Charlene Todman

Charlene Stuart Meade (née Todman; 1931 – 11 September 2018) was an Australian athlete who became the first Australian woman to participate in the Stoke Mandeville Games, the precursor to the Paralympic Games. She finished second amongst women in the archery event, and later competed in the 1959 edition in para-swimming, archery and javelin. At the 1974 games, she won a silver medal in table tennis. Todman later became active in dog sports.

Todman had to use a wheelchair following an accident with a horse when she was fourteen years old. She rehabilitated at the Stoke Mandeville Hospital, and later volunteered with the New South Wales Society for Crippled Children. In 2008, she was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia for her efforts in serving Australia's disability community.

General Todman was born in 1931 in Sydney. Her father was industrialist Charles Ingram Todman (1882-1958), who served as an alderman in Strathfield, and her grandfather was tobacco merchant George Todman (1849-1924). Her mother was Phyllis Stuart Pearce (died 1986). Her family was well known for their sporting efforts.

In 1946, when she was 14 and living in Double Bay, She returned to live in Double Bay. She had acquired a collapsible wheelchair, a Dingwall, in England, and took courses on typing. These skills and tools made her more independent. Todman soon found work at the Blood Bank in York Street.

Back in Australia, she demonstrated archery to patients at the Royal North Shore Hospital in Sydney. In December 1951, she was part of efforts to form an Australian team to compete against a visiting English wheelchair archery team. Prior to her departure from Stoke Mandeville, Ludwig Guttmann had promised her that he would send an English team to Australia to beat the Australians in archery. In this period, she also played for a Sydney-based wheelchair basketball team. By early 1960, she was trying to qualify for the first Paralympic Games in Rome but the birth of her daughter interfered with some of her sporting goals. She competed at the 1966 National Paraplegic and Quadriplegic Games in Melbourne in archery, swimming and table tennis. Meade was one of five women making up the New South Wales team, with all seeking qualification for the 1966 Commonwealth Paraplegic Games. While raising her two children, she was swimming competitively in 1968. At the 1970 edition of the Stoke Mandeville Games, she won 7 medals.

Todman traveled back to England for the 1974 Stoke Mandeville Games in Aylesbury Vale, where she won a silver medal in table tennis. Todman continued to be involved with sports on a national level in Australia until her physical condition deteriorated significantly.

Later life In November 1955 Todman married Eric Meade, a polio survivor whom she met at the Spastic Centre in Mosman. Despite advice from Guttmann that pregnancy would lead to kidney damage,

Todman was a member of the N.S.W. Society for Crippled Children, where she served as a committee member in 1953 and 1954. She was a board member of the Royal Rehabilitation Centre Sydney from 1986 to 2007. In this period, she served on various committees including the Clinical Care Review Committee and the Extended Care Planning Committee. She was a member of the Woollahra Council Access Committee, and also volunteered with the Australian Red Cross.