Hilda Stevenson
Dame Hilda Mabel Stevenson was an Australian philanthropist and community worker. She was the daughter of Hugh Victor McKay, a combine harvester inventor. She was the trustee and founder of the Sunshine Foundation.
Education and early life
Born as Hilda Mabel McKay in Ballarat, Victoria, her father was Hugh Victor McKay, the inventor of the first commercially viable combine harvester. She attended Clarendon College and Presbyterian Ladies' College. Her first marriage was in 1916 to Cleveland James Kidd, who died in 1923. In 1936, she remarried to Colonel George Ingram Stevenson, CMG. She had one child, a daughter, by her first marriage.Philanthropy
- Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne – she donated £100,000 in 1958 for the establishment of a Chair of Paediatrics at the hospital, to be administered by the University of Melbourne
- Florey Laboratories
- International House
- Sunshine Foundation, founder/trustee
- Victorian Arts Centre
Association
Honors and recognition
- Officer of the Order of the British Empire, 31 December 1960
- Commander of the Order of the British Empire 8 June 1963
- Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire, 1 January 1968
- Honorary doctorate of laws by the University of Melbourne, 1973
Archival resources
- University of Melbourne, Baillieu Library Special Collections Papers, 24 March 1980—19 November 1980, 81/110; The University of Melbourne, Baillieu Library Special Collections.
Category:1987 deaths
Category:People from Ballarat
Category:Philanthropists from Melbourne
Category:Australian Dames Commander of the Order of the British Empire
Presbyterian Ladies' College, Melbourne">Ballarat and Clarendon College">Presbyterian Ladies' College, Melbourne
Category:20th-century Australian philanthropists
Category:20th-century Australian women philanthropists