The Australian Women's Register

Dr Mildred Mocatta, a diagnostician, conducted a practice in Adelaide.

Anne Stanton was born in Adelaide and educated at the St Peter’s Girls’ School. On leaving school she attended the Conservatorium of Music and then joined the School of Social Studies. Her first job was with the Probation Branch of the Sheriff’s Gaols and Prisons Department. Stanton later became a senior social worker for the Crippled Children’s Association. As Vice-President of the Muscular Dystrophy Association she completed many country visits and with Adelaide Legacy she helped set up holiday camps for children. Stanton was involved with the National Trust, Friends of the Gallery, opera, theatre and the Lyceum Club. On 6 June 1978 Stanton was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australian for her work with crippled children.

Patience Howard moved around a lot during her childhood. As a small child, she lived in Central South Australia at Bungaree. She was educated at Miss Dow’s boarding school at Glenelg, 1912 at “The Hermitage” in Victoria, and from 1914 at Frensham’s Girls’ school in New South Wales. Later she attended Bedford College in London to study history. During the 1920s she went to an International Students’ conference in Prague before returning to Adelaide in 1924. Howard became a teacher at Woodlands and then Girton Girls’ School in Adelaide. Here she met Mabel Hardy and together they established the Stawell School at Mt Lofty. In 1928 she married Roy Howard. Following his death she and her children moved to Bungaree and then Kensington Park. A member of the Lyceum Club and the Labor Party she also spent time working with meals on wheels.

Roxy Byrne was born in South Australia in 1912 and attended school in Adelaide. From 1922 to 1929 she attended the Methodist Ladies College (now Annesley College) where she developed her love of the theatre, as well as her skill in hockey. An excellent student (she was dux of the school in her final year) she went on to complete a Bachelor of Arts at Adelaide University in 1933, majoring in Botany and French. After graduation she joined the Adelaide Repertory Theatre, becoming a leading actress who played a variety of outstanding roles for a period of 40 years. She was active in a number of women’s organisations, including the Lyceum Club of Adelaide. She married Dr. Dudley Byrne in 1940 and had three children.

Dr Marjorie Casley-Smith was educated at the Methodist Ladies’ College (now Annesley College in Adelaide). Upon finishing she spent two years at home learning music and the domestic arts before studying medicine. Following graduation, in 1927, she went to the Royal Adelaide Hospital as House Surgeon under Dr Sleeman. She completed obstetrics at Adelaide’s Queen Victoria Hospital. In 1930 she married Roy Frisby Smith, a lawyer. After her husband’s death, in 1938, she returned to work at the School Medical Health Service. Casley-Smith became Vice President of the National Council of Women of South Australia. She became convenor of Health for SA and Australian Convenor of Health. Dr Casley-Smith started the Marriage Guidance Council, was active in the Asthma Association, and the Mental Health Association. She was involved with music and was an early member of the Lyceum Club.

Aileen Bond, born Aileen Ingelby in 1898, was educated at St Peter’s Girls’ School and studied law at Adelaide University and was one of Adelaide’s earliest practising female solictors. She joined the Lyceum Club when it formed in 1922. In 1924 she married John Leslie Bond, a minister, and they moved around South Australia. During World War II her husband enlisted and went to New Guinea and she and the four children lived at Brighton, in Adelaide. After the war they lived at Clare and Victor Harbour. Her husband was given an administrative job and became in turn an Archdeacon and then a Canon. Following his death, Levy moved to Toorak Gardens, an eastern suburb of Adelaide.

Gwen McCarthy was born Gwendolen Helen Ure in Norwood in 1901. She was educated at Methodist Ladies College (now Annesley College) and studied law at Adelaide University, where, in 1923, she was awarded the prestigious Stow prize and medal, styled Stow Scholar because she won three prizes in her annual examinations that year. Gwendolen Ure was the first female Stow Scholar.

She joined the Lyceum Club in Adelaide in 1923 and was president 1967-1969. She married James McCarthy in 1927 and they set up a law practice in Kadina. Here she was involved in the Girl Guides. On her husband’s death McCarthy returned to Adelaide and joined the firm of Thompson, Cleland, Holland and McCarthy.

Kemeri Murray attended Adelaide University, graduating in 1953 in Law and 1954 in Arts. She studied piano under Raymond O’Connell while doing articles at Vaughan, Porter and English, a well known South Australian Law firm. After being admitted to the Bar of the Supreme Court of South Australia she transferred to Brian Magarey and was offered a partnership, making her the first married woman to be offered a partnership in South Australia. In 1973 she was offered a position on the Bench with the District Court of South Australia, thus becoming the second woman judge in South Australia. A member of the Flinders University Council, in 1978 she was appointed to the Advisory Council for Inter-Government Relations.

Mary Lee became secretary of the Women’s Suffrage League of South Australia in 1888. She served with the Female Refuge ladies’ committee, the Distressed Women’s and Children’s Committee and the Adelaide Sick Poor Fund, and was secretary of the Working Women’s Trades Union.

Veronica Brodie (née Wilson) was born at the Point McLeay Mission. She moved to the Port Adelaide area in 1971, an area to which her grandmother’s had links. For a time Brodie worked with the local Aboriginal Community including an Aboriginal Friendship Club for parents and children at the Port Adelaide Central Methodist Mission. She has been involved with the development of the regional Aboriginal Co-ordinating Committee; Kura Yerlo, the Aboriginal Centre in Largs Bay and the Nunga Miminis Women’s Shelter.

Born at Point Pass in 1901, Jessie March was educated at Adelaide High School and Teachers Training College. She joined the New Britain Methodist Mission in 1925, becoming principal of Vunairima Girls School in 1939. In 1940 she was a governess at Brachina Station in the Flinders Ranges. She was also a Croker Island Methodist Mission teacher in 1941 before being evacuated in 1942. After the war she taught in state government schools before returning to New Britain in 1967. She moved to Papua New Guinea’s eastern highlands in 1971 to translate bibles. Her life and work have been commemorated by the Jessie March Library at George Brown High School, New Britain.

The daughter of Edward and Amy (née Thiselton) Dolling, Alison Dolling was born in St Peters and grew up in Tranmere, South Australia. She was educated at Ellerslie College, Tranmere, and Methodist Ladies College, Wayville, before studying at the universities of Adelaide, Washington, Seattle, Berkeley and King’s College, London. Returning to Australia she taught in both South Australia and New South Wales, including ex-servicemen after World War II. Dolling joined the Chronicle newspaper as the editor of the Women’s Pages and was unemployed after the Chronicle closed down. Her publications include Chronicle cameos and a district history of Marion. She completed research on John Harvey and the Spoehr family, as well as being involved with family history and German ancestry. She also worked on the book South Australian Women Artists by Shirley Cameron Wilson. Dolling’s special interests included Australian history, especially early architecture, literature and art.

Lorna Esme Adams, née Eames, was born in Torrensville, South Australia. She trained at the Adelaide Teachers’ College and met her future husband after taking up her second teaching post at Black Hill in 1942. In 1945 they began dairy farming at Black Hill, moving to Paracombe three years later. After their infant son died of cystic fibrosis and their older boy was also diagnosed, they decided to settle at Ponde for the drier climate. Their second son died in 1955. Lorna has had three enduring interests; the Girl Guides movement and the Country Women’s Association, both of which she has represented at State level, and the Holstein-Fresian dairy cattle stud that she and her husband developed. Lorna and her husband Jack’s surviving daughter has had nine children.

The inaugural meeting of the Catholic Women’s League in Australia took place in Adelaide, South Australia on 25 October 1914. Based on the British model, the aim was to centralise the activities of various Catholic women’s societies and give public expression to Catholic thought on vital questions. Its founder, Miss Betty Leworthy became the first secretary, with Mrs Abigail McMahon Glynn president. Whilst in London in 1916 Glynn received permission to use the British Catholic Women’s League badge. Australian members devised their motto as ‘Charity, Work, Loyalty’ and expressed the intention ‘to unite Catholic women in a bond of common fellowship for the promotion of religious and intellectual interests and social work’. One of its major projects was to establish the St Mary’s Hostel in 1916, which continued until 1972. From 1975 the Catholic Women’s League Child Care Centre operated from the Hostel site at 178 East Terrace.

Jessie Goodes, née Tate, was born in Salisbury, South Australia. She attended St Peters Girls’ College and married in 1939. Experience working in her husband’s St Morris delicatessen meant that she was able to gain employment in a Salisbury grocery shop when she was widowed with three children. Jessie attended a local meeting arranged by the Apex Club in 1958 to form a South Australian branch of the Civilian Widows Association, and was elected President – first of the local sub-branch, and in 1959 of the state branch. Two weeks later she was in Sydney for the formation of the national body.

Christobel Oldfield, née McInnes, was born at Millicent, South Australia and grew up on a farm west of Lucindale. She began her education by correspondence and then attended local schools before finishing at Scotch College in Adelaide. She married in 1977 and had two daughters. Chris did further studies part-time and in 1985 breached the male bastion of the Greenways branch of the United Farmers and Stockowners to gain insight into issues she was studying in Psychology. She became politically conscious as a child when her parents were involved in a legal dispute over drainage rates, but assisting in her mother’s Lucindale shop gave Chris a wider understanding of the impact on families of the rural crisis. In July 1993 Chris and five other women formed Rural Women for Justice to educate outsiders and set up legal aid and mediation services.

Christobel was a 1994 nominee from South Australia for ABC Rural Woman of the Year

Diana Penniment, née Thomas, was born in Adelaide, South Australia. She attended Methodist Ladies College for her secondary education. Her family could not support further studies, so she worked in a bank until her marriage in 1956, when she moved with her husband into a two room cottage on his father’s property at Wirrega, near Bordertown. They had four children as the children grew up Diana became involved in public affairs, from school activities and craft groups to helping form a local branch of the Women’s Agricultural Bureau (WAB). Diana rose to State President of WAB in 1986. Highlights of her term included organising two international conferences. Diana also sat on the South Australian Rural Advisory Council. In 1991 she decided to focus on local issues and stood for the Tatiara District Council.

Kathleen Russell was born at Mount Gambier, South Australia. She came to Adelaide to live in 1936. Following the death of her husband in the late 1960s she became active in the Housewives Association and was Vice-President for a time. She died in Adelaide in 2005 at the age of 94.

Andi Sebastian has a diverse work background including having established the Women’s Information Service, been General Manager of the AIDS Council of South Australia, Manager of the Disability Complaints Service and Equity and Diversity Consultant at the University of Adelaide.

She now runs an independent business specialising in the management of diverse workgroups and interpersonal complaints in the workplace. She has two degrees from Flinders University, a Masters degree in Primary Health Care and a Bachelor of Arts (Hons).

She can be contacted via her business email address: andi.sebastian@d-q.biz

The Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement Inc (ALRM) is a not for profit organisation that provides legal service to Aboriginal people and their communities. Established in 1971, and incorporated in 1973, it exists to get social justice for Aboriginal people and their communities.

Elizabeth Furner (formerly Laurenson and Guy) was born in London, England. Her parents separated when she was a child. Elizabeth married a soldier in 1941 and they emigrated to Australia in 1952 with their four year old son. They came to Adelaide, via Tasmania and Sydney, in 1961. It was at this time that Elizabeth began taking an interest in both writing and local government, stimulated by her disgust with discriminatory franchise laws. She joined the Australian Local Government Women’s Association, rising quickly to President of the South Australian Branch, and did much public speaking as well as standing for council in North Brighton. In the early 1970s Elizabeth founded the Brighton Writers’ Workshop from which the South Australian Branch of the Society of Women Writers was formed.

Irene Jeffreys was born in London, England. She migrated to Australia in 1922 with her parents. Determined from the age of 12 to be an accountant, Irene attended Adelaide Technical High school. She went to work at the age of 16 but studied for the Federal Institute of Accountants diploma at night at the School of Mines. In 1942 she was the first South Australian woman to qualify by examination for the Institute of Chartered Accountants. Irene’s accountancy practice and personal interests included much involvement in the Church of England, particularly the Church Missionary Society and the General Synod, where she pioneered the involvement of South Australian women. Irene supported the movement for the ordination of women and is herself licensed as a lay preacher. For many years she was involved with the National Council of Women. On 3 June 1978 Irene Jeffreys was appointed an Officer to the Order of the British Empire for service to the church, women, children and the aged.

Maria Elizabeth Jacob (née Auricht) was born 10 May 1841 in Klemzig, South Australia. She married Wilhelm G. Irrgang on 4 September 1862, who died in 1872. She then married Ernest Jacob on 24 May 1878. She worked with Aboriginal people at Bethesda Mission Station and died on 13 October 1924.

Anna Maria Vogelsang (née Auricht), was born 3 September 1855 at Langmeil (Tanunda). She wanted to become a missionary and in 1877 met Hermann Heinrich Vogelsang who was a missionary at Bethesda Mission Station. She worked at Bethesda and Kopperamanna Missions. Her husband died in 1913 and she later moved to Lowbank to be with her children. She died on 12 October 1945.

Alison Gent, née Hogben, was born at Rose Park, Adelaide and brought up by her widowed working mother. She attended Walford School and went on to gain an MA at Adelaide University. She married an Anglican priest in 1947 and they had five children. In 1970, Alison returned to part-time tutoring and saw publicity about the proposed Women’s Liberation Movement, and she became heavily involved in its activities. In 1980, the year that Alison and her husband separated, she began a discussion group about the ordination of women, her interest stemming in part from her personal frustration. She became involved in the Movement for the Ordination of Women, which began in Adelaide in 1984. She remains a committed Christian and feminist.

Barbara Hardy, née Begg, was born at Largs Bay, Adelaide. She attended Woodlands Girls’ School and began a science degree at Adelaide University aged 16. She married Tom Hardy in 1948. During the 1950s and 60s family and sport were Barbara’s chief interests, however camping holidays also awakened her concern for the environment. In 1972 she began voluntary work with the Conservation Council and in 1974 started a degree in earth sciences at Flinders University. With growing expertise as a lobbyist, Barbara assisted David Wotton, Shadow and then Minister for the Environment in the late 70s and early 80s. Her husband died in 1980. Barbara resigned from the Liberal Party so that her activism could be non-party based, and since then has applied her ‘patience, persistence and perspiration’ to many organisations and issues, including the Australian Heritage Commission, Landcare, the National Parks Foundation and the Science and Technology Centre.

Lenore Bishop, née Wilson, was born in Mount Gambier, South Australia where her father was a butcher. After finishing high school she began working, first as a legal secretary, then as a journalist, and then with her husband in a hardware business. Lenore became heavily involved in community work during her three children’s school years. Following the retirement of Mount Gambier’s first woman councillor in 1959, Lenore was asked to stand. She was re-elected two years later unopposed. At this time she was one of very few women in local government. In 1964 Lenore nominated for mayor and was unopposed, becoming the first woman mayor in South Australia. Lenore retired from council in 1967 but returned as the region’s first woman alderman in 1972.