Biographical entry Bates, Daisy May (1863 - 1951)

Summary

Daisy May Bates worked for many years as a welfare worker amongst the Aboriginal tribes of Western Australia and through this she built up an extensive anthropological knowledge of Aboriginal cultures which she recorded in numerous articles and her autobiography. The Aboriginals gave her the affectionate name of "Kabbarli", meaning grandmotherly person. Her place in Australian folk-lore has been formalised by the opera, "The young Kabbarlie", witten by Lady Casey to music by Margaret Sutherland.

Details

Events

1884

Life event - Arrived in Australia

1884 - 1885

Career position - Governess at Berry, New South Wales

1894 - 1899

Career position - Study of journalism on the Review of Reviews, London

1899 - 1900

Career position - Trappist mission to Beagle Bay in the north of Broome

1904

Career position - Appointed by the Western Australian Government to research the tribes of the State

1910

Career position - Member of an expedition led by A.R. Radcliffe-Brown (q.v.) to study the social anthropology of Aboriginals of the north-west

1912 - 1914

Career position - Camped at Eucla

1915 - 1918

Career position - Camped at Eucla

1918 - 1934

Career position - Aboriginal welfare work at Ooldea

1934

Award - Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE)

1935 - 1940

Career position - Wrote her autobiography My natives and I, in a tent at Pyap

1941 - 1945

Career position - Lived in Wynbring, east of Ooldea

1945 - 1951

Career position - Lived in Adelaide

Archival resources

Barr Smith Library, Special Collections, The University of Adelaide

• Daisy May Bates - Records, 1900 - 1951, SR 572.994 B32t; Barr Smith Library, Special Collections, The University of Adelaide. Details

Fryer Library and Department of Special Collections, University of Queensland

• Daisy May Bates - Records, 1930 - 1951; Fryer Library and Department of Special Collections, University of Queensland. Details

JS Battye Library of West Australian History, State Library of Western Australia

• Daisy May Bates - Records, 1904 - 1911, ACC 1023; JS Battye Library of West Australian History, State Library of Western Australia. Details
• Daisy May Bates - Records, 1922 - 1935, ACC 856A; JS Battye Library of West Australian History, State Library of Western Australia. Details
• Daisy May Bates - Records, ACC 1212A; JS Battye Library of West Australian History, State Library of Western Australia. Details

Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales

• Daisy May Bates - Records, 1900 - 1951; Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales. Details

National Library of Australia Manuscript Collection

• Daisy May Bates - Records, 1900 - 1951, MN 1406; National Library of Australia Manuscript Collection. Details

South Australian Museum Archives

• Daisy May Bates - Records, 1900 - 1951, AA23; South Australian Museum Archives. Details

State Library of South Australia, Mortlock Library of South Australiana

• Daisy May Bates - Records, 1900 - 1950, PRG 878; State Library of South Australia, Mortlock Library of South Australiana. Details

State Library of Victoria, Australian Manuscripts Collection

• Daisy May Bates - Records, 1905 - 1913, MS 9290; State Library of Victoria, Australian Manuscripts Collection. Details
• Daisy May Bates - Records, 1918 - 1946, MS 7987; State Library of Victoria, Australian Manuscripts Collection. Details

Published resources

Books

• Bates, Daisy, The Passing of the Aborigines: a Lifetime Spent Among the Natives of Australia, Murray, London, 1938, 258 pp. Details
• Bates, Daisy; edited by Isobel White, The Native Tribes of Western Australia, National Library of Australia, Canberra, 1985, 387 pp. Details
• Blackburn, Julia, Daisy Bates in the Desert, Secker and Warburg, London, 1994, 232 pp. Details
• Marcus, Julie, Lepervanche, Marie de, McBryde, Isabel, Prior, Mary Ellen Murray, White, Isobel; Morris, Miranda; O'Gorman, Anne; Marcus, Julie and Cheater, Christine, First in Their Field: Women and Australian Anthropology, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1993. Details
• Salter, E., Daisy Bates, Sydney, 1971. Details
• Slater, Elizabeth, Daisy Bates: "The Great White Queen of the Never Never, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1971, 266 pp. Details

Book Sections

• Mulvaney, D. J., 'Daisy May Bates, 1859-1951', in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2004. Details
• Standish, Ann, '"Devoted Service to a Dying Race"?: Daisy Bates and the Passing of the Aborigines', in Joy Damousi and Katherine Ellinghaus (eds), Citizenship, Women and Social Justice: International Historical Perspectives, Department of History, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, 1999. Details
• White, Isobel, 'Daisy Bates: Legend and Reality', in Julie Marcus (ed.), The First in Their Field: Women and Australian Anthropology, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1993. Details
• Wright, R. V. S., 'Bates, Daisy May (1863-1951), welfare worker among Aboriginals and anthropologist', in Bede Nairn and Geoffrey Serle (eds), Australian Dictionary of Biography, vol. 7, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1979, pp. 208-209. Also available at http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A070209b.htm. Details

Online Resources

• National Library of Australia, 'Bates, Daisy', Trove, National Library of Australia and the Australian National Maritime Museum Darling Harbour, 2009, http://nla.gov.au/nla.party-458582. Details

See also

• Alexander, John A. (ed.), Who's Who in Australia 1944, vol. 12, The Herald and Weekly Times Ltd, Melbourne, 1944, 906 pp. Details