Minnie May Gates

Minnie May Gates MBE aka Mrs Edmond Gates born Minnie May Forsyth (13 September 1878 – 30 August 1966) was an Australian community worker who helped create the Big Sister Movement and who was the treasurer of the National Council of Women in New South Wales.

Life Gates was born in 1878 in the Sydney suburb of Willoughby. Her parents were Stephana (born Gates) and Robert Forsyth and they had nine children.

In 1928 she took an interest in helping women who were coming to Sydney and she formed a group within the NSW branch of the National Council of Women of Australia (NSWNCW).

In 1941 she was made a Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in recognition of her work with the Big Sister Movement and as treasurer of the New South Wales branch of the National Council of Women of Australia.

Gates served on the Royal North Shore Hospital's board throughout the 1940s and 1950s (as her father and grandfather had done). She campaigned to improve the hospital's child care. She stood down in 1960, the year that the Minnie Gates Playground was opened in the grounds of the hospital. The Big Sister Movement which had funded hostels and help the aged became the Big Sister Foundation in 2010. In 2018 it was distributing $500K to other community groups in Sutherland Shire which included money to assist the homeless.

Private life Minnie and her husband Edmond Gates had six children. Her husband was a dentist.