Bates, Daisy (1863?-1951), was a social reformer who devoted more than 30 years of her life to helping the Aboriginal peoples of Australia. Aboriginal people came to know her as Kabbarli (grandmother). Bates became a leading authority on Australia’s Aboriginal peoples and learned to speak more than 180 Aboriginal dialects.
Daisy May O’Dwyer was born on Oct. 16, probably in 1863, in Ireland. She arrived in Sydney, Australia, in the early 1880’s and married John Bates, a farmer. In 1894, she returned to the United Kingdom to work as a journalist. In 1899, The Times newspaper of London sent her back to Australia to report on alleged cruelty to Aboriginal people in the northern part of Western Australia. Bates reported that Aboriginal people suffered most hardship when authorities unfamiliar with their ways of life tried to enforce policies and decisions upon them. In 1912, she decided to spend the rest of her life helping Aboriginal people. She lived among Aboriginal groups of the desert lands in South Australia and Western Australia. She died on April 18, 1951.
