2025 Maybanke Lecture

This year’s guest speaker is Dr Wendy Michaels OAM, who has had a distinguished career as an academic, educator, consultant, writer, and festival director will speak on the topic: Whose Child? Millicent Preston Stanley’s Campaign for Mothers’ Rights.

One hundred years ago, Millicent Preston Stanley took her seat in Australia’s ‘mother parliament’, the NSW Legislative Assembly, known colloquially as the ‘Bear Pit’. She had a wide raft of feminist concerns on her agenda, especially, like so many women of her generation, making the nation a better place for women and children. She had a list of legislative measures she would seek to introduce with mothers' rights sitting firmly at the top. In this Maybanke Lecture, Wendy will trace the tortuous path that Millicent trod to ensure mothers rights in their children.

About the Maybanke Fund
The Fund honours the work of Maybanke Selfe Wolstenholme Anderson (1845-1927), women’s advocate and social reformer. This year it will be the 133rd anniversary of Maybanke’s first public speech on 6 May 1891. This annual public lecture is held in memory of beloved aunt, friend and Chair of Sydney Community Foundation, Rosalind Maybanke Strong AM and to support the work of the Maybanke Fund.

Please get in touch with Sydney Community Foundation if you have any queries about the event at enquiries@sydcf.org.au