Lilian Fowler

After receiving a primary school education,[1] she became closely involved in labour politics with the assistance of her father, a Labor League organiser and an Alderman, Valuer and Inspector of Nuisances for the Municipal District of Cooma.

[10][11] Fowler was made secretary of the Newtown-Erskineville Political Labor League, and from 1917 managed the electorate of Newtown MP Frank Burke, an anti-conscriptionist.

[5] Elected to the central executive of the Australian Labor Party 1920–21 and 1923–25, she and Jack Lang were behind the move to admit James Dooley at the 1923 conference.

[13] She was president of the Labor Women's Central Organising Committee 1926–27, lobbying New South Wales Premier Jack Lang to implement widows' pensions and child endowments.

[5][16][17][18][19][20] In recognition of her achievements, Fowler was presented with an illuminated address signed by former Premier Lang and Federal shadow Minister Jack Beasley.

Her principal legislative achievement was an amendment to the Lunacy Act in 1944 to secure the release of Boyd Sinclair from a lunatic asylum, where he had been held since 1936, so that he could stand trial in a criminal court for the alleged murder of a Sydney taxi driver.

[5] Fowler did not long survive her retirement from politics; she died in King George V Memorial Hospital on 11 May 1954 from coronary occlusion and was buried in Rookwood Cemetery with Methodist rites.

Mrs Lilian Fowler (Madame Mayor of Newtown 1938-1940) and Mrs Mary Jane Swift (Newtown Alderman 1941), 3 April 1938
"Just call me Lil". Fowler as pictured in The Argus , on her election to state parliament in 1944.