Coleen Shirley Perry SmithAM MBE, better known as Mum Shirl, was a prominent Wiradjuri woman, social worker and humanitarian activist committed to justice and welfare of Aboriginal Australians. She was a founding member of the Aboriginal Legal Service, the Aboriginal Medical Service, the Aboriginal Tent Embassy, the Aboriginal Children’s Service and the Aboriginal Housing Company in Redfern, a suburb of Sydney. During her lifetime she was recognised as an Australian National Living Treasure. Mum Shirl was born as Coleen Shirley Perry on the Erambie Mission, in Wiradjuri country near Cowra NSW in 1921 to Joseph and Isabell Perry. She did not attend a regular school because of her epilepsy and was taught by her grandfather and learned 16 different Aboriginal Languages. She began to visit Aboriginal people in jail after one of her brothers was incarcerated and she discovered that her visits were beneficial to other prisoners as well. Her community activism also saw her accompanying indigenous people who were unfamiliar with the legal system to court when they had been charged with a crime. Her nickname came from her habit of replying, "I’m his mum" whenever officials queried her relationship with the prisoners - the name by which she became widely known. Because of her work visiting Aboriginal prisoners, Mum Shirl is the only woman in Australia to have been given unrestricted access to prisons in New South Wales. "She'd be at one end of the state one day, and seen at the other end of the state the next day. The department wasn't getting her from A to B. She used to rely on family and friends to get her around," said Ron Woodham from NSW Corrective Services. Later the Department of Corrective Services revoked her pass, making her prisoner support work near impossible. Smith's welfare work, however, was not confined only to prisons and the legal system. She also spent considerable time and money finding homes for children whose parents could not look after them and helping displaced children to find their own parents again. The children with nowhere to go often ended up living with her. By the early 1990s, she had raised over 60 children. Likewise, many people with no family or friends in Sydney arrived at Mum Shirl’s Redfern house seeking shelter. In 1970, Smith, along with Ken Brindle, and Chicka and Elsa Dixon, were the guiding force behind a group of young Aboriginal men and women who were involved in the campaign for land rights by the Gurindji people. This same group, with Fred Hollows and others helped to establish the Aboriginal Medical Service in July 1971. They also helped establish the Aboriginal Legal Service in 1971, the Aboriginal Black Theatre, the Aboriginal Tent Embassy, the Aboriginal Children’s Service, the Aboriginal Housing Company and the Detoxification Centre at Wiseman’s Ferry.
"Mum Shirl" was an integral and committed part of the Catholic Church of St Vincent's Redfern with the renowned Father Ted Kennedy. She was a devout Catholic and a mistress of the bon mot: one of her favourites being "There's nothing out of plumb with the Catholic religion; it's the way Catholics practise it". Local priest Father Kennedy said that she had "a capacity to comfort the afflicted but never suggested that she would not afflict the comfortable". Smith also gave regularly of her time to visit Australian Caucasian schools and communities as part of educating the broader Australian community on Aboriginal issues and concerns. In the late 1960s, Mum Shirl began as an adviser for the Cardinal of the Archdiocese of Sydney.
Mum Shirl had epilepsy throughout life. She was badly injured in a car crash after which she had a heart attack and was in the hospital for 7 months. She died on 28 April 1998 and is survived by her daughter Beatrice, her sister Harriet and her brother Joe along with her grandchildren, great-grandchildren, nieces and nephews, great-nieces and nephews and great, great-nieces and nephews. Her funeral at St Mary's Cathedral, Sydney was presided over by her friend Father Ted Kennedy and was attended by a number of dignitaries including the Governor-General of AustraliaSir William Deane as well as many people that she had helped over the years.
