Daisy Mae Bates (1861-1951) was a social worker among the Australian aborigines. One of the first Europeans to win their confidence, she compiled a unique collection of material about them.

Daisy Bates was born Daisy O'Dwyer Hunt at Ballychrine, Tipperary, Ireland. Following the death of her mother, she was raised in the family of Sir Francis Outram, a retired officer of the Indian Civil Service. In 1884 she emigrated to Australia for health reasons, and at Bathurst, New South Wales, she met and married John Bates. She returned to Britain in 1894 and took up journalism but in 1899 emigrated to Western Australia, partly in connection with a pastoral lease in which she was interested and partly on behalf of the Times to investigate charges of white cruelty to the aborigines.

Bates's reports suggested that the aborigines were incompetently and unwisely managed but refuted the idea that they were being treated...