Nora Winifred Bonney, daughter of Mr Justice Reginald Schofield Bonney of the New South Wales Supreme Court and Lillian Bonney (nee Butler), attended Abbotsleigh Church of England School for Girls and then studied as an evening student at the University of Sydney where she excelled in History and French. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in 1945. In 1946, she was secretary of the Kuring-gai branch of the Australian Communist Party. She was admitted to the New South Wales Bar on Friday 8 February 1957 but did not practise as a barrister.

Sources used to compile this entry: New South Wales Law Almanac for 1958, A. H. Pettifer, Government Printer, Sydney, 1958, p. 88; New South Wales Law Almanac for 1959, V. C. N. Blight, Government Printer, Sydney, 1959, p. 88; 1960, p. 90; Calendar of the University of Sydney for the Year 1942, Sydney: Alfred Henry Pettifer, Acting Government Printer, Publisher to the University, 1942, p. 472; 1952, p. 307; 'Alliance Francaise. Annual Examinations', The Sydney Morning Herald, Saturday 27 July 1935, p. 10, http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/17198574, accessed online 19 March 2016; Bonney, Nora, 'Open Letter Had Sting for Parson', Advertising, The Tribune, Tuesday 29 October 1946, p. 4, http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/206687083, accessed online 19 February 2016; 'Reginald Schofield Bonney (BA, LLB, KC)', State Records, NSW Government, http://search.records.nsw.gov.au/persons/7, accessed online 20 February 2016; 'Mr Justice Bonney Dies At 67', Tuesday, The Sydney Morning Herald, 26 September 1950, p. 1, http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/18182526/1040589, accessed online 18 March 2016; 'Daughter Of Former Judge Now Barrister', The Age, Saturday 9 February 1957, p. 10; The Ryerson Index (See: 'Bonney, Nora Winifred', The Sydney Morning Herald, Saturday 23 October 2004, p. 57).