Martin, Isabella

Wealthy woman and philanthropist who was the daughter of a wealthy wine merchant and wife of James Martin, with whom she had 15 children. She was one of the chief organisers of the Queen's Jubilee Fund and also a member of the Board of Control of the School of Industry for Orphan Girls. She became unhappy in her marriage and the conditions of their family home in Potts Point. She developed a distaste for the toxic smells emanating from Rushcutters Bay that often swept up to their property, and after two of her children and her sister died, she left her husband. She lived off her own substantial wealth leasing Greycliffe and then Woollahra House, before moving to Clairvaux, where she died.