Mary Warnes, from experience of isolated rural life, starts South Australia's CWA with Burra branch in 1926
Mary Warnes, founder at Burra in 1926 and state president (1929-41) of the South Australia Country Women's Association and its later 300 branches, had experienced the isolated rural life as a young woman (bottom centre) in her move with marriage from inner suburban Adelaide to a property in South Australia's arid northeast. A South Australian Jubilee plaque (bottom left) on North Terrace, Adelaide city, was among memorials to Warnes' achievement..
Mary Warnes, from an upbringing in inner suburban Adelaide, became the founder of the South Australian Country Women’s Association at Burra in the state’s mid north in 1926.
Born in the Adelaide suburb of Fullarton to Thomas Fairbrother, a gardener from England, and his wife Jane, Warnes was educated at Misses Newmans’ private school in Parkside. After marrying married Isaac James Warnes in 1900 at Augustine’s church, in Unley, Warnes experienced the immediate switch to isolated living on her husband’s Koomooloo property in South Australia’s arid northeast.
Occasionally, the Warnes make the 80-mile round trip by horse and buggy to Burra, the nearest town. Warnes later recalled going into shops to buy unnecessary trifles as an excuse to speak with other women. After Warnes’ sister Deborah married her husband’s brother and came to live only seven miles away, the sisters cycled along bush tracks once a week to meet halfway. Within two years, Deborah's death in childbirth left Mary again “marooned on an island of men”.
By the 1920s, country women's associations were being formed in Australia's eastern states and, in 1926, the National Council of Women called an informal meeting in Adelaide that Warnes attended. She was by then living at Wahroonga,12 miles from Burra. Returning from Adelaide, Warnes immediately invited women from the 11 local districts to form the Burra Women's Service Association. Founded in November 1926, it was the first of 300 state branches of the Country Women's Association.
President of the Burra branch, Mary was prominent in starting the CWA's metropolitan branch in Adelaide and was state president (1929-41). In 1929 she was a delegate to the Rural Women's Conference, London, organised by the International Council of Women, that moved towards creating the Associated Country Women of the World; by 1986m it had 62 member nations.
As the wife of “one of the best-known pastoralists in the state”, Warnes travelled extensively at home and abroad. She was actively involved in the family's sheep-holdings as a director. In addition to making a special study of the conditions of country women and children, she was a councillor and president of the women's branch of the state Liberal Federation and of its Burra branch, president of the Leighton Women's Guild, a member of the National Council of Women of South Australia and of the League of Nations Union, and state country representative of the Victoria League.
In 1934 she began radio broadcasts and, two years later, was appointed a member of the British empire for services to women’s issues.. Warnes died in 1959 and was buried at Burra cemetery. There were memorials to her at St Mary’s church, Burray, and at the National Pioneer Women;s Hall iof Fame in Alice Springs, and at the Country Women’s Association complex in Kent Town, Adelaide.