Ruth Fairfax

Ruth Beatrice Fairfax OBE (8 October 1878 – 1 February 1948) was a founding member of the Australian Country Women's Association and the first President of the CWA's Queensland branch. The federal electorate of Fairfax is named in her honour.

Biography

Fairfax was born Ruth Beatrice Dowling to Frances Emily Dowling née Breillat and Vincent James Dowling on 8 October 1878, in the small town of Lue, near the larger town of Rylstone, New South Wales, Australia. She was educated at by home by governesses, and also attended Sydney Church of England Girls' Grammar School. Ruth Dowling and John Hubert Fraser Fairfax were married on 2 February 1899.

The Fairfaxs moved to a "station" near Longreach, Queensland, then in 1908 to a station near Cambooya, Queensland on the Darling Downs. In August 1922, in a meeting at the Albert Hall, Brisbane, Fairfax was elected President of the newly established Queensland branch of Country Women's Association. She then went on a tour of six months around outback Queensland, establishing branches of the CWA and recruiting women to their local CWAs. In 1929, Fairfax travelled to the UK where she studied at Women's Institutes in England and Scotland.

In her later years, she was afflicted with diabetes. Fairfax died on 1 February 1948 from chronic nephritis in St Luke's Hospital, Potts Point, New South Wales.