Tilly Aston as a young girl sitting in a chair with a handbag in her lap. She wears a high necked dress and her hair is pulled back behind her in a ponytail. Tilly is 16 in this image.

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.