Kathleen Butler : Short Biography

Kathlen Muriel Buter grew up in the Blue Mountains. By 1916, aged twenty-five, she was working with John Bradfield on his proposals for the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Butler was his only assistant in developing the tender specifications and dealing with tenderers. She drafted the notes that accompanied the legislation authorising the bridge's construction and wrote over a dozen articles, many of them published in the Sydney Mail in 1923 and 1924. Having opened a London office, an supervised the contract for the bridge, she retired in 1927 to marry a grazier from Cunnamulla. She virtually disappeared from public view but returned to Sydney for a school reunion and the bridge's opening in 1932.

This Chronicle has been adapted by kind permission of the Aisling Society. The content has been inspired by the Aisling 20/20 Vision project, which forms part of a programme marking the twentieth anniversary of the establishment of the Consulate General of Ireland to New South Wales. 

The Aisling Society is an Irish Australian cultural society whose main interests are the study of the history, life, and culture of Ireland, and the effect of Irish heritage on Australian life.