MacKinnon, Eleanor Vokes Irby (1871-1936)

Field of activity
Red Cross leader; animal welfare activist; community worker; painter; poet; Red Cross administrator; women's activist
NLA Persistent Identifier
http://nla.gov.au/nla.party-707052

Biographies

MacKINNON, ELEANOR VOKES IRBY (1871-1936), Red Cross leader, was born on 8 February 1871 at Tenterfield, New South Wales, only daughter and sixth of thirteen children of Glentworth Walsh Fraser Addison, police magistrate, and his Sydney-born wife Ellen, née Campbell. Her father, from Manchester, England, was directly descended from Joseph Addison, the essayist. The family moved to Sydney in 1882 and Eleanor attended the Clergy Daughters' School, Waverley, and Sydney Girls' High School with Louise Mack and Ethel Turner. On 16 September 1896 at Paddington she married with Presbyterian forms Roger Robert Steel MacKinnon (d.1935), physician. They lived at Warialda where their two sons were born.

View the full record at Australian Dictionary of Biography Online

Eleanor MacKinnon, a foundation honorary secretary to the New South Wales Division of the Australian branch of the British Red Cross Society in August 1914, remained a member of the state executive and finance committees and a delegate to the central council until her death in 1936. After her marriage to physician Roger MacKinnon in 1896, and the birth of their two sons at Warialda, they moved to North Sydney in 1903. Eleanor MacKinnon was involved in a range of activities, which included learning to paint and membership of a number of benevolent and political societies. Her major contribution was to the Red Cross Society and she founded the world's first Junior Red Cross division, with its motto, 'the child for the child' and remained its honorary director until 1935. In addition she created the Red Cross Record in 1914, editing it for twenty-one years, the Junior Red Cross Record in 1918 and compiled the Red Cross Knitting and Cookery books. She was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (Civil), in 1918, for her contribution to the Red Cross Society. Subsequently she visited the headquarters of the League of Red Cross Societies in Paris in 1925, and from 1925-1926 worked to reconstruct the Red Cross in Australia for a peace time role. She was awarded the King George V Silver Jubilee Medal in 1935 in recognition of her contribution to hospitals and health care in Australia.

View the full record at Australian Women's Register

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Resources for Eleanor Vokes Irby MacKinnon

Selected resources (5)

Australian Dictionary of Biography Online

Australian Women's Register

  1. The War workers gazette: a record of organised civilian war effort in New South Wales: compiled for the benefit of the War Chest Fund, January 1918
    Constance Sly and E MacKinnon
    [1918]
    Published: Winn & Co
  2. The lilies of France and other poems
    MacKinnon, E. ( Eleanor )
    [1917]
    Published: Winn and Co., Printers
  3. MacKinnon, Eleanor Vokes Irby (1871 - 1836)Australian Dictionary of Biography Online : MacKinnon, Eleanor Vokes Irby (1871 - 1836)
    Abbott, Jacqueline Abbott
    [2006]
    Published: Australian National University
    Series: http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A100306b.htm
  4. Faith, Hope and Charity Australian Women and Imperial Honours: 1901-1989
    Australian Women's Archives Project
    [2003]
    Published: Australian Women's Archives Project
    Series: http://www.womenaustralia.info/exhib/honours/honours.html

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  1. ADDITIONAL NOMINATIONS. TWO PROMINENT U.A.P. WOMEN.
    The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954) Thursday 19 October 1933 p 12 Article
    ... 116. They were: GOVERNMENT SUPPORTERS. Mrs. Eleanor Vokes Irby Mackinnon, home duties,, of North ... ADDITIONAL NOMINATIONS. TWO TWO' PROMINENT U.A.P. WOMEN. .The' Upper House nominations yesterday included the names of two prominent U.A.P. women-Mrs. R. Mackinnon and Miss Preston Stanley. It was ... 148 words
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  2. BRITISH EMPIRE ORDER. FURTHER AUSTRALIAN RECIPIENTS. TASMANIANS DECORATED.
    The Mercury (Hobart, Tas. : 1860 - 1954) Saturday 5 October 1918 p 6 Article
    ... Greenwood, Miss Agnes Tolmie, Mrs. Eleanor Vokes Irby Mackinnon, Mrs. Helen Ashton, Holen Lady Nich- ... 268 words
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  3. ORDER OF BRITISH EMPIRE. AUSTRALIAN APPOINTMENTS. Melbourne, Oct. 4.
    The West Australian (Perth, WA : 1879 - 1954) Saturday 5 October 1918 p 7 Article
    ... Eleanor Vokes, Irby Mac kinnon, Mrs. Helen Ashton, . Helen Nicholls, Robert Nettlefold, Mrs. G. ... 258 words
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