Dame Mabel Balcombe Brookes (1890-1975), society and charity leader, was born on 15 June 1890 at Raveloe, South Yarra, Melbourne. Born as Mabel Balcombe Emmerton in Raveloe, South Yarra, Victoria in 1890, her best-known service was as president of the Queen Victoria Hospital from 1923–1970, where she presided over the addition of three new wings within ten years. She became engaged to Norman Brookes, a tennis player, who was the first Australian to win Wimbledon, at the age of eighteen, and married him in St Paul's Anglican Cathedral, Melbourne, on 19 April 1911.