Winifred Kastner

Winifred Kastner JP MBE born Winifred Stubbs (29 June 1903 – 10 February 1987) was a UK-born radio broadcaster, community leader and welfare worker in Australia. She was a leading figure in several organisations including the Country Women's Association and the Federated Association of Australian Housewives.

Life Kastner was born in the English East Midlands in the town of Chesterfield. She was the first child of Florence (born Blank) and Ernest Stubbs and she would have four siblings. Her father was a pattern-maker. She studied art in the nearby city of Sheffield from the age of sixteen and she qualified to teach arts and crafts. In 1930 she moved to Australia where she presented her skills on the 6WF radio station. The station was well known to rural women in Australia and in 1932 she joined the Country Women's Association and began touring rural areas demonstrating handicrafts on behalf of both the Country Women's Association and the 6WF radio station. At the end of that year she married and became Winifred Kastner at a church in Perth. She and taxi-driver Eric Oscar Kastner would have one child. In the same year she joined the Women's Service Guilds of Western Australia and in the same year she was chairing meetings to inspire Australian women to help with the war effort.

In 1945 she began her association with the Princess Margaret Hospital for Children where she organised handicrafts and book lending for their child patients. She was made Director of Handicrafts at the hospital. In the same year she became a Justice of the Peace and she volunteered her time for 24 years rising to be President of the Women Justices Association for the state. In the same year she was one of about 11,000 Australians who received the Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Medal and in 1976 she was awarded an MBE. Kastner died in Nedlands in 1987.