Mary Fairfax

Mary Fairfax, AC, OBE (formerly Symonds, born Marie Wein; 15 August 1922 – 17 September 2017) was a Polish-born Australian philanthropist. As the third wife of Sir Warwick Fairfax she became known as Lady Fairfax upon his knighthood in 1967. She inherited most of his vast fortune upon his death in 1987, becoming one of Australia's richest women.

Spouses:

Cedric Symonds (m. 1945–58)
Sir Warwick Fairfax (m. 1959–87)

Children:

Garth Symonds

Warwick Fairfax

Anna Cleary (adopted)

Charles Fairfax (adopted)

Biography

Marie Wein was born into a Jewish family in Warsaw, the daughter of Anna (née Szpigielglass) and Kevin Wein, the son of a miller. She came to Australia with her parents in the late 1920s to escape European anti-Semitism. She attended the Presbyterian Ladies College, Sydney, where she won prizes for history and chemistry. She eventually came to own several Sydney dress shops. In 1945, Wein married solicitor Cedric Symonds, with whom she had one son, Garth. She began having an affair with Warwick Oswald Fairfax, a scion of the Fairfax family, in the late 1950s. She divorced her husband in 1958 and married Fairfax on 4 July 1959, the day after he divorced his second wife. She converted from Judaism to Catholicism before the wedding. They had three children: Warwick Jr., Anna, and Charles.

After the death of her husband Sir Warwick in 1987, Fairfax continued to live in the family home, Fairwater, which had been owned by the Fairfax family since 1900. She moved to Manhattan, New York, in 1988, purchasing a penthouse known as Chateau in the Sky, on top of the Pierre Hotel, Fifth Avenue, for US$12 million. She returned to Australia in 1999, feeling she had never been entirely accepted into New York society. The penthouse in Manhattan eventually became New York's most expensive penthouse and was put up for sale in 2013 for an asking price of US$125 million. Previous tenants had included John Paul Getty, Elizabeth Taylor, Yves Saint-Laurent and Mohamed al-Fayed.

Honours, wealth and philanthropy

In recognition of her service to the community, Fairfax was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1976. She was made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in 1988, and upgraded to Companion of the Order of Australia (AC) in 2005, for "service to the community of wide ranging social and economic benefit through support and philanthropy for ongoing medical research initiatives, improved health care opportunities, nurturing artistic talent in young performers, and preservation of diverse cultural heritage".

Fairfax's personal wealth in 2012 was estimated by the BRW at A$418 million. Her assets include the residential land development, Harrington Park, near Camden in New South Wales. Harrington Park was the name of the cattle property once owned by Sir Warwick and Lady Fairfax.

Lady Fairfax was a Chairman, Founder and President of the Friends of The Australian Ballet and was the president of the Australian Opera Foundation during the 1970s. Her philanthropy includes gifts of A$750,000 to St Vincent's Foundation and A$250,000 to the Garvan Foundation in 2002 on the occasion of her eightieth birthday.