Dora was the fourth child of Doretta and Stuart Alexander, her father the owner of a farming property near Albury, New South Wales. Dora married Leslie Nichol Walford in Sydney in 1917; their only child, Leslie Nichol Walford junior was born in 1927. Following her husband’s death in 1929, Dora became increasingly involved in charity and fundraising work. In 1936, as Dora Sheller (and a widow for the second time), she helped establish the Black & White Committee of the Royal Blind Society of NSW, and served as the Committee’s first president. In 1938, Dora left Sydney for England accompanied by Leslie and her third husband, Ben Knowles-Davies (who died in the course of the journey). In England during the war, Dora worked as a salvage officer for Winchester County Council. She married again in 1944, her fourth husband, Lawrence Byrne, was then serving with the British army. They remained in London until 1951, when they returned to Australia and settled at Burradoo in the Southern Highlands. Dora Byrne died in Sydney in 1972.
