28 Facts About Ivy Brookes

Ivy Deakin Brookes was an Australian community worker and activist.

Ivy Brookes held leadership positions across a wide range of organisations in Victoria.

Ivy Brookes was president of the National Council of Women of Australia from 1948 to 1953.

Ivy Brookes's father became the second prime minister of Australia, serving three terms between 1903 and 1910.

Ivy Brookes gained a diploma in 1903 and won the prestigious Ormond Scholarship in 1904, but had to relinquish it upon her marriage the following year.

Ivy Brookes was first violin in George Marshall-Hall's orchestra from 1903 to 1913, and maintained an interest in music for the rest of life.

Ivy Brookes remained a member until 1969, sometimes as its only female member.

Ivy Brookes was a foundation vice-president of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra's ladies' committee.

Ivy Brookes was involved with a wide range of organisations, and according to The Sydney Morning Herald was "never merely a figurehead or a sleeping partner in any enterprise with which she allows her name to be associated".

In 1915, Brookes became the founding president of the Housewives Co-operative Association, which promoted thrift and cooperativism to combat the rising cost of living during World War I She lived in Washington, DC, from 1929 to 1931, during her husband's service as Commissioner-General to the United States.

Ivy Brookes was the founder of the International Club of Victoria, and held executive office in the Victorian branches of the Bureau of Social and International Affairs, the League of Nations Union, and United Nations Association.

Ivy Brookes was elected as a justice of the peace in 1934.

Ivy Brookes was the inaugural vice-president of the Anti-Cancer Council of Victoria, from 1936 to 1966, and was a foundation member of the University of Melbourne's boards of physical education and social studies.

Ivy Brookes was inducted posthumously onto the Victorian Honour Roll of Women in 2001.

Ivy Brookes shared many of her father's political beliefs, as did her husband.

Ivy Brookes was active in policy formation, presenting policy papers on equal pay for equal work, "national social insurance", "delinquent parents", and the role of women in politics.

Ivy Brookes campaigned for the "Yes" vote during the 1916 and 1917 referendums on conscription, embarking on "an ambitious public speaking trail" in country Victoria.

In 1925, Ivy Brookes returned to politics as a substitute for her ill husband, organising finances and election material at the 1925 federal election.

Ivy Brookes assisted Elizabeth Couchman in bringing the AWNL into the new Liberal Party of Australia in 1944, and became one of its founding members and "a matriarch of the party that she and Herbert regarded as the philosophical heir of her father's".

Ivy Brookes was first elected to the executive of the National Council of Women of Victoria in 1912.

Ivy Brookes was re-elected to the executive in 1934, then elected vice-president in 1936 and president in 1938.

Ivy Brookes was one of the Australian delegates at the International Council of Women's 50th anniversary conference, held in Scotland in 1938.

Ivy Brookes was elected national president in 1948, serving until 1953.

Ivy Brookes represented the organisation at the 1951 national inflation conference and as a member of the Advisory Committee on Import Licensing Control.

Ivy Brookes was appointed a life vice-president of the NCWA at the end of her term as president.

In 1905, aged 21, Ivy married Herbert Brookes, a 37-year-old widower and friend of the family who had previously been married to Strong's daughter.

Ivy Brookes was widowed in 1963 and died in Melbourne on 27 December 1970, aged 87.

Ivy Brookes was interred at St Kilda Cemetery alongside her husband.