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Bate, Zara Kate (1909 - 1989)

Dame, DBE
Archival/Heritage ResourcesPublished Resources
Businesswoman and Community worker
Born: 10 March 1909  Kew, Victoria, Australia.  Died: 14 June 1989.

Zara Bate was appointed Dames Commander of the Order of the British Empire for devotion to the public interest on 8 June 1968.


Career Highlights
Alternative Names:
  • Dickins, Zara (maiden name)
  • Holt, Zara (former name)
Zara Bate the daughter of Sydney Herbert and Violet (née McDonald) was educated at both Ruyton and Toorak Colleges, Melbourne. In 1925, aged 16, she established her first dress shop in Little Collins Street, Melbourne. Bate with a friend, later opened a salon, called 'Magg', in Toorak Village, Melbourne. The business was sold in 1976. Bate won the Australian Gown of the Year award, in 1961.

From her first marriage to Colonel James Fell, Bate had three sons. She married her second husband Harold Holt, who was to become the 22nd prime minister of Australia, in 1946. After his disappearance in 1967, from a Portsea surf beach in Victoria he was presumed drowned, she married H. J. P. (Jeff) Bate on 19 February 1969. Mr Bate, a former Liberal politician and farmer, died in 1984.

In 1968 Dame Zara wrote a book titled My Life and Harry: An autobiography. Besides her charity work she enjoyed reading, walking, swimming and fishing. Dame Zara Bate passed away on 14 June 1989.

 
Published Resources

Books

  • Holt, Zara, Dame, My life and Harry: an autobiography Dame Zara Holt, The Herald, Melbourne, 1968, 256 pp. [ Details... ]

Online Resources

See also

  • James, Caron, 'Women Federation', Sunday Telegraph, Sunday Magazine, 31 December, pp. 4-11, 24. [ Details... ]
  • Langmore, Diane, Prime Ministers' Wives, McPhee Gribble, Ringwood, Vic., 1992, 342 pp. [ Details... ]
  • National Library of Australia, 'Papers of Harry Maurice Miller (1934- ) ', in Finding Aids Manuscripts, http://nla.gov.au/nla.ms-ms7981. [ Details... ]

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Structure based on ISAAR(CPF) - click here for an explanation of the fields.Prepared by: Anne Heywood
Created: 24 April 2002
Modified: 16 June 2004

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/IMP0036b.htm

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