Raine, Mary Bertha (1877-1960)

Also known as
Carter, Mary BerthaThomas, Mary Bertha (1877-1960)
Field of activity
Businesswoman, Philanthropist and Publican; benefactor; hotelier; landowner
NLA Persistent Identifier
http://nla.gov.au/nla.party-722073

Biographies

RAINE, MARY BERTHA (1877-1960), businesswoman and philanthropist, was born on 17 February 1877 at Lambeth, London, eldest of thirteen children of Charles Carter, fruiterer, and his wife Mary Bertha, née Appleyard. Mary and her sister Daisy arrived at Moreton Bay, Queensland, in the Jumna on 20 November 1900 with £100 between them. They worked as barmaids in Brisbane and Sydney before deciding in 1904 to return to London. Forced by Daisy's seasickness to disembark at Fremantle, Western Australia, they again found jobs as barmaids. Mary lived frugally and saved enough money to buy a property at Subiaco which she leased out. On 5 May 1905 at the district registrar's office, Perth, she married William Morris Thomas (d.1918), a 44-year-old civil servant; they later separated.

View the full record at Australian Dictionary of Biography Online

In September 1960, seven months after the death of Mary Bertha Raine, the Sunday Mirror was reporting with incredulity that ‘The singing barmaid of a dilapidated outback New South Wales pub became the woman who left most of her £439,626 estate to the University of Western Australia Medical School. The bequest will bring her total gifts to the University to nearly £750,000’.

Mary Bertha Carter, eldest of thirteen children of Putney storekeeper Charles Carter and his wife Mary Bertha (née Appleyard), began her working life at the age of fourteen earning 2/6 per week. According to the Mirror she saved for singing lessons as a teen and and won a contract at Drury Lane, but lost her voice after an attack of typhoid fever. Mary and her sister Daisy sailed for Queensland in 1900 with £100 between them and worked as barmaids in Brisbane and Sydney. After a successful stint managing the ‘tumble-down Nyngan Hotel’, Mary was asked to take over a brewery that was in financial trouble, but licensing laws barred single women as licensees and she returned to Sydney. In 1904 the sisters’ return trip to London was curtailed by Daisy’s seasickness, forcing them to disembark at Fremantle. Working once more as a barmaid on £1/10/- and keep, Mary saved £100 and bought a property in Subiaco.

In 1905 Mary Carter married William Morris Thomas, seventeen years her senior, in Perth’s Wesley Church. The couple farmed south of Perth but kangaroos ruined their crops and the marriage was a failure. Mary returned to Perth. William Thomas was killed when he fell from a horse in 1918.

In Perth Mary took advantage of the 1920s property boom. She bought Gordon’s Café and Hotel on William Street, renaming it Hotel Wentworth, and by the beginning of WWII was owner or part-owner of five hotels alongside other properties. During the war the Hotel Wentworth provided accommodation for American submarine crews and was a site of tension between Australian and American servicemen.

In 1943, aged in her mid-sixties, Mary married Arnold ‘Joe’ Yeldham Raine and made him her business partner. Joe was ten years younger than Mary and absolutely devoted to her. According to John McIlwraith, Mary’s philanthropy was ‘inspired by her husband’. [1] In the mid-1950s the Raines contributed to an appeal for the launch of a medical school at the University of Western Australia. Plans for further contributions were cut short by Joe’s death, from arteriosclerosis, in 1957. Mary was his sole beneficiary. In mourning, she decided to preserve his memory and help find a cure for the illness which had killed him by founding the Arnold Yeldham & Mary Raine Medical Research Foundation in August 1957 with a £500,000 lump sum. A history of the Foundation writes:

It is an indication of the simpler and more innocent times in which this was achieved that a personal approach to the then State Premier, Bert Hawke… and another to the Prime Minister, Sir Robert Menzies, released the estate from death duties and probate, providing significantly more money for research.[2]

On her death, Mary bequeathed the bulk of her estate to the Foundation, bringing her legacy to nearly £1 million. She directed that income ‘be applied towards seeking, diagnosing and investigating the nature, origin and causes of diseases in human beings, with the initial emphasis on arteriosclerosis and allied diseases, and the prevention, care, alleviation and combating of such diseases’.[3] In 1991 the Foundation had distributed grants totalling over $7 million.

View the full record at Australian Women's Register

Related people and organisations

Resources for Mary Bertha Raine

Selected resources (7)

Australian Dictionary of Biography Online

Australian Women's Register

  1. The Mary Raine Story: From Putney to Perth
    Sangster, Meg
    [2001]
    Published: Meg Sangster and The Raine Medical Research Foundation
  2. Ma Gave Away £750,000: From Bush Pub to W.A. FortuneSunday Mirror : Ma Gave Away £750,000: From Bush Pub to W.A. Fortune
    [1960]
  3. In Her Gift: Activism and Altruism in Australian Women's Philanthropy, 1880-2005
    Lemon, Barbara
    [2008]
    Published: School of Historical Studies, University of Melbourne
  4. Raine, Mary Bertha (1877-1960)Australian Dictionary of Biography Online 16 : Raine, Mary Bertha (1877-1960)
    McIlwraith, John
    [2006]
    Published: Australian National University
    Series: http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A160057b.htm
  5. In Her Gift: Women Philanthropists in Australian History
    Australian Women's Archives Project
    [2009]
    Published: Australian Women's Archives Project
    Series: http://www.womenaustralia.info/exhib/wiph/home.html
  6. Three decades of service: the Arnold Yeldham & Mary Raine Medical Research Foundation
    Arnold Yeldham & Mary Raine Medical Research Foundation
    [1991]

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  1. Newlyweds [coming soon]
    Mirror (Perth, WA : 1921 - 1956) Saturday 4 December 1943 p 1 Article Illustrated
    ... Newlyweds Very happy and excited about , their marriage, Mr. and Mrs. Arnold Yeldham Raine (Mrs. Mary Bertha Thomas) posed for ? \ this exclusive photograph today. - 'Would you mind sitting up ! close,' our cameraman asked. 'You bet,' said the new Mrs. Raine enthusiastically. ... 46 words
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