Maude Haydon

Maude Mary Haydon (1886 – 1978) was an Australian pastoral and landscape artist.

Early life Maude Mary Haydon was born at 'Bloomfield' homestead near Murrurundi, New South Wales on 6 November 1886. She was raised a middle child in a pastoral family of 6 on Bloomfield station, but was handicapped by deafness. Maude Haydon was a good horsewoman who rode from an early age under the watchful eye of her father Bernard Haydon a renowned horseman and master of Bloomfield. She developed and maintained a keen interest in the sport of horse racing for the rest of her life. Maude Haydon held strong Christian beliefs all her life and attended St Luke's Anglican church, Blandford, and often decorated it with flowers from her garden at Bloomfield. She finished her education at 17 years of age at SCEGGS, Darlinghurst, Sydney, where she showed a talent for art.

Career Maude Haydon was trained by English art teacher Julian Ashton at his renowned Art School in Sydney in the 1900s. Maude Haydon frequently gave her paintings away to family and friends

Maude Haydon travelled at 27 years of age with her sister Madge Haydon, on a steamship to Europe to obtain specialist medical treatment for deafness in Vienna, Austria in 1914, but unfortunately World War I (WWI) interrupted the plan. and she never married. Maude Haydon spent her life living and working at Bloomfield homestead with the Haydon family.

Maude Haydon was a prominent social identity of the Upper Hunter. She was a bright personality, who was an excellent communicator despite her deafness and was very generous. She used to drive a cart pulled by 'Jolly' the horse around the district, delivering mail until the 1950s. After her mother died in 1942, she became the mistress of Bloomfield homestead and continued to keep an open-door house. Maude Haydon would collect guests from the Blandford Railway Station in a horse and sulky and later in a car, for over 50 years.

Maude Haydon died at 91 years of age on 9 January 1978 and was buried in Murrurundi Cemetery.