Daisy Bates (Australia)
| Daisy Bates | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
Margaret Dwyer 16 October 1859 Roscrea, Tipperary, Ireland |
| Died | 18 April 1951 (aged 91) Adelaide, Australia |
| Resting place | North Road Cemetery, Adelaide |
| Other names | Daisy May O'Dwyer, Daisy May Bates |
| Occupation | Journalist |
| Children | Arnold Hamilton Bates |
Daisy May Bates, CBE (16 October 1859 – 18 April 1951) was an Irish Australian journalist, welfare worker and lifelong student of Australian Aboriginal culture and society. She was known among the native people as "Kabbarli" (i.e. /kaparli/, a kin term found in a number of Australian languages which means "grandmother" or "granddaughter").
Daisy Bates was born as Margaret Dwyer in County Tipperary, Ireland in 1859. Her mother, Bridget (née Hunt), died of tuberculosis on 20 December 1862. Her father married Mary Dillon on 21 September 1864 and died en route to the United States, so Bates was raised, by relatives, in Roscrea and educated at the National School in the town.
On 22 November 1882, aged 23, she emigrated to Australia on RMS Almora, by which time she had changed her name to Daisy May O'Dwyer. Some accounts (based on Bates's own claims) say that she left Ireland for "health reasons", but Bates's biographer Julia Blackburn discovered that, after getting her first job as a governess in Dublin at age 18, there was a scandal, presumably sexual in nature, which resulted in the young man of the house taking his own life. Bates was forced to leave Ireland and she re-invented her history, setting a pattern for the rest of her life. It was not until long after her death that the truth about her early life emerged.
Bates settled first at Townsville, Queensland allegedly staying first at the home of the Bishop of North Queensland and later with family friends who had migrated earlier. Bates had travelled with Ernest C. Baglehole and James C. Hann, amongst others, on the later stage of her journey. Both Baglehole and Hann had boarded at Batavia for the journey to Australia. Hann's family, through William Hann's donation of £1000, had been very generous to the construction of St James Church of England some few years before Bishop Stanton had arrived at Townsville. Bates found temporary accommodation with the Bishop. She subsequently found employment as a governess on Fanning Downs Station.
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