Dame Elisabeth Murdoch, AC, DBE, (born February 1909), philanthropist, is the widow of Australian media proprietor Sir Keith Murdoch and the mother of United States-based media magnate Rupert Murdoch. A tapestry portrait of Dame Elisabeth Murdoch may be seen here.

Born Elisabeth Green in Melbourne, Murdoch was educated at St Catherine's School and Clyde School. She married Keith Murdoch, 22 years her senior, in 1928, and inherited the bulk of his fortune when he died in 1952. Apart from Rupert, her children are Janet Calvert-Jones , Anne Kantor and Helen Handbury (1929-2004). She has a large number of grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and as of 2004 at least one great-great-grandchild. (In a 2003 interview she said she had 64 descendants.) Her namesake granddaughter, Elisabeth Murdoch , is prominent in the British business world and is married to Matthew Freud .

Murdoch is a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) and a Companion of the Order of Australia (AC). She also holds an award from the French government for funding an exhibition of works by the French sculptor Auguste Rodin in Melbourne in 2002.

Apart from raising her children, Murdoch has devoted her life to philanthropy. Before her marriage she worked as a volunteer for the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. She joined the management committee of the Royal Children's Hospital in 1933, serving as its president from 1954 to 1965. She is also a life-governor of the Royal Women's Hospital . She is Patron of the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute . She was a founding member of the Deafness Foundation of Victoria .

The first woman on the council of trustees of the National Gallery of Victoria, Murdoch was a founding member of the Victorian Tapestry Workshop. She is an honorary fellow of the Australian Institute of Landscape Architecture , and funded and helped to establish the Elisabeth Murdoch Chair of Landscape Architecture and the Australian Garden History Society. In 1968 she was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Laws by the University of Melbourne in acknowledgement for her contributions to research, the arts and philanthropy. Trinity College installed her as a Fellow in 2000.

A 2003 article in the Melbourne newspaper The Age (see link below) said: "Few can rival Dame Elisabeth's enormous contribution. Her interests are so many they need to be alphabetically catalogued: academia, the arts, children, flora and fauna, heritage, medical research, social welfare. Few of Melbourne and Australia's most cherished institutions, from the Royal Children's Hospital to the Australian Ballet and the Botanic Gardens, have not benefited from her involvement. But Dame Elisabeth also devoted herself to less popular causes: prisoners, children in care, those battling mental illness and substance abuse."

Elisabeth Murdoch retains a substantial stake in the Murdoch family's media businesses, and uses the proceeds to fund her extensive donations to charity. She is known to have considerable influence with her son Rupert Murdoch, which she usually exercises in the direction of moderation. She is known to have disapproved of the behaviour of some of his British tabloid newspapers, and as a result Rupert is said to have reined in some of their sexual content.

Murdoch's property, Cruden Farm near Cranbourne south-east of Melbourne, is one of Australia's finest examples of landscape gardening and is regularly open to the public. She is a popular figure in the area, where she has donated to many local charities, and is known locally as "the Dame." At 96 she is in vigorous health and maintains a busy schedule of committee meetings and charity functions.

External links

• Melbourne honours its matriarch of generosity (The Age, April 2003)
• Murdoch Children's Research Institute
• Dame Elisabeth Murdoch (a breed of rose named after her)
• Gardening Australia website on Cruden Farm