Dame Elisabeth Joy Murdoch, Lady Murdoch (née Greene; 8 February 1909 – 5 December 2012), also known as Elisabeth, Lady Murdoch, was an Australian philanthropist and matriarch of the Murdoch family. She was the widow of Australian newspaper publisher Sir Keith Murdoch and the mother of international media proprietor Rupert Murdoch. She was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in 1963 for her charity work in Australia and overseas. Family Murdoch was born in Melbourne on 8 February 1909. She was the youngest of three daughters born to Marie Grace de Lancey (Forth) and Rupert Greene. Her grandfather, William Henry Greene, was an Irish railway engineer (later one of the three Commissioners of Victorian Railways) who emigrated to Australia and married Fanny, the fourth of the 10 daughters of George Govett. Her mother's ancestors were Scottish and English; one of her maternal great-grandfathers was a lieutenant governor in the West Indies. Elisabeth was educated at St Catherine's School in Toorak, and at Clyde School in Woodend. She married Keith Murdoch, 23 years her senior, in 1928 and inherited the bulk of his fortune when he died in 1952. Apart from Rupert, her children are Janet Calvert-Jones AO, Anne Kantor AO (1936-2022) and Helen Handbury AO (1929–2004). At her death, she had 77 living descendants. Philanthropy Murdoch devoted her life to philanthropy. Before her marriage she worked as a volunteer for the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Dame Elisabeth Murdoch joined the management committee of the Royal Children's Hospital in 1933, serving as its president from 1954 to 1965. A 2003 article in the Melbourne newspaper The Age said: "Few can rival Dame Elisabeth's enormous contribution. Her interests are so many they need to be alphabetically catalogued: academia, the arts, children, flora and fauna, heritage, medical research, social welfare. Many of Melbourne and Australia's most cherished institutions, from the Royal Children's Hospital to the Australian Ballet and the Botanic Gardens, have benefited from her involvement. But Murdoch also devoted herself to less popular causes: prisoners, children in care, those battling mental illness and substance abuse." Murdoch was a Life Governor of the Royal Women's Hospital. She was the patron of the Murdoch Children's Research Institute and of the Australian American Association (Victoria), founded by her husband. She was a patron and founding member of disability organisation EW Tipping Foundation and a