Mary Emelia Mayne

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Mary Emelia Mayne (31 December 1858 – 12 August 1940), was an Australian philanthropist.

Contents 1 Early Life 2 Married Life 3 Death 4 References

[edit] Early Life

Born in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, she was the second youngest of five children of Irish parents Patrick Mayne, a butcher and grazier, and his wife Mary, née McIntosh. She attended All Hallows' School, in Brisbane until 1877, and thereafter hostessed many functions at Moorlands, the family home at Auchenflower. She and her siblings all inherited real estate, giving them independent means: neither they nor their siblings married.

[edit] Married Life

Her brother James attended Brisbane Grammar School, graduated B.A. (Syd.) in 1884, and studied medicine at University College, London (L.R.C.P., Lond, M.R.C.S., Eng, 1890).

James worked as a doctor at the Brisbane General Hospital in 1891-98. It is said that he worked with 'unremitting personal effort and self-denial' to pay for the hospital's first X-ray plant, and donated his salary to the building and grounds committee. He resigned in 1904 after his brother Isaac was committed to an asylum where he later suicided.

In memory of their deceased brothers they commissioned, from Harry Clarke of Dublin, a stained-glass triptych for St Stephen's Cathedral Brisbane, where they were regular worshippers.

Exceedingly patriotic, they helped to alleviate sectarian bitterness by making Moorlands available to Red Cross working parties during World War I, and gave liberally to the Anglican St Martin's War Memorial Hospital.

James and Emilia Mayne became the principal benefactors of the University of Queensland giving it 280 hectares of Moggill land for agricultural education in 1923. After negotiations beginning in 1926, they paid a further £63,000 to resume over 200 81 hectares at St Lucia. This site became the current University of Queensland campus. James Mayne is said to have been attracted to this extensive river site by memories of Sydney University's small ground space and lack of water frontage.

James Mayne died at Moorlands on 31 January 1939. Emilia Mayne, remembered as softly spoken, gracious, slender and taller than her brother, died in the Mater Misericordiae Private Hospital (run by the Sisters of Mercy who also controlled her school, All Hallows') during World War II on 12 August 1940.

[edit] Death

Both Emilia and James are buried in the Toowong cemetery in the family tomb, which the university was requested to maintain.

Their wills demonstrate that James Mayne's estate was valued for probate at £113,334 and Emilia Mayne's at £83,375. Their chief assets were listed as the prestigious Brisbane Arcade, Regent building and Moorlands. Identical wills provided that the estates be applied in perpetuity for the university's medical school.

They are commemorated by the Mayne chairs of medicine and surgery, the Mayne String Trio and Mayne Hall where there is a bronze plaque of them by Kathleen Shillam. A portrait of Mayne by Melville Haysom hangs in the University Art Museum. Moorlands, listed by the National Trust, now houses the Blue Nursing Service State Council and in its grounds is The Wesley Hospital.

[edit] References

• Betty Crouchley, 'Mayne, Mary Emelia (1858 - 1940)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 10, Melbourne University Press, 1986, pp 464-465.