Stella Cornelius AO OBE 1919-2010
Stella was an Australian business woman and peace activist. She grew up in Newcastle NSW and after leaving school completed a course in dress design. She helped her father who worked as a tailor and draper. When the Second World War broke out she helped her father manufacture hospital marquees and lifebelts for the defence force. She met Max Cornelius, a Jewish German migrant who had fled persecution and come to Australia in 1938, then enlisted in the Australian Army. They married in 1943.
Max’s accounts of the persecution of the Jews stirred her. ”Feeling their pain was my entry into being part of the human rights movement,” she said later. ”Whenever I see my vision is not meeting up with reality, I start asking about how things can be transformed into something better.”
Stella and Max established Cornelius Furs after the war, developing it into a leading retail business before its sale in 1977. The shop was on the corner of King and Castlereagh streets in Sydney.
In 1973 Stella established the Peace and Conflict Resolution Program for the United Nations Association of Australia. She was instrumental in establishing Australia’s Media Peace Awards. She spent the rest of her life working towards conflict resolution and peace, serving as Director for the International Year of Peace between 1984-1986.
Together with her daughter she founded the Conflict Resolution Network in 1986 . She was a life member of the Australian Red Cross and in 1999 was awarded an honorary doctorate by Macquarie University. In 2003 she was appointed to a national committee on Human Rights Education. In 2005 she was one of the 1000 women worldwide nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Sources – Malcolm Brown, ‘Cornelius, Stella (1919–2010)’, Obituaries Australia, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, https://oa.anu.edu.au/obituary/cornelius-stella-16826/text28721, accessed 29 March 2026.
Zonta Club of Sydney 