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Dame Elisabeth Murdoch photo by Unknown-

Top 10 Interesting Facts about Dame Elisabeth Murdoch

Dame Elisabeth Joy Murdoch was an Australian philanthropist and matriarch of the Murdoch family.

However, she was the widow of Australian newspaper publisher Sir Keith Murdoch and the mother of international media proprietor Rupert Murdoch.

Moreover, she was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the year 1963 for her charity work in Australia and overseas.

Furthermore, Murdoch was an honorary fellow of the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects and helped to establish the Elisabeth Murdoch chair of Landscape Architecture and the Australian Garden History Society.

Here are the top 10 interesting facts about Dame Elisabeth Murdoch.

1. Dame Elisabeth Murdoch was a Philanthropist

Dame Elisabeth Murdoch photo by Adam Carr-.

Dame Elisabeth Murdoch joined the management committee for the Royal Children鈥檚 Hospital in 1933 serving as its president from 1954 to 1965.

However, a 2003 article in the Melbourne newspaper The Age said: 鈥�Few can rival Dame Elisabeth鈥檚 enormous contribution. Her interests are so many they need to be alphabetically cataloged: academia, the arts, children, and social welfare.

Many of Melbourne and Australia鈥檚 most cherished institutions from the Royal Children鈥檚 Hospital to the Australian Ballet and the Botanic Gardens have benefited from her involvement. But Murdoch also devoted herself to less popular causes: prisoners, children in care, those battling mental illness and substance abuse鈥�.

2. She was involved in many Foundations

Dame Elisabeth Murdoch photo by NouvelleAuteur-

Murdoch was a life governor of the Royal Women鈥檚 Hospital and she was the patron of the Murdoch Children鈥檚 Research Institute and of the Australian American Association founded by her husband.

However, she was a patron and founding member of the disability organization EW Tipping Foundation and founding member of the Deafness Foundation of Victoria.

Moreover, she was the first woman on the council of trustees of the National Gallery of Victoria and she was a founding member of the Victorian Tapestry Workshop.

Furthermore, Murdoch was a member of the Patrons Council of the Epilepsy Foundation of Victoria.

3. Dame Elisabeth Murdoch has a garden called Cruden Farm

Dame Elisabeth Murdoch photo by Unknown-

Her garden 鈥�Cruden Farm鈥� which is located at Langwarrin is one of Australia鈥檚 finest examples of landscape gardening.

However, the garden is a special place left by Dame Elisabeth Murdoch for the people to enjoy that is now managed by a charitable trust.

Edna Walling originally designed the garden and it is open throughout the year from Monday to Friday excluding public holidays.

4. She married Keith Murdoch at the Age of 19

Dame Elisabeth Murdoch photo by Unknown-

Keith Murdoch spied Dame Elisabeth鈥檚 photograph in a society magazine and insisted on meeting her.

However, the pair married in the year 1928 with the bride deciding to wear her sister鈥檚 hand-me-down wedding dress.

Moreover, Keith’s wedding gift to his 19-year-old wife was Cruden Farm on the outskirts of Melbourne in Langwarrin.

Interestingly the property has been Dame Elisabeth鈥檚 home for over 80 years and it was there she and her husband raised their four children.

5. Dame Elisabeth Murdoch was given the key to the City of Melbourne

At the age of 94, Elisabeth Murdoch was awarded a key to the City of Melbourne and she responded with an ever modest thank you. She said, 鈥�I just wonder what it means. Will I get a free parking space?鈥�.

However, the keys to the city came with no perks but the honor of representing a city as tremendous as Melbourne is a price in itself.

6. The queen bestowed Elisabeth Murdoch the title Dame

She was appointed a Dame Commander of the British Empire in 1963 for her charity work in Australia and overseas.

However, Dame is an honorific for the honor of damehood in many Christian chivalric orders as well as the British honors system and those of several other Commonwealth countries such as Australia and New Zealand with the masculine form of addressing being Sir.

Moreover, in terms of the hierarchy, a damehood is the female equivalent of a knighthood.

7. Dame Elisabeth Murdoch is the mother of Rupert Murdoch

She was the widow of Australian newspaper publisher Sir Keith Murdoch and the mother of international media proprietor Rupert Murdoch the most successful media magnate of his generation.

However, Rupert Murdoch is an Australian-born American newspaper publisher who in 1979 the global media holding company the News Corporation Ltd.

Moreover, its sale resulted in the creation of Fox Corporation which included Fox News and Other TV channels.  

8. She was Frugal

Her husband Keith Murdoch amassed a newspaper and radio empire in Adelaide, Melbourne, and Brisbane and he became a political power broker.

However, she was also alert to her husband鈥檚 self-indulgence.

At the time, the Murdoch hired men desperate for work to build stables and other outbuildings at the farm, so one day she was aghast when her husband drove up in a Rolls-Royce and ordered him to return it.

Moreover, she herself was frugal because for decades according to The Australian a national broadsheet she refused to have heating in the house, resisted hairdressers and one year gave up a trip abroad to pay for a pool in the garden.

Furthermore, the newspaper said she preferred to spend money on the garden rather than on herself.

9. Dame Elisabeth Murdoch inherited a Fortune

As a wedding gift, her husband gave her a sprawling estate at Langwarrin. They called it Cruden Farm after the ancestral parish of his Scottish forebears and it became the seat of the Murdoch family for generations.

However, although much of her husband鈥檚 wealth went into taxes she inherited shares in his media company News Limited and its subsidiaries a Melbourne magazine and a newspaper in New South Wales.

10. She died at the Age of 103

Dame Elisabeth Murdoch was born on January 8^th, 1909 and she died at the age of 103.

However, she died peacefully at her home Cruden Farm a present from her late husband in Victoria Australia.

Moreover, she was the mother of four with Rupert, Anne Kantor, and Janet Calvert Jones as her surviving children. Helen Handbury died in the year 2004.