Mary Hughes
| Dame Mary Hughes GBE | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born |
6 June 1874 Burrandong, New South Wales |
| Died |
2 April 1958 (aged 83) Double Bay, New South Wales |
| Spouse(s) | Billy Hughes |
| Children | Helen (1915-1937) |
Dame Mary Hughes GBE (6 June 1874 – 2 April 1958) was the second wife of Billy Hughes, Prime Minister of Australia 1915-1923.
Personal life
She was born as Mary Ethel Campbell in 1874, in Burrandong, near Wellington, New South Wales, the daughter of Thomas and Mary Ann (née Burton) Campbell, who were graziers. She originally trained as a nurse. On 26 June 1911 at Christ Church, South Yarra, Victoria, Mary Campbell became the second wife of Billy Hughes, an aspiring politician and Attorney-General in the ministry of Andrew Fisher. His first (common law) wife, Elizabeth née Cutts, had died in 1906.
He did not have time for a honeymoon, so he took her on a long drive. Their car crashed where the Sydney-Melbourne road crossed the Sydney-Melbourne railway north of Albury, leading to the crossing being named after Billy Hughes; it was later replaced by the Billy Hughes Bridge.
She became stepmother to Hughes's six children from his first marriage. They had one daughter of their own, Helen, born 11 August 1915.
Public life
Mary Hughes accompanied Billy during his parliamentary sessions in Melbourne (then the seat of the federal government) and on domestic and overseas trips as Prime Minister (1916, 1918 and 1921). On the 1918 trip, he was in precarious health, and he wanted her to accompany him in order to look after him should he fall ill. Despite his insistence, officialdom did not permit her to travel on the same warship as him, and she went instead in a separate convoy with baby Helen.[1][2]
It was during World War I that she became interested in the welfare of Australian servicemen, and she visited camps and hospitals in Britain, France and Australia. Both she and her husband became familiar faces at the Australian Imperial Force headquarters in Horseferry Road, at the ANZAC buffet at Victoria Station, and in hospitals visiting wounded Australian troops.[1]
On her overseas trips she became closely acquainted with influential British women such as Margaret Lloyd George, Margot Asquith, Clementine Churchill and suffragette leader Christabel Pankhurst.[1]
Honours
In the New Year's Day Honours of 1922, she was appointed a Dame Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire (GBE) for her charitable and war effort work.[1][2][3] (Some sources say she was the first Australian woman to receive this award, but she was in fact preceded in 1917 by another Prime Minister's wife, Dame Flora Reid.)
Later life
At the time of their marriage, Billy Hughes represented a Sydney seat, but between 1917 and 1922 he represented Bendigo in Victoria. In 1922 he won another Sydney seat and they returned there. After the war, she continued with her charity work and became president of the Rachel Forster Hospital for Women and Children in Sydney in 1925. She was also an advocate for women's rights. She was also an energetic worker in World War II.
Death of daughter
Her daughter Helen died in a London nursing home in 1937, two days before her 22nd birthday. Her death was attributed to septicaemia, but she actually died in chilbirth, unmarried. Mary and Billy's grandson now lives in Sydney under a different name.[4]
Final years
Billy Hughes died in 1952, and Dame Mary outlived him by five and a half years. She died, aged 83, on 2 April 1958, at her niece's home in Double Bay. She was interred in the Macquarie Park Cemetery with her husband and next to her daughter.