People Australia

Elizabeth Gallimore, n.d.

Gallimore, Elizabeth Sarah, née Grant (1889-1958) Labor Party activist 

Birth: 1889 at Balmain, Sydney, New South Wales, daughter of James Alfred Grant (1861-1940), painter, born at Liverpool, Lancashire, England, and native-born Sarah Cecilia, née McDonough (1865-1924). Marriage: 1909 at Balmain to native-born Francis George Gallimore (1887-1942), ships painter. They had one daughter and one son. Death: 26 March 1958 in hospital at Balmain, Sydney; usual residence Waterview street, Balmain. Religion: Catholic. 

• A member of the Women’s Central Organising Committee of the Australian Labor Party.
• Her husband had played Rugby Union and Rugby League football and cricket at Balmain, and was a highly regarded pigeon racer, holding a world pigeon flying record in 1913. President of the Leichhardt Pigeon Flying Club in 1919, he later had successes with the Rozelle Club. He died in September 1942 from burns he received from an explosion at a dock.
• Elizabeth Gallimore was appointed justice of the peace on 18 December 1942. After narrowly winning Labor preselection, in May 1943 she became the first woman to be elected to Balmain Council. Secretary of the Sydney branch of the Australian Labor Party in 1947.
• Remained a Balmain Councillor to 1948. Was then an alderman on Leichhardt Council from 1949 to 1953. Deputy mayor and acted as mayor of Leichhardt in December 1952. In April 1953 the council was placed in administration.
• Sometime vice-president of the Old Folks’ Co-operative Club at Balmain and a foundation member of the Balmain Police and Citizens’ Boys’ Club [which was visited by the Duke of Gloucester, governor-general, in September 1946].
• Cause of death: cerebral haemorrhage and arteriosclerosis.

Sources
ALP Women’s Diamond Jubilee; Max Solling & Peter Reynolds, Leichhardt: on the margins of the city (St Leonards, 1997), p.187; information from Sue Tracey, 1997.