Dr. Helen Mary Mayo, OBE

Helen Mary Mayo OBE

Helen Mary Mayo was born in Adelaide, Australia on 1 October 1878. She was the eldest of the seven children of George Gibbes Mayo (1845–1921), a civil engineer, and Henrietta Mary Mayo, née Donaldson, (1852–1930) and granddaughter of George Mayo, a prominent Adelaide doctor. Her formal education commenced at the age of 10, when she began receiving regular lessons with a tutor. At the age of 16, she was enrolled in the Advanced School for Girls on Grote Street (the forerunner of the Adelaide High School), from which she matriculated after one year, at the end of 1895.

Despite never having heard of female doctors, from an early age Mayo had been set on pursuing a career in medicine. However, Edward Rennie, then a professor at the University of Adelaide advised Helen's father that she was too young to commence study in Medicine, so in 1896, Mayo enrolled in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Adelaide. The death of her younger sister Olive at the end of her first year of study meant that Mayo was unable to sit her final exams for that year, and when she repeated her first year in 1897, she failed two of her five subjects (Latin and Greek). Having gained her father's permission, Mayo enrolled in medicine in 1898. She was a distinguished medicine student, coming top of her class and winning the Davis Thomas scholarship and the Everard Scholarship in her fourth and fifth years of study, respectively.

In addition to her medical achievements, Mayo participated in a number of other organisations. She was heavily involved in the University of Adelaide, serving on the university council from 1914 to 1960 (the first woman in Australia to be elected to such a position) and establishing a women's club and boarding college there. She was also the founder of the Adelaide Lyceum Club, an organisation for professional women. Mayo died on 13 November 1967, with the Medical Journal of Australia attributing the success of South Australia's infant welfare system to her efforts.

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