Margaret Tucker, also known as Lilardia of the Ulupna tribe, was an actor, singer, activist, and author. Born in 1904 at the Warangesda Mission on the Murrumbidgee River, she was a member of the Stolen Generations, taken from her mother Theresa Clements when she was 13 and sent to Cootamundra Domestic Training Home for Girls. Her father's name was William Clements, a Wiradjuri man, and her mother Teresa (Yarmuk) Clements, née Middleton, was Yulupna.
Lilardia joined in the Day of Mourning in 1938 as a protest against conditions for Aboriginal people. Lilardia campaigned for Aboriginal rights alongside legendary Aboriginal activists such as William Cooper, Bill and Eric Onus, and Doug Nicholls.
In the months before World War II, she sang to raise money for food for the Indigenous Australians who had walked out of Cummeragunja settlement in protest. She worked in the same munitions factory as Alice Lovett and others. She also sang for the Red Cross and for men at the Heidleberg Repatriation Hospital.
Lilardia was awarded an MBE and served for 11 years on Victoria's Aboriginal Welfare Board, the first Indigenous woman to serve on the board.
She wrote her story If Everyone Cared, played Granny in the TV series Women of the Sun and played the lead role in the film Lousy Little Sixpence. She is the mother of Mollie Dyer.
(Source: 'Actor Redefined Aboriginal Role')
