Maie Casey, Baroness Casey

Ethel Marian Sumner "Maie" Casey, Baroness Casey AC, FRSA (née Ryan; 13 March 1892 – 20 January 1983) was an Australian pioneer aviator, poet, librettist, biographer, memoirist and artist. Richard Casey was her husband.

Robert Menzies famously referred to her as "Lady Macbeth".

Ethel Marian Sumner Ryan was born in 1892, younger child of Victorian-born parents, Sir Charles Snodgrass Ryan, a prominent Melbourne surgeon, and his wife, Alice (née Sumner) Lady Ryan. She is also the granddaughter of Charles Ryan and Marian Cotton (John Cotton's daughter).

She became known as "Maie" at an early age. Rupert Ryan was her brother. She was related by blood or marriage to leading Victorian families; one of her father's sisters married Lord Charles Montagu Douglas Scott, son of the 5th Duke of Buccleuch.

Casey grew up on Collins street, Melbourne. Her father had his residence and surgery on the same street. Casey was educated privately, and when she was 14 years old she left Australia to attend St George's Boarding School in Ascot, England. After some time she accompanied her brother to Cologne.

Her brother Rupert, a member of the House of Representatives 1940-52, married Lady Rosemary Hay, daughter of the 21st Earl of Erroll. Casey wanted to go to university, but was blocked by her father. During World War I, she served as a VAD nurse.

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