She worked as a professional typist and secretary for the North Australia Workers' Union (NAWU) in the Northern Territory.
[5] In the 1950s, while volunteering for organisations devoted to peace and social justice, Bardsley continued working full-time as a private secretary to the managing director of a Sydney timber company.
[1] In 1956 Bardsley along with Pearl Gibbs, Bert Groves and Faith Bandler formed the Aboriginal Australian Fellowship, which was registered as a charity in 1957.
[8] In late 1950s, Bardsley also started to work with Helen Palmer and Audrey Johnson on editing and producing fortnightly socialist newspaper Outlook that was published until 1970.
[11] In 1965 Bardsley published a book called Aborigines and the law covering assimilation problems mainly in Sydney area.