The Australian Women's Register

Carmel Bird’s first collection of short stories was published in 1976. Since this time she has produced novels, essays, anthologies, children’s books and also guides for writers. In the 1980s and 1990s she worked as a literary editor for Fine Lines, Australasian Post and other literary journals.

Carmel graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Tasmania and, after obtaining her teaching diploma, worked for a time as a teacher.

Doris Chadwick was born in 1899 to parents Sheldon Western Chadwick and his wife Annie. Her father was a former editor of the Daily Examiner and the Newcastle Morning Herald.

Doris held a Bachelor of Arts degree and originally trained to be a secondary teacher, however she relinquished those duties to undertake journalistic work for the New South Wales Education Department. Doris was the assistant editor of the Department’s School Magazine from July 1924 to 1948 and editor from 1949 to 1962.

Barbara Bee was a TAFE vocational education teacher for over thirty years and an adult literacy teacher at the Sydney Institute of Technology.

Violet Ida Chomley was born in 1870 to parents William Downes Chomley and Sarah Simmonds (Cooper). Violet attended the Presbyterian Ladies’ College and afterwards studied at the University of Melbourne, receiving a Bachelors degree in mathematics in 1890 and a Masters degree in 1893. After graduation Violet was employed as a secondary school teacher.

In 1902 Violet left Australia and travelled overseas for approximately six months. She settled in England in mid-1903 and began teaching soon after, first at the Christ’s Hospital Girls’ School and then at the Bedford High School. In 1921 Violet took up a position as a full-time secretary and in 1936 she was elected to the Bedford Town Council. Violet Chomley passed away in Bedford on March 26, 1957.

Becky Llewellyn migrated to Australia in 1969. She has worked as a special education teacher, a disability access consultant and as a composer. Becky’s composing career began in the mid-1980s. She studied at the Adelaide Elder School of Music and in 1991 founded the Composing Women’s Festival in Adelaide.

Feminist playwright, actor, and teacher Sandra Shotlander is a regular feature at Melbourne’s La Mama Theatre, and at Women Playwrights International conferences around the world. She has founded several theatre companies including Mime and Mumbles deaf theatre group, and believes strongly in the importance of women creating their own narrative and telling their own stories.

Actor and teacher Dr Elizabeth Jones has been the Artistic Director of La Mama Theatre since 1976. For 20 year prior she was a teacher of English, History, Drama, and Politics in Australia and Indonesia. She has worked over many years as an advocate for refugees and First Nation’s peoples, and is invested in La Mama being a place of support for minority and independent artists.

Janet Cosh was the only child of Dr John and Louise Cosh (née Calvert). Janet attended the University of Sydney, where she studied English, History and the Classics. She moved to the Southern Highlands in 1934, where she took a keen interest in local history and the natural environment. In her late sixties, Janet devoted her life to the study of the native flora of the Southern Highlands, New South Wales and became a highly respected amateur botanist. After Janet’s death, her bequest to the University of Wollongong provided funds and botanical resources which were used to establish the Janet Cosh Herbarium.

Pat Lahy trained in physical education and established the first formal training course in counselling for people with disabilities in Australia. She was the first woman to hold the position of Dean of Arts at the University of Sydney.

Sister Philippa, as she preferred to be known, took the religious name of Sister Mary Philippa at her Religious Profession to the Congregation of the Sisters of Mercy on 10th January 1918. After graduating from the Teachers’ Training College at Ascot Vale, she became a teacher in several Victorian Schools. In 1928 she transferred from teaching to nursing, completing her training at Mater Misericordiae Hospital, Brisbane. In 1935 she became foundation matron at the Mercy Private Hospital, where she introduced general nurse training.
From 1954 to 1959 she was appointed Provincial of the Sisters of Mercy in Victoria and Tasmania, after which she returned to the Mercy Private Hospital.
In 1979 Sister Philippa was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire for outstanding service to the people of Victoria and beyond, especially in the Health Care Field.
Two years later, on the 1 August, the University of Melbourne awarded Sister the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Laws in recognition of her services to women and family life. She was the first nun to receive the award from the University.

Mary Cramer, a teacher before her marriage to John (later Sir John) Cramer, in January 1922, brought her formidable organising skills to rearing their four children and to her public activities. On the election of her husband as mayor of North Sydney in 1939, she assumed the duties of lady mayoress. Known for her natural sense of humour, she organised a Voluntary Aid Detachment for North Sydney at the beginning of World War II, and also the first group of the Women’s Australian National Service in Sydney and became its first commandant. Her husband later became a founding member of the Liberal Party of Australia and a Minister for the Army from 1956-1963. She was president of the New South Wales division of the Red Cross Society and of the Mater Misericordae Hospital Advisory Board at North Sydney. Despite recurring illness, she maintained her public activities and was appointed as Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire on 12 June 1971 for distinguished public service, which had covered four decades. According to the report in The Sydney Morning Herald on 26 May 1994 on the death of Sir John Cramer, ‘Sir John with his late wife Dame Mary, had left an indelible mark on the lower North Shore’.

For her services to literature, Mary Gilmore was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire on 1 February 1937. The major themes of her work covered nationalism, the spirit of pioneering, motherhood, women’s rights, history, Aboriginal welfare, treatment of prisoners, health and pensions.

Joan Hammond was appointed DBE 1974, CMG 1972, CBE 1963, OBE 1953. She received the Sir Charles Santley award from the Worshipful Company of Musicians, London 1970, ‘Musician of the Year’. In 1988 she was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Green Room Awards Association as well as the Lifetime Achievement Award for Excellence in Recording for the Australasian Sound Recording Association, in 1994.

Lydia Longmore was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (Civil) on 1 January 1957 with the citation ‘Mother’s Clubs in South Australia’. She was best known for her specialised teaching for infants.

In October 1972, two armed men abducted teacher Mary Gibbs and her students. 20-year-old Gibbs was in charge of the one-teacher primary school at Faraday, a farming district near Castlemaine, Victoria. The men left a ransom note and placed their hostages in the back of the van and drove to the forest. To help settle the young children Gibbs pretended the incident was a game and sang songs to them during the long cold night. Near dawn, she realised the men had left the front of the van. She urged the children to kick the van door with her. Luck was with them, the door came free and they were able to make their escape.

After this incident, the then Liberal Victorian Government closed one-teacher schools. Mary Gibbs received the George Medal on 22 January 1973 for bravery during a child hostage incident.

Champion sprinter and hurdler, Shirley Strickland (as she was then known), became the first Australian female to win an Olympic medal in a track and field event at the London Olympic Games in 1948.

Shirley de la Hunty was appointed Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) on 26 January 2001 for service to the community, particularly in the areas of conservation, the environment and local government, and to athletics as an athlete, coach and administrator. She had been appointed a member of the Order of the British Empire (Civil) (MBE) for services to athletics on 1 January 1957.

Daphne Gum, a trained primary school teacher who developed an interest in working with children with disabilities, became the director of the Spastic Centre established by the Crippled Children’s Association of South Australia in 1946 at the Adelaide Children’s Hospital. Following a temporary move to prefabricated classrooms at Kintore Avenue, the centre finally found a permanent and more spacious home in 1951 on the Anzac Highway at Ashford, and was known as the Ashford House for Cerebral Palsy Children.

Daphne Gum was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire in 1960 for her work with children affected by cerebral palsy. She maintained her connection with her old school, the Methodist Ladies College, serving as president of the Old Scholars Association from 1979-1980 and wrote a history entitled A rich tapestry of lives, to celebrate the school’s ninetieth birthday.

During World War II Dorothy Marshall was appointed by the Commonwealth government as South Australian superintendent of the Australian Women’s Land Army. Previously a schoolteacher she assisted with the School Patriotic Fund of South Australia and was foundation secretary of the Women’s War Service. Following the war Marshall became a camp welfare officer with the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA). Following the dissolution of the UNRRA she joined the International Refugee Organisation (IRO) as a welfare officer in the British zone of Germany. For her services to child welfare, Marshall was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire on 5 June 1952. Following her return to Adelaide she was appointed to the Department of Agriculture and initiated a bi-monthly bulletin WAB News.

Marilyn Rowe, the first graduate of the Australian Ballet School to be appointed its director in 1999, was recruited into the Australian Ballet Company in 1965 after completing the course in 1964. She was a principal artist with the Australian Ballet and later became ballet director, deputy artistic director and in 1984 director of the Dancers Company, a post she held until 1990. She has been on the Board of the Australian Ballet since 1994. She has directed and coached many of the leading dancers of the Australian Ballet and has produced and directed major contemporary and classical works. Other positions include that of Life Governor of the Berry St Child and Family Care since 1985. She was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1979 for her services to ballet in Australia.

Marilyn Jones has been described as ‘the greatest classical dancer Australia has produced’. She studied at the London Royal Ballet School and danced with the Royal Ballet from 1957-1958 before joining the Australian Ballet on its formation in 1962. In 1963 she married fellow principal dancer Garth Welch and they had two sons, Stanton and Damien, who also became dancers. She danced with the Australian Ballet until 1978, when she took up the position of artistic director of the Company from 1979 until 1982. In 1991 she founded the Australian Institute of Classical Dance and became its artistic director. Other appointments have included director of the National Theatre Youth Ballet from 1996-1998 and director of the National Theatre Ballet School, Melbourne, from 1995-1998. She was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire on 1 January 1972 for her services to Australian ballet.

Deborah McCulloch was an English teacher and later a lecturer at Salisbury College of Advanced Education. She became involved in the women’s movement in 1971. She was a member of Women’s Electoral Lobby (WEL) when it started in South Australia. She was appointed as the first Women’s Adviser to the Premier of South Australia in 1976 by Don Dunstan.

Sylvia Kinder was active in both the Adelaide Women’s Liberation Movement and the Sydney Women’s Liberation Movement. As a teacher she was involved with the South Australian Institute of Teachers (SAIT) which questioned sexist teaching practices within schools. She helped bring changes in education standards designed to reduce gender discrimination, including the use of non sexist language in school and equal opportunities for girls. Sylvia was a member of the Australian Women’s Education Coalition (South Australian Branch). She was involved in the establishment of the Adelaide Women’s Liberation Movement, Women’s Studies Resource Centre, Adelaide Women’s Liberation Movement Archives and the Hindmarsh Women’s Community Health Centre. She was a member of International Women’s Year National Advisory Committee 1974-1976. She wrote a book about the women’s liberation movement in Adelaide.