The Australian Women's Register

Esma Banner was born by 01 January 1910. She left school at age 14 to look after her sick mother and attended a business college for one year in 1926. Ms Banner then started working as a shorthand writer and typist for a business and was promoted to the position of secretary to the Director; she worked there for thirteen years. When her mother died in 1940 she went back home to assist her father in his haulage business and also worked for a Sydney solicitor. Ms Banner started work with United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) in 1944 in its Sydney office. From 15th to 20th February she attended the 7th meeting of the Committee of the Council for the Far East at Lapstone Hotel, Glenbrook, NSW. She then worked in the Melbourne office of UNRRA for a period of three months. Whilst there she was selected to work in Germany with the International Refugee Organisation (IRO) and left Sydney for London on 28 June 1945. Ms Banner’s position as Area Employment Officer took her to many towns such as Munich, Nellingen, Ludwigsburg, Pforzbeim and Traunstein. Her final position in Germany was in a Displaced Persons’ Camp in Pforzheim and this brought her home in 1951. A few years later Ms Banner studied at the University of Sydney for a Diploma Course in Social Work and was accepted. On completion of her course she worked for the Department of Social Security for a period of eighteen years and then retired.