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dressmaking and craft teacher, was born on 18 May 1866 at Growler’s Creek (Wandiligong), second of the 13 children of John Hartley Roberts, headmaster, and Mary Ann, née Ellis. She would have been educated at the Victorian schools where her father was head teacher: Linton, Haddon, Wedderburn and Majorca. In 1882-89, when her father was director and president of the Government College at Tonga, Mary taught women’s handicrafts in Tongan government schools and was organist at the Royal Chapel.

From 1900 Roberts was lecturer in charge of dressmaking at Sydney Technical College, where her sister Lucy taught millinery. An outstanding administrator, she re-organised the curriculum, the enrolments and the country teaching circuits, established and ran the Women’s Handicrafts Department in 1908, then combined it with the Domestic Arts Department as the Department of Women’s Work in 1917. These were split again in 1922, and she supervised the transfer of the Women’s Handicrafts to East Sydney Technical College in 1923.

A founding member of the editorial committee of the Technical Gazette of New South Wales in 1911 (the only woman member), she published several high-minded, evangelical articles on the importance of vocational training for women in the magazine, a theme re-iterated in her 1917 pamphlet, Thrift in Time and Talents (1917). She also published three basic dressmaking manuals. She founded an ex-students club, which in 1917 developed into the Technical College Vocations Club for Women, of which she was founding president. This aimed to develop the skills of women working from home so they could make money to add 'to the community wealth’. She was a vice-president of the NSW Feminist Club (founded in 1914 with the aim of achieving 'equality of status, opportunity and payment between men and women’) and of the Sericulture Society (which promoted a local silk industry). A lifelong advocate of local production over imported goods, during World War I she was a dedicated worker for Australia’s 'Win the War’ campaign.

Miss Roberts grew native flora in her garden at Turramurra and for a time was organist at North Sydney Methodist Church. After her death from cancer at North Sydney on 17 October 1924, a memorial scholarship was founded in her name to allow women students to study in her former department, although her dream had been of a full college for the education of skilled women workers, 'conducted on the lines of the famous Simon College of Chicago (U.S.A.)’.

Writers:

Kerr, Joan

Date written:

1995

Last updated:

2011