The Australian Women's Register

Born in India to an Irish soldier, Eliza Tracey immigrated to Western Australia in 1859, where she was known to the citizens of Perth as a soap box orator. She spoke out against the legal profession, and her life was marked by constant dealings with the law.

Kathleen O’Connor was born in New Zealand in 1876 to Charles Yelverton O’Connor and his wife Susan Laetitia. She was educated at Marsden School, Wellington, then taught privately after 1891, when the family moved to Perth, Western Australia, in order for her father to take up a post as a government civil engineer. Kathleen O’Connor then studied art at Perth Technical College, and later in London and Paris, where she relocated in 1910. There she attended night classes and immersed herself fully in the artistic and cultural milieu that Paris offered, attending galleries and lectures, and writing about her experiences for Perth newspapers.

O’Connor began exhibiting extensively – in the Salons d’ Automne (1911-32), des Independants, and de la Société des Artistes Français. She moved to London in 1914 and exhibited with the International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers in 1915 and the National Portrait Society in 1916, before returning to Paris. In the early 1920s she began working in the decorative arts and fashion, as well as interior design and fabric painting. In 1926 she returned to Australia, working briefly for David Jones and Grace Brothers department stores, producing hand-painted plates and fabrics. After a solo exhibition in Perth, O’Connor returned to France in 1927. She kept working, and exhibiting regularly – in 1934 at la Société Internationale des Femmes Peintres et Sculpteurs, and Exposition des Femmes Artistes d’Europe, Musée du Jeu de Paume and Galéries J. Allard in 1937. She left Paris in 1940 just as the Germans were arriving, and spent the remainder of World War II in Britain.

Returning to Paris after the War, she found her Paris studio expropriated. After exhibiting in Nice in 1948, she returned to Fremantle with 200 pictures, which were impounded, subject to 20% import tax. She was forced to destroy 150 pictures and pay the tax on the rest, despite being an Australian citizen and not liable. She exhibited in 1948 at the Art Gallery of Western Australia, and at Perth’s Claude Hotchin Gallery in 1949 and 1950. After another trip to Paris, she settled reluctantly in Western Australia in 1955. O’Connor won the Western Australian section of the Perth Prize Competition in 1958 and the B.P. prize, Commonwealth Games art competition in 1962, and the Art Gallery of Western Australia held a retrospective in 1967. O’Connor died in Perth in 1968. Since she had refused to be buried there, her ashes were scattered in the sea.

Dianne Airey (Liberal Party of Australia) was a member of the Legislative Council of the Parliament of Western Australia between February and May 1993, when Parliament did not sit. She was not sworn in.

Valma Ferguson (Australian Labor Party) was a Member of the Legislative Council of Western Australia between 1993 and 1997.

Miriam Stannage was born in Northam, Western Australia, in 1939, and was a painter, photographer and printmaker. She travelled to Europe and the USA in the early 1960s, returning to Perth influenced by ‘new developments in geographical abstraction’. Stannage studied with William Boissevain 1963-64, then with Henry Froudist 1965-68, as well as at Claremont Technical College, Perth. Extensive travels in the Australian bush are evident in her work, which also often uses text in order enhance her particular form of social commentary. Stannage’s first solo exhibition was in 1969 at the Old Fire Station Gallery, Perth, and she was exhibited in major galleries across Australia. Her work is held in the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.

Her final exhibition ‘Miriam Stannage: Survey 2006 – 2016’ was underway at the University of Western Australia’s Lawrence Wilson Gallery at the time of her death.

Louisa Clifton was born in London in 1814 to Marshall Waller Clifton and his wife Elinor (Bell); she was the third of their fifteen children. Her father was descended from an aristocratic Nottingham family, and her mother Elinor was a Quaker. Louisa grew up in London, then Boulogne (France). In 1841 she travelled with her parents and several siblings to help found Australind, a new colony in the south-west corner of Western Australia. Marshall Waller Clifton was part of a company that had been formed in order to buy a tract of land on the West Australian coast, sub-divide it into allotments, and establish a new town, of which he would be the Chief Commissioner.

Louisa Clifton kept a diary (1840-41) in which she described the family’s departure from Capecure, France , the voyage on the “Parkfield”, and the settlement in Western Australia. As Lucy Frost noted, ‘to read the Australian section of the journal is to watch an orderly English gentlewoman learn to live with confusion.’ Louisa Clifton also sketched and painted, and the few works of hers that survive are a valuable historical record of the early colonial settlement in Western Australia. Her sisters Mary and Elinor also painted, and their brother William was a photographer.

On 1 June, 1842, Louisa Clifton married George Eliot, who was Government Resident for the district of Bunbury, where the couple then lived at Bury Hill. The Western Australian Company that Louisa’s father was so heavily involved in ceased operations in 1843. Its assets were liquidated, and Australind became a ghost town. The Eliots moved to Geraldton in 1870, where George took up a post as Registered Magistrate. Louisa died there in 1880.

Portia Bennett was born in Sydney in 1898. In 1913-14 she attended classes under Dattilo Rubbo at the Royal Art Society of New South Wales, then won a scholarship to Julian Ashton’s Sydney Art School, where she studied at night between 1915-1919. During the day she attended the Blackfriars Teachers College, where she taught art from 1921-5. In 1925 she married William Wallace and moved to Queensland and then, in 1932, came to Perth, Western Australia. Bennett helped found the Perth Society of Artists, working with Muriel Southern, Florence Hall and Margaret Johnson to establish a place for women artists in Western Australia.

Bennett’s preference for architecture over painting as a career is reflected in her fascination with the city and modern recently constructed buildings, and she painted many watercolour studies of the architecture around Perth. This was also in keeping with a Modernist aesthetic – the city as centre for commerce, leisure and display – and a concomitant rejection of traditional pastoral landscapes as subjects for study. Bennett also used conventions of perspective but chose unusual vantage points, which allowed the foregrounding of certain objects which added an abstract quality to works that were highly realistic. As Dr. Sally Quin, curator of the Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery, observed, “Portia Bennett claims a unique place as observer and interpreter of the city.” Bennett died in Perth in 1989, aged 91.

Kay Hallahan was the first woman to sit in both houses of Western Australian Parliament. An Australian Labor Party member she was elected to the Legislative Council of Western Australia on 19 February 1983. She served until 13 January 1993. She switched to the Legislative Assembly when she was elected 6 February 1993, serving until 14 December 1996.

Elise Blumann was an important figure in the Perth, Western Australian, art world.

Carolyn Burton was an Australian Labor Party candidate for the Western Australian Legislative Council. She was elected to the thirty-eighth Parliament of Western Australia for the North Metropolitan Region on 17 September 2008 to fill a vacancy upon the resignation of Hon Graham Giffard on 11 August 2008. She retired 21 May 2009.

Shelley Eaton is an Australian Labor Party candidate elected to the Legislative Council of the Thirty-Eighth Parliament of Western Australia for Mining and Pastoral Region on 17 September 2008, to fill a vacancy upon the resignation of Hon Vincent Catania on 12 August 2008. She retired on 21 May 2009.

Iris Francis was born in Fremantle, Western Australia, in 1913, into a family with a long history of involvement in the arts. Her grandfather and father (who died when Iris was a week old) had sketched and carved, and her aunt, Pansy Francis, was an accomplished woodcarver. Iris studied at Perth Technical College, gaining a diploma in commercial art, after which she worked at Gibbney & Sons, a commercial art firm. In 1935 she was offered a permanent position at Perth Technical College, where she taught for twelve years until marrying Thomas Wilkinson. During World War II, Francis made topographical maps from aerial photographs for the army. She was also an accomplished cellist.

Francis was a member of the Perth Society of Artists, the West Australian Women’s Society of Fine Arts and Crafts, and the Studio Club, a group of six or seven women who met weekly to paint together and constructively critique each others’ work. They also exhibited together regularly, and Francis’s first exhibition was at the Newspaper House Gallery, Perth, in 1934. She worked in a variety of media, including oils, watercolour, ceramics, and linocuts. Melissa Harpley described her as ‘a fearless experimenter with technique and medium, subject-matter and modes of representation’, noting that ‘her clear graphic style was strengthened by her work as a commercial artist, as well as her ongoing experiments with the language of modernism.’ Iris Francis died in Perth on June 2, 2004.

Adele Farina is a member of the Australian Labor Party who was elected to the Legislative Council of the Thirty-sixth Parliament of Western Australia for South West Region on 10 February 2001. She was re-elected in 2005 (for term commencing 22 May 2005), and then again on 6 September 2008 for term commencing 22 May 2009.

Alyssa Hayden was elected the Liberal Party member to the Legislative Council of the Thirty-eighth Parliament of Western Australia for the East Metropolitan Region on 6 September 2008 for term commencing 22 May 2009.

Robyn McSweeney was elected to the Legislative Council of the Thirty-sixth Parliament of Western Australia for as the Liberal member for the South West Region on 10 February 2001. She was re-elected in 2005 (for term commencing 22 May 2005) and again on 6 September 2008 for term commencing 22 May 2009. She has held the following portfolios: Minister for Child Protection; Community Services; Seniors and Volunteering: 23 September 2008 – present (November 2009)  and the Minister for Women’s Interests: 9 February 2009 – present (November 2009).

Michelle Roberts was elected to the Thirty-Fourth Parliament of Western Australia as the Australian Labor Party member for the Legislative Assembly seat of Glendalough at the by-election held on 19 March 1994 to fill the vacancy consequent upon the resignation of Dr Carmen Mary Lawrence. The electorate was abolished in the redistribution of 1994.  She was elected to the Thirty-Fifth Parliament for Midland (new seat) on 14 December 1996 and subsequently re-elected in 2001, 2005 and 2008.

Alison Xamon was elected to the Legislative Council of the Thirty-eighth Parliament of Western Australia as Greens member for the East Metropolitan Region on 6 September 2008 for term commencing 22 May 2009.

Wendy Duncan is a National Party of Australia candidate who was elected to the Legislative Council of the Thirty-Seventh Parliament of Western Australia for Agricultural Region on 29 January 2008 to fill vacancy upon resignation of Hon Murray Criddle. She was re-elected 6 September 2008 for term commencing 22 May 2009. She has served Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Regional Development and Lands, and Minister Assisting the Minister for State Development as well as Minister Assisting on Country Transport.

Sue Ellery, a current (2009) Western Australian Parliamentarian, has served since 2001 in the Legislative Council for the Australian Labor Party.

Legislative Council, Liberal Party of Australia. Donna Faragher is a Liberal party of Australia candidate elected to the Legislative Council of the Thirty-seventh Parliament of Western Australia for East Metropolitan Region on 26 February 2005 (for term commencing 22 May 2005). She was re-elected 6 September 2008 for term commencing 22 May 2009. She has held the portfolios of Minister for the Environment and Minister for Youth from 23 September 2008 till the present November 2009).

Judy Hughes was elected to the Thirty-seventh Parliament of Western Australia as the Australian Labor Party member for the Legislative Assembly seat of Kingsley, succeeding Cheryl Lynn Edwardes, who retired. She contested the same seat at the general election of 6 September 2008 for Kingsley and was succeeded by Ms Andrea Ruth Mitchell for the Liberal Party.

Muriel Patterson was elected to the Thirty-third Parliament of Western Australia as the Liberal party member of the Legislative Council for South West Region on 4 February 1989 for term commencing 22 May 1989. She was re-elected 1993, and 1996 (for term commencing 22 May 1997). She retired 21 May 2001.

Jaye Radisich was elected to the Thirty-sixth Parliament of Western Australia as the Australian Labor Party member for the Legislative Assembly seat of Swan Hills on 10 February 2001 in succession to June Dorothy van de Klashorst (defeated). She was re-elected in 2005, but did not contest the general election of 6 September 2008.

Barbara Scott was elected to the Thirty-fourth Parliament of Western Australia as the Liberal Party member of the Legislative Council for South Metropolitan Region on 6 February 1993 for term commencing 22 May 1993. She was re-elected in 1996, 2001 and 2005 (for term commencing 22 May 2005). She retired 21 May 2009.

Dr Hilda Margaret Turnbull was a National Party of Australia member of the Western Australian Legislative Assembly. She was elected to the Thirty-third Parliament of Western Australia for Collie on 4 February 1989, in succession to Thomas Henry Jones (retired). She was re-elected 1993 and 1996 and was defeated 10 February 2001.

Diana Warnock was elected as an Australian Labor Party member for Perth to Legislative Assembly of the 34th Parliament of Western Australia, Australian Labor Party on 6 February 1993,  in succession to Ian Christopher Alexander (retired). She was re-elected 1996 but did not contest general election 10 February 2001.

Mia Davies is a National Party of Australia member elected to the Thirty-eighth Parliament of Western Australia for the Agricultural Region in the Legislative Council on 6 September 2008 for term commencing 22 May 2009.