1. Mary Hughes was the daughter of a well-to-do grazier, and grew up in country New South Wales.
12 Facts About Mary Hughes
1. 2.
Mary Hughes married Hughes in 1911, when she was 37 and he was 48; their only daughter was born in 1915.
3.
Mary Hughes's father, Thomas Campbell, was an immigrant from what is Northern Ireland, while her mother, the former Mary Ann Burton, had been born in Australia to English parents.
4.
Mary Hughes was 37 at the time; he was 48 and a widower.
5.
Mary Hughes did not have time for a honeymoon, so he took her on a long drive.
6.
The couple had one child together, Helen Beatrice Myfanwy Mary Hughes, born 11 August 1915.
7.
Mary Hughes became the stepmother to the six surviving children from her husband's first marriage.
8.
Mary Hughes accompanied Billy during his parliamentary sessions in Melbourne and on domestic and overseas trips as Prime Minister.
9.
Mary Hughes was an energetic worker in World War II.
10.
Hughes died in 1952, and Dame Mary outlived him by five and a half years.
11.
Mary Hughes died, aged 83, on 2 April 1958, at her niece's home in Double Bay, Sydney.
12.
Mary Hughes was interred at Macquarie Park Cemetery and Crematorium with her husband and next to her daughter.