The Refurbishment of The Lady Mary Mackinlay Dickson's Grave

Miss Mackinlay led the School most astutely, making significant improvements during her three years tenure. In his Speech Day report, Reginald Roe, headmaster of Brisbane Grammar School, stated:

The school has prospered during her leadership. She found it with some forty pupils on the roll; she left it with eighty. She found it in debt; she left it out of debt and with every prospect of its henceforth paying its own way and standing upon its own merits. (The Week, Saturday 24 December 1881 p.8).

She also inaugurated a boarding system by establishing a residence for the pupils on Petrie Terrace and, in 1881, there were 18 boarders (The Week 1904, p27).

Mary Mackinlay who had arrived with impressive credentials and experience, lived up to expectations, stabilising the School both financially and educationally, and guaranteed further education for young women, and securing another income source for the School through boarding. Mackinlay ably confirmed Reginald Roe’s belief that the Girls School would be best served by ‘a well-trained lady-mistress permanently engaged at the work than by an inferior teacher with occasional masters’ visits.’ (Penrose p15)

Her stewardship at Girls Grammar concluded when she married a widower, James Robert Dickson on 5 January 1882, at St Paul’s, Carcoar, New South Wales. It was common practice that on marrying, a woman would forgo her employment. Whilst Lady Principal, Mary had been responsible for the education of four of James Dickson’s seven daughters, Alice (c1879), Annie (1881), Ada (1881) and Agnes (1884) and most likely where Mary first met her future husband. Dickson was a successful business owner and politician, and amongst his political appointments were those of Colonial Treasurer, Premier of Queensland and, in 1900, he was elected as Australia’s first Minister of Defence. In the following year, Dickson received a knighthood, making Mary, Lady Dickson.

James Dickson’s second marriage was under siege from the outset with the 13 Dickson children openly negative to Mary. As Cyrus Williams, Ada Dickson’s husband wrote, ‘(t)he location of the marriage was the first indication that the marriage was not welcome by the family’. On their return to Toorak, the home Dickson had built at Hamilton in a street named for his first wife, Annie Dickson, the house was draped in black and all blinds drawn.

Trying to piece together James and Mary’s early married life is difficult. However, there are indications that they lived in Brisbane, and therefore one would assume, Toorak, for the first four years of their marriage as Mary was heavily involved in Lady Lucinda Musgrave’s philanthropy from 1885. Lady Musgrave was the wife of Sir Anthony Musgrave, Governor of Queensland (1883-1888), and was known for her charm and charity work with Queensland’s oldest trust named in her honour.

Mary Dickson volunteered her time, skills, and money to the newly-established Lady Musgrave Lodge, which provided safe accommodation for young migrant women in Brisbane. Mary held the position of vice-president and was committed to other charities such as the Saturday and Sunday Hospital Fund.

There is also evidence of Mary advertising for a good cook, nurse, and parlour maid in the Brisbane Courier, Tuesday 18 April 1882 on page 1, stating Toorak as the address.

However, by 1887, Mary seems to have started a life separate to the Dickson family. She moved to Toowoomba where she established a preparatory school for boys under 14 years, Braemar, with the curriculum including English (all its branches), Euclid and algebra, drawing, and the rudiments of Latin, French or German. In 1888, Mary, as Mrs J. R. Dickson, purchased Jeanfield, and ran the school from this premises from 1889.

Her life in Toowoomba appears to have been reflective of a well-educated woman who ran a local school, maintained connections with her Grammar alumnae, and was the wife, though estranged, of a prominent Queensland politician. There are several newspaper reports of her attendance at weddings and hosting young women at her home.

It is therefore baffling that Mrs Dickson, now Lady Mary Dickson—her husband having been knighted ten days prior to his death—died alone on 22 February 1902 with no family or friends assisting her through her final weeks of illness. The responsibility of her funeral fell to the local magistrate, Richard Moore, who wrote a scathing letter to the Home Secretary lamenting Lady Dickson’s abysmal treatment. The Drayton and Toowoomba Cemetery wrote to the Brisbane Girls Grammar School Trustees seeking their assistance with the costs of her grave to which the Board readily agreed.

Mary’s love for Girls Grammar, its philosophy, and its students is also obvious in her final act. In Lady Dickson’s will, much of her estate, which comprised of several properties in Toowoomba, including her home, Jeanfield, along with capital held in various deposit accounts, was to be paid to the Trustees of the Brisbane Girls Grammar School for the foundation of a scholarship to encourage and financially support a past student. It stipulated £50 a year for each of three years study and was to be awarded to a student proceeding to university. This award could not be held concurrently with any other scholarship. The Mackinlay Scholarship was awarded for the first time in 1906 to Elsie Pascoe, who left Brisbane for Sydney University to study medicine the following year.

Mary remembered the School and her students remembered her.

In 1904, two years after her death, students who attended the School during Mary Mackinlay’s principalship collected funds for a memorial board in her honour. Led by Eva McLay (Hockings, 1882), the Old Girls Committee raised funds for the board, in memory of Miss Mackinlay, to be erected in what was the Assembly Hall (now known as the Annie Mackay Room)… Reginald Roe, who had been Headmaster of Brisbane Grammar School, and had worked for several years with Miss Mackinlay, supported such a memorial. He spoke of her wholehearted devotion to the School... (Davis 2023)

This quotation from the research and Objects of Substance article on the Mackinlay Honour Board by the Sesquicentenary Research Officer, Mrs Jenny Davis, reminded us of the significance of Mary Mackinlay’s contribution to our history and the School’s part in her burial in 1902.

Responsibility for the maintenance of Lady Dickson’s grave has been willingly shouldered by the School. In 2004, a quotation was sought from R.C.Ziegler Monumentals Pty. Ltd. by the then School Archivist, David Masel, to clean the sandstone cross and bases, repaint the lettering and reset the loose base and seal all sandstone. What motivated this refurbishment is unknown. However, this worthy work was carried out in 2005 for a cost of approximately $530.00.

A strategic reconnoitre of Mary’s grave on 1 August 2025 revealed the parlous state of the site. With some urgency because of the deterioration, it was determined that as part of the Sesquicentenary celebrations, a proposal be submitted to Principal, Ms Jacinda Euler Welsh to refurbish Lady Mary Dickson’s grave site in Drayton and Toowoomba Cemetery in August 2025. Stonemason, Robert Wagner of Heritage Stonecraft and Design, was selected and he embraced our belief that this refurbishment was critical and important. The task was completed in a timely manner at a cost of $8,895.00, as his last body of work for 2025.

The cracked cross on the original monument was replaced, the engraving upgraded so it would be visible, and the original stonework was carefully cleaned. It was decided to add a plinth and scroll featuring a bronze plaque at the foot of her grave which states:

This wording celebrates Mary Mackinlay, the committed educator, and the valued connection to a school still committed to providing opportunities for young women.

Without the School’s willingness to assist with Mary Mackinlay’s burial in 1902 and the continued care of the grave site, a formative part of our early history and an impressive educator, treated in such a callous and uncaring manner would have been ignored. In death, Lady Mary Dickson continued to uphold her ideals of educating women. Her scholarship for Grammar girls aspiring to achieve tertiary education came at a time when Queensland women were yet to gain suffrage.

The Brisbane Girls Grammar School family pays tribute to Mary Mackinlay, a true feminist and visionary.

Manager of School History and Culture, Mrs Pauline Harvey-Short