Inside the incredible life of Lady Potter
Though she is now 92, one of Melbourne’s most respected philanthropists Lady Potter is not slowing down – she has a busy schedule and a lot on her to-do list.
Fiona Byrne
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Lady (Primrose) Potter is making plans.
A quick trip to London to run an eye over her granddaughter, Zofia’s, recently purchased apartment and then a catch up with relatives in Scotland is on the agenda next month, squeezed into an already full diary.
At 92, Lady Potter, one of Melbourne’s most respected philanthropists and supporter of the arts, has a lot on her to do list.
“If you are not busy you grow old, and I am always busy,” Lady Potter said.
“People say ‘why don’t you calm down a bit?’ and I say, ‘but I have too much interfering in life to do yet’.”
Public in her support of so many charities and organisations via the Sir Ian Potter Foundation, established by her late husband, Lady Potter lives a very private life in Melbourne’s CBD.
She is elegant, fiercely independent, quick-witted, and, frankly, a force of nature.
Last month she had an uncomfortable moment in the headlines after an accident in South Yarra saw her Mercedes end up in the Yarra River.
It is not a subject she wishes to revisit, save to say is making a quick recovery from the bingle and has written personal thank you letters to those who helped her on the evening.
Lady Potter was born Primrose Catherine Anderson-Stuart in Sydney in April 1931. Her father was a radiologist and her grandfather established the School of Medicine at Sydney University.
“I grew up through the end of the Great Depression and through the Second World War and you learned to care for each other and to see that things worked, it was just part of my life,” she said of her can-do attitude and interest in the community.
Her love of the arts was instilled from a young age.
“Mother took me to the ballet for my 5th birthday. I refused to get out of the seat at the end,” she said.
“The ballet has always been a great joy to me.”
She was educated at Ascham: “It gave me the best education you could possibly have. It taught you to think for yourself.”
In 1951, aged 19, she travelled to London for “the season” and made her social coming out when presented to King George VI and Queen Elizabeth at Buckingham Palace.
“You came in (to the ballroom) and took three steps forwards and curtsied to King George and took three steps back and then stepped sideways and went three steps forwards again for the Queen,” Lady Potter said.
“I always remembered her because she looked at you as though you were the one person she had been waiting for. She had that wonderful ambience.
“We (the ladies she was presented to the Royal Court with) went to the race at Ascot. I was on the front page of several newspapers in London the next day as the best dressed girl from Ascot.”
The following year she married Sydney doctor, Roger Dunlop. The couple had a daughter, Primrose, and divorced in 1969.
In 1970 she met Sir Ian Potter, a giant of business, finance and philanthropy, at a dinner hosted by former Prime Minister William McMahon and his wife Sonia. Sir Ian was godfather to the McMahon’s son Julian, a successful actor briefly married to Dannii Minogue.
They wed in Sydney 1975 and the relationship brought Lady Potter to Melbourne.
“My first 45 years were in Sydney and my second 45 years, well, a little more than that, have been in Melbourne,” she said.
The couple were married for 19 years, with Sir Ian’s international business commitments involving constant travel that saw friendships forged including Estee Lauder – “One of my best friends in New York,” – Grace Kelly, before she met Prince Rainier of Monaco, Danny Kaye and Frank Sinatra.
She also dined privately with Queen Elizabeth II behind the Royal Box at an Australian Ballet performance in London.
Sir Ian died in 1994 aged 92.
The foundation he established in 1964, known as the Sir Ian Potter Foundation, is one of Australia’s major philanthropic foundations having contributed more that $380 million to the arts, medical research, the environment, education and community wellbeing since it was established.
Lady Potter is a life governor of the foundation.
The foundation’s significant grants in recent years include $20 million to support the establishment of NGV Contemporary, $15 million to fund the National Gallery of Victoria’s gallery of Australian art at Federation Square, $15 million to the Peter MacCallum Cancer Foundation in 2012 for the Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Project and $10 million to support the refurbishment of Queen’s Hall at the State Library of Victoria.
A vast number of arts organisations have received support from the foundation including The Australian Ballet – the Primrose Potter Australian Ballet Centre is named in Lady Potter’s honour – and the Melbourne Opera.
Lady Potter was an early supporter of the AIDS Council of Victoria (now Thorne Harbour Health), recently attending an event marking 40 years since it was established.
“One of my friends was dying and he asked if I could get involved with AIDS, and I did,” she said, becoming an advocate and fundraiser.
“I went to the ballet and said ‘come on, we have to do this’ and they were onside.
“I founded a charity called AIDS and Arts and we raised a lot of money and gave it to all the AIDS wards and things, but it got to the stage that the committee sort of dissolved after about five years because all my boys had died.
“It was awful. I went to funeral after funeral.”
In recognition of her support of the arts and the community Lady Potter was awarded an Officer of the Order of Australia in 1988, followed by a Companion of the Order of Australian in 2003.
She recently sat for a portrait which hangs in the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra.
Now into her tenth decade, Lady Potter is still making a difference.
“It has been a very interesting life and I have done wonderful things, but there is still a lot of things I would like to do,” she said.
“If you don’t support the things you like, you don’t have them.”
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