MRS. PRESIDENT

St. George’s Society of New York, the nonprofit organization founded in 1770, has elected Natalie Pray as its 95th president. The Australian-born Mrs. Pray, who served as a United Nations officer for 30 years, becomes both the first woman as well as the first Australian to head the charitable organization. The society helps people in the tri-state area who hail from the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth and face trouble or sickness.

Mrs. Pray assumed her role at St. George’s recent annual meeting at India House in Lower Manhattan. She said she favored speeches that were short, “like a miniskirt: long enough to cover the subject and short enough to hold your attention.”

At the event, Mrs. Pray gave the Past President’s Medal to Rodney Johnson. She said that she was reminded of Thomas Jefferson’s remark upon arriving in Paris regarding his predecessor Benjamin Franklin: “I cannot replace him, I merely succeed him.”

Speaking about the importance of teamwork and the organization’s reliance on volunteers, she said, “We are blessed with many talented and devoted volunteers, without whom this society could not function. And you recall Noah’s Ark was built by volunteers; the Titanic was built by professionals.”

Women were allowed to become St. George’s Society members in 1988. This year’s entertainment addressed the issue in a humorous sketch written by the organization’s executive director and almoner John Shannon. Called “Future Impossibilities; or, Idle Speculation,” it featured a past president, William Miller, playing Theophylact Bache, the society’s second president; Mr. Johnson playing the society’s first president, Goldsborough Banyar; a vice president at the society, Peter Felix, playing the first secretary, John Wilkes, and Mrs. Pray portraying “The Lady.”

The first scene unfolded in 1795 Manhattan. Banyar said, “And it must be admitted, that it is not intolerable for English-born American citizens as us to live in this place. London may be a splendid metropolis, and Manhattan but a small provincial place, but it has some charm.”

In Scene 2, Wilkes exclaimed that the lady was “bold and brazen” to bandy about certain thoughts: “Lady members of St. George’s Society! Ladies in public office! Ladies with their own club! Indeed! Were but one of those things to ever occur, it would be an outrage comparable to the worst excesses of the French Revolution!”

Banyar responded, “It has been remarked before that when something terrible is about to be proposed, the French have already been doing it for some time.”

Wilkes pondered where it will all lead: “Next you shall be advancing the view the ladies may be clergymen, or soldiers, or indeed, prime minister of Great Britain! These are absurd propositions!”

Bache asserted that beliefs can change: “Though when, how, and why, it is impossible to predict.” He concludes, “And let us finally desire our heirs, the future members of our society, to know that we view with favor changes that make St. George’s modern and in sympathy with the times in order that it may continue to do good.”

Asked by the Knickerbocker about heading St. George’s Society, Mrs. Pray said, “First of all, I think humility comes before honor as I accept this honor. And I also feel that it is the work that is important, not the title.”

She hails from the state of Queensland, Australia. She studied political science and management in Australia and in France. She worked briefly in the Australian Foreign Service before coming to America and joining the United Nations in New York. During her diplomatic service, she spent a half-year in Cyprus and wrote a political report on the turbulence there.

She is active both on the board of directors of the English Speaking Union’s branch in Greenwich, Conn., and on the executive board of Greenwich Council the Boy Scouts of America. Mrs. Pray has chaired the English Ball for St. George’s Society for seven years; this year, the group will honor the group chief executive of British Petroleum, Lord Browne of Madingley, at the Pierre Hotel on April 15.

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THEATER ‘HITS’

“Jerry isn’t with us, but his name is on the wall and his spirit is all around us,” Marian Seldes acknowledged, explaining that she was substituting for Jerry Orbach, who had intended to emcee the 34th annual Theater Hall of Fame inductions.

Calling himself, the “theater’s answer to Wade Boggs,” inductee A.R. Gurney explained that he and this year’s Baseball Hall of Famer both came from Boston and always got on base.

Among those also named this year were Len Cariou, Gregory Hines, Elizabeth McCann, Estelle Parsons, and Brian Murray.