Shafiqah Shasha

Shafiqah Shasha (Arabic: شفيقة شعشع; July 3, 1877–1953) was a Lebanese-Australian matriarch who played a significant role as a trader in the early 20th Century garment industry first in Redfern, then in rural New South Wales. Shasha was born on 3 July 1877 in the village of Zahle in what is now Lebanon to a Maronite family. In 1893 at the age of 16, she was sent by her family to the port of Beirut to begin a new life in Brazil, however she was tricked into boarding a ship to the colony of New South Wales.