Mary Gilmore, an Australian writer and social activist, was born near Goulburn, New South Wales, on 16 August 1865, to Scottish and Irish parents. She completed her education by assisting in small country schools. Around 1888-1889 she began teaching in Silverton, near Broken Hill, where her contacts with the working-class community sparked her lifelong interest in the Labor movement. In the 1890s she supported the maritime and shearers' strikes and developed associations with Henry Lawson, William Lane, John Farrell and A.G. Stephens. She joined William Lane's "New Australia" movement in Paraguay and, in 1897, married fellow colonist and Victorian shearer, William Alexander Gilmore (1866-1945). In 1902 they returned to Australia and, in 1903, her poetry appeared in the "Red Page" of the Bulletin. Gilmore became the first editor of the women's page of the Worker (Sydney) in 1908.

Gilmore's first volume of poems, Marri'd and other verses, appeared in 1910. Her other publications include: The passionate heart (1918); Hound of the road (1922); The tilted cart (1925); The wild swan (1930); The rue tree (1931); Under the wilgas (1932); Old days, old ways (1934); Battlefields (1939); The disinherited (1941); and Fourteen men (1954).

In 1937, Gilmore was made a Dame of the British Empire in recognition of her contribution to Australian literature. She was the first woman to receive this award for services to literature. Gilmore was a founder of the Lyceum Club, Sydney; a founder and vice-president, in 1928, of the Fellowship of Australian Writers; an early member of the New South Wales Institute of Journalists; and a life member of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Gilmore died on 3 December 1962 (Eureka Day). She was cremated and her ashes were buried in her late husband's grave in Cloncurry, Queensland.