Lyn Swinburne
Australian activist
Lyn Mary Swinburne (born 6 June 1952) is an Australian women's advocate, inspirational speaker and founder of Breast Cancer Network Australia (BCNA).
Career
Swinburne was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1993 and underwent surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy and hormone therapy. After that time, and as a result of her experiences, she became a committed advocate on behalf of women with breast cancer and their families.
In 1996, Swinburne began her work to establish Breast Cancer Network Australia, which was then formally launched in October 1998. BCNA is now the peak national breast cancer ‘consumer' organisation representing nearly 300 member groups and more than 110,000 individuals in all Australian states and territories. BCNA currently has a staff of more than 45 and a vast number of volunteers working for the organisation. Previously, Lyn had been a primary school teacher.
Swinburne is the creator of the Field of Women concept. This major public awareness and fundraising event, began in 1998 with the planting of 10,000 pink silhouettes (representing the number of Australians diagnosed with breast cancer that year) and 2,500 white silhouettes (representing the number who would die) on the lawns in front of Parliament House, Canberra. The Field of Women LIVE event evolved in later years, with major events in Melbourne 2005, Sydney 2007 and Melbourne 2010.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q16151990. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1952, 1993, 1996 and 1998.
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This entry incorporates text from “Lyn Swinburne” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.