About Mary Raine

The sisters initially worked as barmaids in Brisbane, but within a year moved to  Sydney where Mary was offered an opportunity to manage a country hotel in Nyngan, New South Wales.

On arrival, Mary discovered the hotel to be run down and in a state of disarray, with no customers or stock due to an outstanding debt. Always one to rise to a challenge, Mary joined forces with the young woman who had taken the position of cook, and with some clever deals they built the hotel’s trade back up from scratch.

Despite successfully revitalising the hotel and being a licensee in all but name, Mary’s success was short-lived. Liquor laws did not allow an unmarried woman to hold a licence and she was unable to formally take over the property. With a drought gripping the surrounding area, Mary decided to leave the establishment she had revived and return to her sister Daisy in Sydney.

This temporary stopover set in motion a life-long journey that saw Mary become one of Perth’s most successful business tycoons – laying the foundations of a vast real estate empire that helped ultimately fund the creation of the Raine Medical Research Foundation.

The first step in this journey was for Mary to use her savings and a loan to buy a house in Subiaco which she leased. She leased the property and utilised the rental income to pay off the mortgage in just two years. Her entrepreneurial spirit drove Mary to acquire the vacant land next door, where she built another house to rent out.

This strategy of buying, leasing, and swiftly paying off her debt became a foundation for Mary’s systematic approach to property acquisition in the years that followed.

As an officially independent woman once again, Mary directed her energies to her growing real estate ventures.

The 1920s brought a wealth of opportunities with the post-war property boom, allowing Mary’s keen judgment for acquisitions to shine. One of which was her purchase of the Gordons Hotel in 1924. It was diagonally opposite the Bon Ton Café – an ideal city position – and already licensed to serve wine and beer with meals. After major renovations in 1928, Mary renamed it the Wentworth Hotel and it went on to become not only her home, but her flagship business and the core of the future Raine Square in the Perth Central Business District.

Even the crash of the New York stock market at the end of the decade did little to dampen Mary’s business ambition, as she confronted the challenges of the following years with the same practical determination.

The war years presented further challenges to Mary, one of which was the Wentworth being requisitioned by the US Navy to accommodate submariners; but it was another regular Wentworth guest who had an even greater impact on Mary’s life, a farmer 13 years her junior, called Arnold “Joe” Raine.

After a growing friendship and 25 years as a widow, Mary married Joe on 3 December 1943 and became Mrs Mary Raine. Her marriage with Joe not only provided her with comfort and care, but also gave her a trusted business partner. Over their 16 years of marriage, they ran her empire together as Mary continued to add to it with more property acquisitions.

During Joe’s illness Mary became aware of how dependent medical research was on funding to pursue solutions to medical problems.

Joe had intended to leave a substantial sum to the University of Western Australia’s Medical School but had not had time before his death to make this provision in his will. Soon after Joe’s passing, and with failing health of her own, Mary made a decision that would have an enduring impact on medical research in Western Australia – she renounced her interest in Joe’s will to establish the Raine Medical Research Foundation.

Mary’s heartfelt wish was for the funds from the foundation to contribute to finding a cure for the illness that claimed Joe’s life, sparing others from the same heartache. She combined her estate with Joe’s, formally establishing it through a Deed of Trust to the University of Western Australia, the only medical school at the time.

Mary also specifically asked that the funds were not used to establish any buildings in her or Joe’s honour, but that instead:

the “net income of the Fund shall be applied towards seeking, diagnosing and investigating the nature, origin and cause of disease in human beings, and the prevention, cure, alleviation and combating of such diseases”.

Mary Bertha Raine passed away on 3 February 1960. Her original bequest of £1 million in 1957 is equivalent to about £20 million today, or approximately $ AUD 40 million. It was the largest bequest to a university at the time.

As a female entrepreneur beyond her times, Mary shaped much of the Perth CBD in the 1920s and beyond.

Her astute business decisions allowed her to accumulate an extraordinary portfolio of properties and hotels in Western Australia, including:

• The State Implement Works
• The Union Hotel
• The Bohemia Hotel
• The United Service Hotel
• Hotel Windsor
• Chequers Hotel (Bullsbrook Hotel)
• Marlborough Hotel
• The Bon Ton Café
• The Hotel Wentworth
• Bon Marche Arcade
• All the property fronting William Street from Raine Square down to Wellington Street, excluding the Royal Hotel