The Australian Women's Register

Zara Bate the daughter of Sydney Herbert and Violet (née McDonald) was educated at both Ruyton and Toorak Colleges, Melbourne. In 1925, aged 16, she established her first dress shop in Little Collins Street, Melbourne. Bate with a friend, later opened a salon, called ‘Magg’, in Toorak Village, Melbourne. The business was sold in 1976. Bate won the Australian Gown of the Year award, in 1961.

From her first marriage to Colonel James Fell, Bate had three sons. She married her second husband Harold Holt, who was to become the 22nd prime minister of Australia, in 1946. After his disappearance in 1967, from a Portsea surf beach in Victoria he was presumed drowned, she married H. J. P. (Jeff) Bate on 19 February 1969. Mr Bate, a former Liberal politician and farmer, died in 1984.

In 1968 Dame Zara wrote a book titled My Life and Harry: An autobiography. Besides her charity work she enjoyed reading, walking, swimming and fishing. Dame Zara Bate passed away on 14 June 1989.