Eileen Furley

Mabel Eileen Furley OBE (née Llewelyn; 13 March 1900 – 20 September 1985) was the first woman to represent the Liberal Party in the New South Wales Legislative Council.

The only child of accountant Frederick John Griffith Llewelyn and Alice, née Thompson, Eileen was born in Mosman and educated there and at Glebe Point, afterwards working as a secretary.

[1] Furley was elected female vice-president of the federal Liberal Party in 1949 and was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1954.

[1] In 1948 Furley had opposed a ban on the Communist Party, but in the 1960s she chaired an anti-communist committee dedicated to "exposing" the New South Wales Teachers' Federation.

She devoted most of her energy to fighting "the deterioration of morals and behaviour of young people", advocating the teaching of sex education as part of "the training of the whole personality", which the Sydney Morning Herald argued could not halt the advances of permissiveness.