May Lorna O'Brien BEM (20 May 1932 – 1 March 2020) was an Australian educator and author.

Life and career

Born May Lorna Miller of the

Wongatha Wangkatha, otherwise written Wongatha, Wongutha, Wankatja, Wongi or Wangai, is a language and the identity of eight Aboriginal Australian peoples of the Eastern Goldfields region. The Wangkatja language groups cover the following towns: Coolgar ...

people, in

Laverton, Western Australia Laverton, originally known as British Flag, is a town in the Goldfields region of Western Australia, and the centre of administration for the Shire of Laverton. The town of Laverton is located at the western edge of the Great Victoria Desert, ...

, at the age of five she was removed to the Mount Margaret Aboriginal Mission. She later attended Perth Girls School. In 1953, she received her Teacher's Certificate at

Claremont Teachers College Claremont Teachers College was Western Australia’s first post-secondary teaching institution. It opened in 1902 and closed in 1981, when it became a College of Advanced Education and later a campus of Edith Cowan University. The building is on ...

. She was the first known Aboriginal woman in Western Australia to graduate from a tertiary institution. Her first teaching appointment was back at Mount Margaret. After teaching for 25 years she moved into education policy, working for the Western Australian

Ministry of Education An education ministry is a national or subnational government agency politically responsible for education. Various other names are commonly used to identify such agencies, such as Ministry of Education, Department of Education, and Ministry of Pub ...

and the Aboriginal Education Branch. She retired from her position as Superintendent of Aboriginal Education in 1988. In retirement, O'Brien continued to work for Indigenous literacy and education writing bilingual books, and was one of the early ambassadors for the

Indigenous Literacy Foundation The Indigenous Literacy Foundation (ILF) is an Australian not-for-profit founded in 2011 that works to address the educational disadvantages faced by Indigenous Australian children and young people by providing access to books and literacy progr ...

. She died aged 87 on 1 March 2020 in Perth. Her public funeral and memorial service was postponed due to the coronavirus outbreak.

Awards

She was awarded the

British Empire Medal The British Empire Medal (BEM; formerly British Empire Medal for Meritorious Service) is a British and Commonwealth award for meritorious civil or military service worthy of recognition by the Crown. The current honour was created in 1922 to ...

on 31 December 1977 for work in Aboriginal education. For this she was also awarded the John Curtin Medal. She was a delegate for Australia at the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmonizi ...

Conference on Women in

Denmark ) , song = ( en, "King Christian stood by the lofty mast") , song_type = National and royal anthem , image_map = EU-Denmark.svg , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of Denmark , establishe ...

in 1980. In 1984 she was awarded a

Churchill Fellowship Winston Churchill Memorial Trusts (WCMT) are three independent but related living memorials to Sir Winston Churchill, based in the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand. They exist for the purpose of administering Churchill Fellowships, ...

to study programs focused on enabling Indigenous peoples to retain their own cultures, travelling to the USA, Canada and Great Britain. In 2008, O'Brien was featured in the Australian Biography series.

Publications

O'Brien's papers are held at the

State Library of Western Australia The State Library of Western Australia is a research, education, reference and public lending library located in the Perth Cultural Centre in Perth, Western Australia. It is a portfolio agency of the Western Australia Department of Culture and ...

in a collection titled: ''Aborigines of the west: their past and their present'', and a May O'Brien Special Collection on Aboriginal studies is held at

Edith Cowan University Edith Cowan University (ECU) is a public university in Western Australia. It is named in honour of the first woman to be elected to an Australian parliament, Edith Cowan, and is the only Australian university named after a woman. Gaining univers ...

Library. Her publications include: *''Education for Aborigines'' (co-author), Aboriginal Consultative Group to the Australian Schools Commission, 1976 *''Aboriginal Access to and use of Technical and Further Education'', 1976 *The Badudu series of children's books *The Bawoo series of traditional teaching stories in bi-lingual text

References

Sources

* Byrski, Liz. ''May O'Brien: 'Heart and soul', in Speaking Out: Australian women talk about success'',

Frenchs Forest Frenchs Forest (pron. frenches) is a suburb of northern Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Frenchs Forest is 13 kilometres north of the Sydney central business district in the local government area of Northern Beaches Cou ...

New South Wales ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...

, 1999, pp. 215–227 * ''Encyclopaedia of Aboriginal Australia: Some Aboriginal Women Pathfinders'',

WCTU The Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) is an international temperance organization, originating among women in the United States Prohibition movement. It was among the first organizations of women devoted to social reform with a program th ...

:1980

External links

Biodata
{{DEFAULTSORT:Obrien, May Lorna Australian educators Australian children's writers People from Laverton, Western Australia Recipients of the British Empire Medal 1932 births Indigenous Australians from Western Australia 2020 deaths