woodcarver and embroiderer, was born in Portsmouth, Ohio (United States of America), eldest of the four daughters of Dr Isaac Fenton King, a pastor in the Methodist Church and keen educationalist, and Ella, née Bowen. Soon after her birth the family moved to Columbus, Ohio; Mary was educated at the Ohio Wesleyan University, Delaware, and at a private school run by a Miss Anabelle in Philadelphia. She learned woodcarving at school and was probably taught embroidery by her mother, a fine needlewoman.

In 1890 Isaac King took his family on a tour of Europe. There Mary met her future husband, the young New Zealand born and Brisbane educated architect Robin Smith Dods who had been sent to Scotland to train as an architect. On a study tour of Italy in 1891, he met Mary King in Florence.

Mary returned to Columbus. With two visits from Dods in 1894 and 1896, she was to wait seven years before her marriage. It was not until Robin accepted a partnership with the architect Francis Hall in Brisbane that he finally sent for Mary. Accompanied by Dods’s youngest brother, Espie, Mary travelled to Sydney; she and Robin were married at the Presbyterian church of St Columba, Woollahra on 21 March 1899. A piano stool she carved, now in the possession of her grand-daughter, incorporated a design of gumleaves and gum nuts into its standard acanthus leaf design, in anticipation of her future in Australia – a use of Australian flora that predates her husband’s capitals on the ionic columns for the Sun Insurance Building at Brisbane in 1907.

The couple lived with Dods’s mother in Brisbane until their own house, Harelvyn, at New Farm was completed in 1900. Robin designed it and Mary contributed an elaborate carving of their initials, which she made into moulds for the plaster ceilings. Later she extended this skill to commercial buildings, executing the moulds for the plaster ceiling of the NZ Insurance Building in Queen Street, Brisbane, which Robin designed in 1908.

Glenn Cooke has established that Mary refreshed her woodcarving skills with L.J. Harvey at the Brisbane Technical College. As well as carving the ceilings at Harelvyn, she carved the motto 'In Copia Caveas’ above a built-in sideboard, a practice repeated in several Brisbane houses designed by her husband. She also carved other pieces of furniture, including three beds made of Queensland blackbean.

Mary and Robin Dods had two children: Lorimer Fenton (b.1900) and Elisabeth Hosmer (b.1904). Elisabeth recalls that her mother often executed embroidery to patterns designed by her father – an arrangement typical of the English Arts and Crafts movement. (In 1896 Robin had exhibited a bedspread in the Fifth Arts and Crafts Exhibition in London designed by him and executed by Marie Cox.) In particular, Elisabeth remembers a dress made by her mother with a sweeping design of Australian parrots.

Mary Dods was on the committee of the Brisbane Arts and Crafts Society in 1912. At its first exhibition in 1913 she showed an embroidered tablecloth, a carved book rack inscribed to her daughter and a mahogany tray. Shortly afterwards, the family moved to Sydney and Robin became a partner in the firm Spain, Cosh & Dods. Mary was active in the New South Wales Arts and Crafts Society in 1914-16). In 1918, Fenton, the house Robin Dods had designed for his family, was complete; again the ceilings bore Mary’s distinctive 'R’ and 'M’ initials.

Mary continued to live at Fenton after Robin died in 1920 until moving to Kangaroo Point, Brisbane, in 1930. She later moved to Wickham Terrace, where she died in 1951.

Writers:

France, Christine

Date written:

1995

Last updated:

2011