Patricia Anne Conlon (; 2 November 1939 – 13 December 1979) was an Australian feminist, public servant and labour activist. She was born in

Neutral Bay Neutral Bay is a suburb on the Lower North Shore of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Neutral Bay is around 1.5 kilometres north of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of North Sydney Council. Neutral Bay takes ...

, New South Wales, to wool classer John Hoare Carden and Patricia Anne, ''née'' de Coque. She attended St Joseph's Convent School in Neutral Bay and then

Monte Sant' Angelo Mercy College , motto_translation = Religion, Knowledge, Culture , established = , type = Independent single-sex secondary day school , educational_authority = New South Wales Department of Education , gender = Girls , denomination = Roman Catholicism ...

, of which she was

dux ''Dux'' (; plural: ''ducēs'') is Latin for "leader" (from the noun ''dux, ducis'', "leader, general") and later for duke and its variant forms (doge, duce, etc.). During the Roman Republic and for the first centuries of the Roman Empire, ''dux' ...

in 1956. She received a

Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four years ...

in 1961 and a

Master of Arts A Master of Arts ( la, Magister Artium or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA, M.A., AM, or A.M.) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. Tho ...

in 1973 from the

University of Sydney The University of Sydney (USYD), also known as Sydney University, or informally Sydney Uni, is a public research university located in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and is one of the country's si ...

where she was a resident at

Sancta Sophia College Sancta Sophia College (colloquially as Sancta) is a residential college for undergraduate women and postgraduate men and women at the University of Sydney. The college has a Catholic foundation but admits students of all religions. Fiona Hastings ...

. She spent some years teaching in public high schools before going on a postgraduate scholarship to the

University of Saskatchewan A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, t ...

in Canada. On 29 September 1967 she married Telford James Conlon in

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...

, with whom she had two children. Conlon had been a founding member of the Women's Electoral Lobby in 1972 and that year contested a

by-election A by-election, also known as a special election in the United States and the Philippines, a bye-election in Ireland, a bypoll in India, or a Zimni election (Urdu: ضمنی انتخاب, supplementary election) in Pakistan, is an election used to f ...

for the state seat of

Mosman Mosman is a suburb on the Lower North Shore region of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Mosman is located 8 kilometres north-east of the Sydney central business district and is the administrative centre for the local governm ...

for the Labor Party, without success. She convened the WEL's first national conference in 1973. In 1975 she was awarded a grant by the Australian National Advisory Committee of International Women's Year, expanding her research with Edna Ryan into a book, ''Gentle Invaders''. She became a lecturer at the Australian Trade Union Training Authority in 1976 and was a founding member of the New South Wales Women's Advisory Council in 1977. She was appointed by the state Labor government as a special projects officer with the Women's Coordination Unit in 1978. She was divorced in January 1979, and six months later was diagnosed with cancer. She died on 13 December 1979 in North Sydney. A building at the Mulawa Training and Detention Centre for Women and an annual lecture sponsored by the Women's Advisory Council are named in her memory.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Conlon, Anne 1939 births 1979 deaths Australian feminists