Mary Herring
| Dame Mary Herring | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
Mary Ranken Lyle 31 March 1895 Carlton, Victoria |
| Died | 26 October 1981 (aged 86) Camberwell, Victoria |
| Nationality | Australian |
| Occupation | Physician |
| Years active | 1921–1945 |
| Spouse(s) | Edmund Herring (1922–81; her death); 3 daughters |
Dame Mary Ranken Herring, DBE, CStJ (née Lyle; 31 March 1895 – 26 October 1981) was an Australian medical practitioner and community worker.
A graduate of the University of Melbourne, where she studied medicine and excelled at sports, Mary qualified as a general practitioner in 1921 and became a resident surgeon at Royal Melbourne Hospital. Her work was mainly with poor women, many of whom lived in unsanitary conditions and had inadequate diets. The social mores of the time often kept young women ignorant of matters dealing with sex and pregnancy. She recognised that pregnant women in particular needed more information about what was happening to them, and provided information on birth control at a time when many doctors and a large segment of the community were opposed to it. "She broke taboos", Della Hilton later wrote, and "made forbidden subjects not only matters for discussion, but for action".
In addition to her medical work, Mary supported women's sports and was patron of many charities. During World War II she helped form the AIF Women's Association. She served on its Welfare Subcommittee, looking after the needs of soldiers' families, and was president of the association from 1943 to 1946. In recognition of her medical and charitable work, she was made a Commander of the Order of St John in 1953, and a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1960 "for services to nursing in Victoria".
Mary Ranken Lyle was born in the Melbourne suburb of Carlton on 31 March 1895, the eldest of four children of Sir Thomas Ranken Lyle, a mathematical physicist, and his wife, Frances Isobel Clare née Millear. She attended Toorak College between 1906 and 1912, where she excelled both academically and at sport, playing tennis, hockey, netball and cricket, and competing in swimming. She was head girl in 1911 and 1912.
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