The Australian Women's Register

Darriea Turley is chair of the National Rural Women’s Coalition and a member of the Premier’s Council for Women. Darriea was the first HIV/AIDS worker in the Broken Hill region. Elected to local government in 1995, she has served on numerous local and state government boards and ran for mayor in Broken Hill in 2004. In 2008, she was nominated for New South Wales Woman of the Year. Darriea currently works as Community Engagement Manager for the Greater Western Area Health Service.

Between 1889 and 1920 miners at Broken Hill took part in four major strikes, always with the strong support of Broken Hill women. In 2001, a memorial was erected in the centre of the city to acknowledge the role of women in the development of the city and particularly in the resolution of industrial disputes.

The Broken Hill Munitions Annexe opened in 1942 for the manufacture of wartime munitions and employed dozens of Broken Hill women.

For over fifty years, union policy in Broken Hill prohibited married women from taking on paid employment unless they were professionally trained. Clerical and retail positions were to be kept open for young unmarried women or widows.

A member of the Australian Labor Party, Jeannette McHugh was elected to the House of Representatives in the Australian Parliament as the Member for Phillip, New South Wales in 1983. When the seat of Phillip was abolished, she was elected to the seat of Grayndler at the 1993 election. She retired at the 1996 election. During her parliamentary career she held the Ministerial portfolio of Consumer Affairs from 1992-1996.

A member of the Australian Labor Party, Carolyn Jakobsen was elected to the seat of Cowan, Western Australia in the House of Representatives of the Australian Parliament in 1984. She held the seat until she was defeated at the 1993 election. In 1990 she was elected chair of the Federal Parliamentary Labor Party (caucus), the first woman to occupy this position.

A member of the Australian Labor Party, Mary Crawford was elected to the House of Representatives of the Australian Parliament as the Member for Forde, Queensland, at the 1987 federal election. In 1994 she was appointed Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Housing and Regional Development in the Keating Government and held that position until her defeat at the 1996 election.

Margot White was born and raised in Broken Hill, New South Wales, where she worked as a comptometrist and as a clerk. Margot is a dedicated member of the Broken Hill Family History Group and does other voluntary work in the community.

Christine Landorf is an architect and academic who grew up in Broken Hill. With David Manfredi, she designed the Visitors’ Centre there and three of her students – Angus Barron, Steve Kelly and Dario Palumbo – designed the Broken Hill Miners’ Memorial. Together, the Memorial and the Visitors’ Centre received the Royal Australian Institute of Architects’ Walter Burley Griffin Award for Urban Design.

Local historian Christine Adams was born and raised in Broken Hill, New South Wales. After living in South Australia and Queensland, she returned to Broken Hill with her husband Paul in 2003.

Heather Powell was the first female union secretary in Broken Hill, serving with the Clerks’ Union for 23 years from 1977. In 1994 she was elected to the Barrier Industrial Council (BIC) executive. Heather retired in 2001.

A member of the Barkandji people, Muriel Riley is an artist and resident of Broken Hill.

A member of the Barkandji people, Fiona Bates is an artist, tour guide, and member of the Broken Hill Aboriginal Justice Group.

Pam Lord moved to Thackaringa Station in outback New South Wales with her husband John in 1948. Conducting regular hospital visits since 1965, she has offered more than forty years of continuous service to the Flying Doctors auxiliary in Broken Hill.

Sister Mary Ita was one of the first six nuns to form the Sisters of Mercy at Broken Hill, New South Wales.

Beryl Carmichael is an elder of the Ngiyaempaa people and has served on the National Parks and Wildlife Advisory Council, the Western Lands Advisory Council, and the New South Wales Reconciliation Council. She lives in Menindee in far western New South Wales.

Lusitania Browne, born in Portugal, married Dr Solomon Caspersonn in 1846. They moved to Australia and lived in Brighton, Victoria, between 1850-1857. The family moved to Albury 1857. Lusitania became a pharmacist and was quite possibly the second woman to work as one in New South Wales.

Nydia Edes was the first female Alderman on the Broken Hill City Council and a recipient of the Queen’s Silver Jubilee Medal who worked tirelessly throughout her life for the improvement of women’s conditions.

Described as ‘a tall, angular, brusque, energetic woman, prone to bad language’. Lilian Cooper completed her medical training, despite opposition from her parents, at the London School of Medicine for Women in 1890. She travelled to Australia in 1891, settling in Brisbane, Queensland, where she became the first female doctor registered in Queensland. Some years later, she travelled back to Europe, via the United States. She received a doctorate of medicine from the University of Durham in June 1912.

Cooper settled again in Brisbane after the end of the Great War and established a large and successful practice. In 1926 she bought a house called Old St Mary’s in Main Street, Kangaroo Point, Brisbane and settled there in semi-retirement, becoming a foundation fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons in 1928. She retired in 1941 and died in her home on 18 August 1947.

Internationally acclaimed soprano opera singer June Bronhill chose her stage name in recognition of her birthplace, Broken Hill.

Katie Maxwell arrived in Broken Hill, New South Wales, in 1961. She is the owner of a small business, Irene’s South Drapery, and was named Broken Hill Businesswoman of the Year in 2003. Katie is an active member of the Australian Red Cross and the Broken Hill Migrant Heritage Committee.

Maria Petkovich arrived in Broken Hill, New South Wales, in 1961. With her husband, Petar, she owns and runs South Dry Cleaners and Wilson’s Dry Cleaners in Broken Hill, New South Wales. Maria is a volunteer with the Australian Red Cross.

Barbara De Franceschi was awarded the OAM for services to the Broken Hill migrant community. She has two published poetry anthologies.

Phyllis Gibb was the first teacher at the School of the Air in Broken Hill, New South Wales.

Tess Alfonsi was the first woman miner in Broken Hill, New South Wales.

Barbara Blackman is an author, music-lover, essayist, librettist, letter writer and patron of the Arts. Former wife of Charles Blackman, she worked for many years as an artist’s model. She has conducted countless interviews for the National Library of Australia’s oral history program. In 2006, Blackman was presented with the Australian Contemporary Music 2006 Award for Patronage.

Shirley Stott Despoja was the first woman to be employed in the general news room at the Adelaide Advertiser. She was that paper’s first ever Arts Editor, appointed at a time when the arts were of enormous political and economic significance in South Australia. She brought the arts to the front pages of the newspaper in a manner that had not been achieved before.

In 2010, Shirley Stott Despoja was the inaugural winner of the Mary MacKillop Award at the twentieth annual Catholic Archbishop’s Media Citations. She was nominated for her regular column, The Third Age, published in The Adelaide Review.

According to Archbishop Wilson who presented the award, it was a pleasure to honour such an esteemed writer and champion of equality and social justice.

“Mary MacKillop herself was a great correspondent and also challenged the social norms of the day,” he said.

“Ms Stott Despoja’s efforts to break the stereotypes of ageing and challenge her peers to be feisty and opinionated would undoubtedly be applauded by Mary.”

Stott Despoja also won a United Nations Association of Australia Media Peace Award in 2010 for the same column, for excellence in the promotion of positive images of the older person.

Shirley Stott Despoja was inducted into the Hall of Fame at the May 2013 South Australian Media Awards, honoured by her peers for an outstanding contribution to the South Australian media. In 2017 she was awarded on Australia Day with an OAM, ‘for services as a journalist to print media’, a citation to bury the lede, if ever there was one. In November 2018 she was inducted into the Australian Media Hall of Fame.

Shirley Stott Despoja is variously described as ‘an inspiration’, ‘a pioneer’, ‘gutsy’, ‘an arts editor who changed the city’ (Adelaide) and ‘a great lady of a great age of print’. But above all, Stott Despoja is best known as a journalist for being ‘principled’.