Mary Gilmore, activist and poet

1865 Mary Gilmore (born Mary Jean Cameron; later, Dame Mary Gilmore; d. December 3, 1962), Australian poet, utopian socialist, Communist, close friend of leading Australian socialist William Lane and fellow poet Henry Lawson. She is the woman on the $10 note.

Lawson once asked her to marry him but she gave him a "no", noting in her diary "a curious immaturity" in him – like a "sappy twig".

When Lane led several hundred (figures vary according to source) Australians on the Royal Tar to Paraguay to form a utopian community, first New Australia and then Cosme when they abandoned the former, Gilmore was the colony's schoolteacher and 'newspaper' editor (the paper was read out daily to the colonists). After her return to Australia some six years later (she and her husband were among the first to leave Cosme, disillusioned), she continued to write poetry and became active in campaigns for the aged and under-privileged ...