 She became involved in the labour movement in the early 1890s, running a socialist bookshop in Melbourne and authoring numerous political pamphlets; she was eulogised as "the mother of the labour movement".She was the mother of eleven children, and her sons-in-law included the writer Henry Lawson and politician Jack Lang.McNamara was born on 28 September 1853 in Posen, Prussia (present-day Poznań, Poland).