Marjorie Tipping
Marjorie Jean Tipping MBE was an Australian historian and patron of community services.
The daughter of John Alexandra McCredie and Florence Amelia Paterson, she was born Marjorie Jean McCredie in Melbourne and grew up in Princes Hill and Kew. She studied at the Presbyterian Ladies' College and Melbourne University. In 1942, she married journalist Bill Tipping.
Tipping's works focus on the history of art and colonial Australia, and include Eugene von Guerard's Australian Landscapes Ludwig Becker: Artist & Naturalist with the Burke & Wills Expedition, Melbourne on the Yarra and Convicts Unbound: The Story of the Calcutta Convicts and Their Settlement in Australia. She also contributed to the Australian Dictionary of Biography.
Tipping was the first woman to earn the degree of Doctor of Letters by examination from the University of Melbourne, and was awarded an MBE.
Tipping has contribute to many community organisations, including as first woman president of the Royal Historical Society of Victoria and as a patron of EW Tipping Foundation.
Tipping was made a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society of Victoria and appointed as a Member of the Order of the British Empire, for her contribution to the Arts.
In 1988, she discovered a letter which suggested that Melbourne pioneer John Batman had been transported to Tasmania as a convict rather than migrating there by his own choice as had been previously thought. Later research determined that the information in the letter was either incorrect or applied to some other person with the same name.
Tipping died at The Alfred Hospital after suffering a stroke.
