People Australia

Catherine Marcella May (May) Wilson, née Grace (1892-1985) industrial inspector and political activist 

Birth: 21 June 1892 at Goroke, Wimmera,Victoria, daughter of native-born parents Michael Stephen Grace (1861-1913), farmer, later contractor, and Catherine Mary, née Meagher (1860-1945). Marriage: 26 April 1930 in Queen of Martyrs’ Catholic Church, Maylands, Perth, Western Australia, to Reginald Boulder (Reg) Wilson (1899-1976), an auctioneer, born at Boulder, WA, who was also an active worker in the Labor movement. Death: 4 February 1985 at her usual residence, Home of Peace, Walter Road, Inglewood, Perth. Religion: Catholic. 

• After the death of her father, May moved to the goldfields in Western Australia about 1916, following her two brothers, who had preceded her to work in the mines. For many years she took care of her widowed mother, and reared two motherless nephews. She was described as a housemaid, living at Gwalia, Kalgoorlie, in electoral rolls in 1917 and 1922.
• Grace became secretary of the Hotel and Restaurant Employees’ Union on the Eastern WA Goldfields. In July 1929 she was appointed “industrial inspectress under the WA Shops and Factories Act”, relocating to Perth. She was the second woman acting in this capacity in the State.
• On her marriage in 1930, she returned to Kalgoorlie where she remained for the rest of her life. In about 1940 she was commissioned a justice of peace.
• She was president, Eastern Goldfields Labor Women’s Organisation (Kalgoorlie), for over fifty years and Australian Labor Party campaign organiser for over fifty years. She was a close personal friend of May Holman, MLA, who was maid-of-honour at her wedding.
• Appointed member of the Order of Australia (AM) in June 1975 she was awarded life membership of the ALP in 1980.
• Her husband was the ALP candidate for the South Province in the Legislative Council in 1930. He was Labor councillor on the Boulder municipal council from 1928 to 1936 and on the Kalgoorlie council from 1947 until 1954 at least.
• Cause of death: lobar pneumonia (10 days), (contributory cause) chronic brain syndrome of unknown aetiology (years). 

Sources
Westralian Worker, 3 March 1933; Civil Service Association of WA Journal, 27 Aug. 1992.