Maie Casey
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Maie Casey, Lady Casey (13 March 1892 - 20 January 1983) was an Australian pioneer aviatrix, poet, librettist, biographer, memoirist and artist. She is best known as the wife of Richard Casey, who, as Lord Casey, was Governor-General of Australia 1969-74.
Ethel Marian Sumner Ryan was born in 1892, the daughter of Sir Charles Snodgrass Ryan, a prominent Melbourne surgeon, and Lady (Alice) Ryan, nee Sumner. She became known as Maie at an early age. She was always well-connected: she was related by blood or marriage to leading Victorian families, among them the Clarkes, Chirnsides and Grices; a Ryan aunt had married a brother of the 6th Duke of Buccleuch and (9th Duke of) Queensberry. Her brother Rupert Ryan, a member of the House of Representatives 1940-52, married Lady Rosemary Hay, daughter of the 21st Earl of Erroll.
Maie Ryan married Richard Casey on 24 June 1926, at St James's Parish Church, Westminster, London, and supported him in his public life. His career saw them live successively in Canberra, Washington, Cairo, and India where, during the last years of the Raj, she was Vicereine of Bengal. In Washington she was an eloquent advocate of the United States joining the Allied cause; in Egypt she was a confidante of wartime leaders Winston Churchill, Field-Marshal Lord Montgomery and Harold Macmillan as well as an indefatigable war worker; in Bengal she fought to raise the status of Indian women, discussed political affairs with Mahatma Gandhi and became an intimate friend of Jawaharlal Nehru and Edwina Mountbatten. As Richard Casey's partner, she was described as ruthless and manipulative in her ambition for him; indeed, so much so that back in Australia Robert Menzies was to dub her 'Lady Macbeth'. One friend described her as 'predatory'. On the other hand, Sir Edward "Weary" Dunlop described her as 'immeasurably Australia's greatest'.
Maie Casey was a friend and patron to fellow-artists including Russell Drysdale and Sidney Nolan and writers such as Patrick White and Rosemary Dobson. Among her other confidants were Cecil Beaton, Katharine Hepburn and Noel Coward. She was said to have had passionate affairs with women.
Her writings include a biography of Dame Nellie Melba, three autobiographies, and the libretto to Margaret Sutherland’s opera The Young Kabbarli.
She became the patron of the Australian Women Pilots’ Association (AWPA) at its inaugural meeting at Bankstown on 16 September 1950. Her patronage assisted the Association in its attempts to gain widespread recognition and respect.
She was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. She was a member of the International Committee appointed to judge a work of scupture to honour the Unknown Political Prisoner, and she had a long association with the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
The Caseys had two children. She was described as "a disaster as a parent". After his retirement, she and Lord Casey owned a house built by Eugene von Guerard in East Melbourne, and her last years were spent in Berwick. Lady Casey died in January 1983.
