Lillias Margaret Skene

Lillias Margaret Skene, (née Hamilton; 28 March 186725 March 1957) was an Australian women's rights activist.

Early life Lillias Hamilton was born on 28 March 1867 in Smythesdale, Victoria, Australia, the third child of Scottish-born police magistrate John Prendergast Hamilton and his English-born wife Agnes Margaret (née Buchanan). Hamilton attended the local Alexandra College in Hamilton. On 7 November 1888, at St Mary's Anglican Church in Caulfield, she married 33-year-old sheepmaster David Alexander Skene.

Career Straddled in debt, Hamilton's husband had to seek employment in New South Wales, while she and her children remained in Hamilton. In 1900 the family moved to Manly, Sydney, where they ran a modest dairy farm. In 1906, they moved to Melbourne and her husband began selling wool. The family purchased a property in South Yarra in 1910. In 1927 she was one of the first women in Victoria to be made a justice of the peace.

Final years She retired from most of her commitments in 1949 and moved to Brighton. Skene died on 25 March 1957 in Armadale and was buried at the Brighton cemetery.