This piece of the English Parliament House, taken from the ruins of post-war London, was presented to Tilly by the Mayor of London, around 1945, demonstrating the esteem with which she was held in the UK. Donated to the Maryborough-Midlands Historical Society by Mrs Amelia Sinclair of Durham Ox.
Tilly Aston’s achievements are formidable. In 1894 she founded the Victorian Association of Braille Writers, which became the Victorian Braille Library. In 1895, she co-founded the Association for the Advancement of the Blind, which in became Vision Australia. As well as being the first woman who was blind to be admitted to an Australian university and Australia's first blind teacher, Tilly was a distinguished and critically acclaimed writer, producing seven books of verse. Tilly received a Commonwealth grant for her writing in 1935, and the King’s Medal for Distinguished Citizenry twice.