Mabel Brookes

Dame Mabel Brookes, DBE (15 June 1890 – 30 April 1975) was an Australian community worker, activist, socialite, writer, historian, memoirist and humanitarian.

[1] After being withdrawn from kindergarten by her mother in order to avoid 'developing a bad accent',[2] Mabel described her childhood as a lonely one; she was educated by her father and a series of governesses.

After being presented at the Edwardian court in London, at 18 Mabel was engaged to Norman Brookes, a tennis player, who was the first Australian to win Wimbledon.

Whilst in the USA Norman Brookes and Tony Wilding won the Davis Cup, which Mabel supposedly used as a rose bowl.

She was an original member and a divisional officer of the Girl Guides' Association executive committee, foundation president of the Institute of Almoners and of the Animal Welfare League.

[7] Mabel Brookes was commandant of the Australian Women's Air Training Corps, and took on shift-work at the Maribyrnong Munitions Factory filling cartridges.

[1][2] Other war-work included establishing Air Force House and organizing, at the request of the minister for the army, an annexe for servicewomen at the Queen Victoria Hospital.

By all accounts she was a fierce and capable advocate on behalf of the hospital, and oversaw the addition of three new wings, one of which was named after her in appreciation of her decades of service.

[citation needed] Dame Mabel Brookes published her memoirs in 1974[10] in which she recounted events in her life, including meeting many notable and historic people of the time.