Annie Forsyth Wyatt

The growing family moved from their Redfern home in 1891 to a house named Fairholme in the semi-rural Rooty Hill area, with Annie boarding at Burwood Methodist Ladies College from the age of 10.

[1] Pony rides to lovely old homes such as Bungaribee, Mamre, Horsley and Graystanes featured largely in her childhood memories of wildflowers and bushlands now gone.

[5] Annie first became an active advocate of conservation in 1927 when, as a mother of two small children, she set up the Ku-ring-gai Tree Lovers' Civic League.

[2] Wyatt worked for the Prisoners' Aid Association of New South Wales for twenty years, including a term as president of the women's section during 1938–1941.

In the 1930s, art historian Bernard Smith remembered her as quietly but consistently discussing colonial Australia with an infectious enthusiasm that attracted sympathisers to her cause.

[3] Looming large in her sense of loss of Australian heritage buildings in the 1930s and 1940s were Burdekin House and the Commissariat Stores at west Circular Quay where an apathetic public had stood back and watched these destructions.

This was approved and on 6 April 1945 it was resolved that a national trust subcommittee of the Forestry League be formed under Walter Cresswell O'Reilly, Annie Wyatt and Arthur Cousins.

Annie Wyatt, in early Trust minutes, warned the group "that the last lovely Macquarie era buildings were in dire peril and that we should take our stand for their preservation".

[1][2] In 1946 the new Trust compiled an 'A' and 'B' list of Sydney's historic buildings and places and launched its first battle against proposed developments in Macquarie Street.

Many groups supported this battle which resulted ultimately in the compilation of a combined list of significant buildings within New South Wales rated by the National Trust, Australian Institute of Architects and the Cumberland County.

In the minutes she warned of threats to the natural public spaces of Sydney's harbourside and to historic structures such as Lennox Bridge, St Malo at Hunters Hill and Macquarie Fields House.