Dame Enid Lyons AD GBE (1897–1981) was the first woman elected to the Federal House of Representatives. Born in Smithton, Tasmania, she was fifteen when she met politician Joseph (Joe) Lyons and eighteen when they married in 1915. As the Prime Minister's wife from 1932 to 1939, she maintained what she described as a 'killing pace' of official and personal duties between Canberra, Melbourne and the family home in Devonport. Her last child – her twelfth – was born in 1933. She suffered depression following Joe's death in 1939, but returned to public life in 1943 when she stood as the United Australia Party candidate for the seat of Darwin (now Braddon) and won. A strong proponent of issues relating to women, Lyons also advocated for her state on industry and agricultural development. In 1949 she was appointed vice-president of the Executive Council, making her the first woman to serve in a Federal cabinet. Retiring from parliament in 1951, Lyons continued to be involved in political and community activities, and was commissioner of the ABC between 1951 and 1962.
This miniature, signed with the monogram 'JK', is unusual among portraits of Dame Enid in that it shows her dressed in a lace gown rather than in one of the plain black dresses that she usually wore during her years in parliament.
Purchased 2016
On one level The Companion talks about the most famous and frontline Australians, but on another it tells us about ourselves.
Well behaved women seldom make history, as the saying goes, and the National Portrait Gallery, consequently, is full of awesome Australian women who refused to conform to narrow ideas about their place and their worth.
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