Mary Gilmore (nee Cameron), poet and journalist, was born at Mary Vale, Woodhouselee, near Goulburn, New South Wales. She was educated at Brucedale, near Wagga Wagga, and later at Wagga Wagga Public School. In 1888-89 she began teaching in Silverton, near Broken Hill, where her contacts with the working-class community began her lifelong interest in the Labor movement. In the 1890s she supported the maritime and shearers' strikes and developed associations with Henry Lawson, William Lane, John Farrell and A. G. Stephens.
Gilmore became involved in the 'New Australia' movement and on 31 October 1895 resigned from teaching and sailed to Paraguay on the Ruapehu. In 1896 she joined William Lane's 'New Australia' movement in Paraguay. She married fellow colonist and Victorian shearer William Alexander Gilmore (1866-1945) in 1897, and their only child William Dysart Cameron Gilmore (1898-1945) was born at Villarica, near the Cosme settlement. Cameron remained at the Cosme settlement in Paraguay until 1899. Before returning to Australia in 1902, Gilmore taught English in Rio Gallegos in southern Patagonia and wrote for Buenos Aires newspapers.
In 1903, A. G. Stephens featured Gilmore's poetry in the Red Page of The Bulletin, and in 1908 she became the first editor of the women's page of the Sydney Worker, which she was to run for the next twenty-four years. Gilmore's first volume of poems, Marri'd and Other Verses, appeared in 1910, with other published collections of her verse appearing over the following years.
In 1937, Gilmore was made a Dame of the British Empire in recognition of her contribution to Australian literature. She was the first woman to receive this award for services to literature. Gilmore was a founder of the Lyceum Club, Sydney, a founder and vice-president, in 1928, of the Fellowship of Australian Writers, an early member of the New South Wales Institute of Journalists, Patroness of the Australian Book Society in 1945, and a life member of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
Until her death in 1962 she was a constant and willing worker involved in many causes and an indefatigable advocate of the rights of the poor, the struggling and the inarticulate.
