later to become president of the USA. In a more practical contribution to the war effort, Mabel Brookes was commandant of the Australian Women's Air Training Corps and worked at the Maribyrnong munitions factory.

She also attempted a political career by standing twice for parliament but was unsuccessful. She stood for the federal seat of Flinders in 1943 as a Woman for Canberra candidate and in 1952 for the state seat of Toorak for the Electoral Reform League.

She was appointed CBE in 1933 and DBE in 1955 for services to hospitals and charity. The French Government appointed her as Chevalier de la Legion d'Honneur in 1960 in acknowledgement of her gift to the French nation of the pavilion which Napoleon had occupied on her great-grandfather's estate on St Helena. Monash University conferred on her an honorary LLD in 1967. A travelling scholarship for opera singers was established in her name. Both Sir William Dargie and Clifton Pugh painted her portrait.

Mabel Brookes published her Memoirs in 1974. She died at South Yarra on 30 April 1975, survived by her two daughters.

Membership

• Girl Guides Australia (1926 - )

President

• Queen Victoria Hospital (1896 - 1977)

  [1924 - ]

Related Corporate Bodies

• Australian Red Cross Victoria (1914 - )

  Acted for commissioners of the Australian Red Cross in Egypt during World War II

• Community Programs, Australian Red Cross Victoria

Books

• Brookes, Mabel Balcombe, Broken Idols, Melville and Mullen, Melbourne, 1917, 271 pp. [ Details... ]
• Brookes, Mabel Balcombe, On the knees of the gods, Melville and Mullen, Melbourne, 1918, 333 pp. [ Details... ]
• Brookes, Mabel Balcombe, Old Desires, Australasian Authors' Agency, Melbourne, 1922, 294 pp. [ Details... ]
• Brookes, Mabel Balcombe, St Helena story, Heinemann, London, 1960, 309 pp. [ Details... ]
• Brookes, Mabel Balcombe, Riders of time, Macmillan, Melbourne, 1967, 217 pp. [ Details... ]
• Brookes, Mabel Balcombe (1890-1975), Crowded galleries; with chapters on tennis by Sir Norman Brookes, Heinemann, Melbourne, 1956, 324 pp. [ Details... ]
• Brookes, Mabel Balcombe (1890-1975), Memoirs, Macmillan, South Melbourne, Vic., 1974, 216 pp. [ Details... ]
• Hince, Kenneth, Sale catalogue of Australiana from the library of Dame Mabel Brookes., Kenneth Hince, Melbourne, 1968, 69 pp. [ Details... ]

Book Sections

• Poynter, J R, 'Brookes, Dame Mabel Balcombe(1890-1975), society and charity leader', in John Ritchie (ed.), Australian Dictionary of Biography, vol. 13, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, Victoria, 1993, p. 626. [ Details... ]

Theses

• Krautschneider, Astrid Britt, 'An Examination and Assessment of the Dame Mabel Brookes Family Records of Napoleon', Thesis, School of Art History, Cinema, Classics and Archaeology, University of Melbourne, 2004. [ Details... ]

Online Resources

• Commonwealth of Australia, department of Prime Minister, 'Lady Mabel Balcombe Brookes', in It's an honour-awards and national symbols, Commonwealth of Australia, Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, Commonwealth of Australia, 2002, http://www.itsanhonour.gov.au/honours_list/resultDetail.cfm?awardsID=872706. [ Details... ]
• The Briars Historic Park, 'Dame Mabel Brookes napoleonic collection', 2002, http://www.nepeanet.org.au/briars/mabel~1.html. [ Details... ]

See also

• Alexander, Joseph A (ed.), Who's who in Australia 1950, 14th edn, The Herald, Melbourne, 1950, 816 pp. [ Details... ]