Born in
Ashfield, New South Wales, to Maria Louisa Miles (née Binnington), and the third of five surviving children, she grew up in the Sydney suburb of
St Ives. Her father,
William John Miles, was a wealthy public accountant and hot-headed businessman, who had a tempestuous relationship with his daughter. She studied at
Abbotsleigh School and enrolled in an arts course, but opted out, citing a lack of Australian subject matter. Miles also enrolled in medicine, which was unusual for women at that time, but she contracted
encephalitis lethargica in her first year. The disease permanently and profoundly changed her personality, although not her intelligence, and she was unable to finish her studies and became an eccentric and notorious identity in and around Sydney. In 1923, tired of his daughter's bohemian behaviour and lifestyle, Miles' father had her committed to a hospital for the insane, in
Gladesville, New South Wales, where she stayed for two years. After that Miles lived on the street and was known for her outrageous behaviour. She was arrested many times and claimed to have been "falsely convicted 195 times, fairly 100 times". Her father had been associated with extremist causes for a number of years, however there are no records of her having any involvement in the movement's activities and she was not among the members of the movement interned in 1942. Miles' most notorious escapades involved taxi drivers. She regularly refused to pay fares. Some drivers refused to pick her up and she would sometimes damage the cab in retaliation, including reputedly ripping a door off its hinges once. In 1955, Miles took a taxi to
Perth, Western Australia, and back. That time, she did pay the fare, which was A£600. Fiercely patriotic, at twelve years of age Miles wore a "No Conscription" badge to school during the campaign leading up to the
conscription plebiscite during
World War I. In another incident Miles was disgusted when she was severely marked down for an essay about Gallipoli, which she described as a 'strategical blunder', rather than 'a wonderful war effort'. Some time in the 1950s, Miles came to regard the environs of the rectory (then referred to as "the Clergy House") of
Christ Church St Laurence as her home. She had previously been allowed to sleep in one of the porticos of
St James' King Street, Sydney, but one of the clergy there had ordered her to leave. After sleeping in
Belmore Park, where she was sometimes subject to arrest, the rector of Christ Church, Father
John Hope, who was often called upon to bail her out, offered her a spot on the porch between the rectory dining room and the church vestry. Clergy entering the vestry to vest for mass would have to step over Miles, who rose late and went to bed early. From her position on the porch, Miles could hear the hymn singing at
evensong (she requested that the nearby church windows remain open) and joined in dining room conversations as it suited her. A dogmatic atheist, she often gave altar servers and others a lecture on rationalism. Following a spell in
Long Bay Gaol, after she had wrenched the door off a taxi when the driver refused her entry, it was agreed she could sleep in the rectory laundry, close to the kitchen, and she remained there until Father Hope's retirement in 1964. Miles was constantly harassed by police and claimed to have been falsely convicted 195 times, fairly 100 times, though obituaries give lower estimates. She haunted the Public Library of New South Wales, reading many books each week, until she was banned from the building in the late 1950s. As ill-health started to catch up with her, Miles spent the last nine years of her life in the
Little Sisters of the Poor Home for the Aged in
Randwick. She supposedly told the sisters that she had "no allergies that I know of, one complex, no delusions, two inhibitions, no neuroses, three phobias, no superstitions and no frustrations". One of the Sisters of the Poor recalled that Miles came to be known for her compassion for the sick, comforting the old and infirm and sitting patiently with the dying. She even prayed with them, on one occasion, when questioned, observing "I don't believe in God, but she does." Miles died on 3 December 1973, aged 71, from cancer. Australian
wildflowers were placed on her coffin, while a jazz band played "
Waltzing Matilda" and "
Advance Australia Fair". It was suggested that Miles had renounced her lifelong
atheism and become a
Catholic before her death, but her family do not support this claim. Miles is interred at
Rookwood Cemetery in the family plot. ==Popular culture and media ==