People Australia

Mary Ryan, c.1958

photo courtesy of her family

Mary Margaret Ryan, née Kelly (1886-1968) nurse and political activist

Birth: 15 September 1886 at St John’s Wood, Timaru, New Zealand, daughter  of Irish-born parents Jeremiah Kelly (1857-1961), a farmer from Kilchrist, Kallaloe, County Clare, and Deborah, née O’Connor (1868-1922), from Flemby, Ballymacelligot, County Kerry. Marriage: 15 August 1921 at Portland, New South Wales, to native-born Michael Thomas Ryan (1891-1966), labourer, later billiard marker and starting price bookmaker. They had one daughter and two sons. Death: 19 May 1968 in a nursing home at Strathfield, Sydney; usual residence Short Street, Gladesville, Sydney. Religion: Catholic. 

• Educated at a one-teacher primary school in New Zealand, Mary left school at 13 to undertake unpaid domestic work. Her first paid employment was as a domestic servant and nursemaid.
• After training as a nurse at Wellington, she worked there briefly before moving to Sydney as a nurse-companion. She then moved to Portland, NSW, as a sister-in-charge of a small hospital, but resigned from the hospital on her marriage, returning intermittently as a relief sister. Her husband, a former cement worker, lost his leg in an industrial accident.
• She began reading Red Book Club publications and other socialist literature. During the 1930s Depression she became an outspoken critic of industrial capitalism; through that decade she was an unofficial social worker within the local community.
• In December 1932 Ryan was appointed a justice of the peace. She was secretary, then president of the local Australian Labor Party branch, attended regional and state conferences and formed a friendship with Ben Chifley. She lobbied for support for the needs of women and children.
• She was instrumental in the establishment of the Baby Health Centre in Portland and active in the Country Women’s Association.
• In 1943 she was appointed by Chifley to the Commonwealth Housing Commission. She agitated for improve working conditions for housewives and for home electrification, kindergartens and community centres.
• With Jessie Street, in 1943 Mary Ryan sought to increase women’s voice in ALP policy-making. In 1944 she was an unsuccessful candidate in local government elections. After the war she returned to Portland and unpaid domestic work, later working in a corner store.
• Having travelled to Europe and Ireland in later life, she returned to settle in Sydney.
• Cause of death: coronary occlusion (hours) and arteriosclerosis (years).
• Her son John Ryan (1922-2021) was a noted historian and lecturer. 

Sources
Heather Radi (ed.), 200 Australian Women: a Redress anthology (Sydney,1988); diary and letters, Mary Ryan Collection, Jessie Street National Women’s Library, Ultimo, Sydney.