Marcie Elizabeth Wilson

Marcie Elizabeth ‘Betty’ Fairfax (née Wilson, 1907–1995), was a leading figure in fashionable Sydney circles in the 1920s and 1930s. The daughter of barrister David Wilson and his wife, Marcia, Betty grew up in Sydney and made headlines when she married media proprietor, Warwick Fairfax, in 1928. As a prominent socialite and hostess, Betty was connected with the city’s primary tastemakers of the inter-war years. She was also active in charity work and during World War II ran Air Force House in Sydney, where a team of volunteers provided meals and accommodation for 2,000 servicemen each week. Betty’s first marriage ended in divorce and amidst gossip in 1945. She remarried in 1946 and with her second husband, Pierre Gilly, a French naval commander, lived briefly in China and Japan before moving to Paris. She went to London when her second marriage ended, eventually returning to Australia in the 1980s. Described as ‘one of the great beauties of her generation’ who combined flair with wit and kindness, Betty died in Sydney in March 1995.

Betty’s two children from her marriage to Warwick Fairfax both became distinguished patrons of heritage and the arts. Her son, James Oswald Fairfax (b. 1933), chairman of John Fairfax and Sons from 1977 to 1987, is a significant art collector and a generous donor to the Art Gallery of New South Wales and the National Gallery of Australia. Betty’s eldest child, Caroline Simpson (1930–2003), was a longstanding benefactor of organisations including the National Trust and the State Library of New South Wales. Caroline also built an extraordinary collection of colonial art, furniture and objects that she displayed at Clyde Bank, a Georgian house in The Rocks. She was awarded an OAM for her services to heritage conservation in 1999. This drawing was gifted to the National Portrait Gallery by the sitter’s grandchildren in memory of Caroline Simpson in 2008.