The Australian Women's Register

Hilda Dow (nee Grey) was the daughter of police magistrate Charles Grey, and sister of Royal Melbourne Hospital Lady Superintendent Helene Grey, OBE. Hilda Grey became a student of the Victorian College of Pharmacy in 1919. In 1929, she was working at Poynton’s pharmacy in Morwell, when she purchased the pharmacy at Chiltern in Victoria. She was elected to the Pharmaceutical Society of Victoria as a member in 1930 Hilda apprenticed her husband, Roy Dow, and the two ran the pharmacy in Chiltern until 1968, when they closed the doors. In 1988 Mrs Dow donated the pharmacy, which had been operating on the site since 1859, intact to the National Trust, and it is now a museum. Hilda Dow was a foundation member of the North East branch of the National Trust, a member of the hospital committee and board, of the Infant Welfare Centre and the Red Cross, and a member and office bearer of the Chiltern Branch of the County Women’s Association.

Margaret Annie Bignell was the seventh daughter of William and Elizabeth Blyth, of Hobart. She became Victoria’s first registered female pharmacist, and one of the first women pharmacists to conduct her own business in the state, carrying on her husband’s pharmacy in Lygon Street, Carlton, after his death in 1897. She was known for apprenticing women, and was an activist for the recognition of women pharmacists. Two of her daughters entered the profession. She was a subscribing member of the Pharmaceutical Society of Victoria, and a founding member of the Women Pharmacists’ Association, formed in 1905 to promote the interests of women pharmacists.

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.

Lyn Johnson, in partnership with her husband Rob, was a dairy farmer in Gippsland in Victoria. Together they planned and led study tours for dairy farmers to the USA, Canada, the UK and Europe, starting the Tarago River Cheese Company on their return. The successful organisation and activism of American rural women inspired. Lyn’s own active commitment to the movement, and to women at the grass roots level in particular. Her work to have women’s role in agriculture acknowledged, and their voice heard, has included involvement in the organisation of the First International Women in Agriculture Conference, and the Women on Farms Gatherings.

The Knickers Fund was  a philanthropic fund initiated and ultimately administered by the Central Victorian Women in Agriculture Inc. from 1998 to 2006. The fund aimed to give ‘women in tragedy a glimpse of humour and of caring’, from farm women to farm women, to enable them to buy the small, and otherwise impossible, comforts which helped them face the demands of a particularly challenging time, such as economic crisis, or the aftermath of floods after drought.  

The Central Victorian Women in Agriculture group was formed in the aftermath of the First International Women in Agriculture Conference.  Many of its original members had helped to organise the conference, and the organisation aimed to support women of Central Victoria to achieve the goals highlighted by the conference:   to establish a supportive network, stimulate women to recognise and value their skills and abilities, to give women the chance to gain confidence and make a difference in their industry and community, to encourage and provide knowledge and practical skills, and to strengthen Australian agriculture through strong partnerships. The organisation was successful in its aims, its members going on to positions on industry boards, as representatives of state and national organisations, and in local government , and it was wound up in 2006. 

Clare Bishop graduated in catering and hotel management before joining the Department of Immigration in Canberra in 1970, serving in London 1971-74, Edinburgh in 1975-77 and New York 1977-80. After helping organize the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Melbourne in 1981, she was sent to Cologne to process refugees from Poland, and to the Philippines to process spouse applications. From 1984-86 she was First Secretary in the Australian Embassy in Vietnam, then Consul in New York to 1990. From 1993 until her retirement in 2000, she was responsible for overhauling all the Department’s forms.

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.

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

Ada Laura Goodman was the daughter of Canon George Goodman, of Christ Church Geelong, who was an early member of the Anglican Church in Australia, and, together with his wife Margaret, a philanthropic worker. Miss Goodman was Honorary Secretary of the Geelong District Nursing Society from its inception in 1906 until her death in 1931, and also vice-president of the Geelong & Western District Ladies’ Benevolent Society. In the latter capacity she was superintendent of the Austin Cottages for many years. She was a member of the Geelong Church of England Girls’ Grammar School Council, and was organist and Sunday School teacher at Christ Church, where she was involved with all the clubs and societies. Miss Goodman was also Honorary Secretary of the Baby Health Centre from its establishment in Geelong in 1917.

The first Women on Farms Gathering was held in Warragul, Victoria, in 1990. The Gatherings have been held annually in different rural locations across the state since that time, with organisation handed over to an autonomous committee of local women each year. Women from Queensland, Tasmania and New South Wales attended the fifth gathering in Tallangatta in 1993, and the movement spread to Queensland and New South Wales in 1993, and Tasmania in 1994. Held over a weekend, the Gatherings bring together rural women to learn new skills, share stories and, especially in the beginning, to reaffirm their identity as farmers. They were a vital thread in the women in agriculture movement, providing a public collective space for women to build an alternative knowledge about their disadvantaged position in farming, and fostering a political voice.

Judyth Watson was an Australian Labor Party member of the Legislative Assembly of Western Australia.  Elected on 8 February 1986, she served as member for Canning until 4 February 1989, when she was elected member for Kenwick. Watson held this seat until 14 December, 1996.

In her role as an agricultural scientist with the Department of Primary Industries Victoria, Maria Rose was one of the femocrats whose work was vital in both empowering rural women, and supporting initiatives of the Women in Agriculture Movement, particularly the First International Women in Agriculture Conference, for which she was Program Co-ordinator.

The Geelong and Western District Ladies Benevolent Association is a non-sectarian philanthropic organisation, whose aims on formation were to provide emergency relief to the poor, in particular to women, and homes for ‘aged helpless females’.

The demands on their services rose and fell with economic circumstances such as the collapse of the land boom.  The advent of the aged pension, and later the extension of Government welfare, reduced the call on their services in the early – mid-twentieth century. The Association is still in existence, providing assistance during illness and other misfortunes.

Annie Hitchcock, daughter of Wesleyan John Lowe, and wife and mother of Geelong businessmen and philanthropists George and Howard Hitchcock respectively, was a prominent, successful, and influential philanthropist and community worker in her own right.  She was Victoria’s foremost Methodist fundraiser, and led the Geelong and Western District Ladies’ Benevolent Association for forty one years, a period when it  became the leading organisation of its kind in regional Victoria.

Caroline Elizabeth Newcomb ran the early Port Phillip properties Boronggoop, then Coryule, in partnership with Ann Drysdale, from 1840 until after Ann’s death in 1853.  In 1855 she founded and became the inaugural president of the Geelong Ladies Benevolent Society, now Geelong and Western District Ladies Benevolent Society. In 1861 she married the Rev James Dodgson.

Anne Drysdale was a farmer in her own right in Scotland when she migrated to Australia for health reasons. She arrived in Melbourne on the Indus in 1840, and travelled down to Geelong, where she met her future partner Caroline Newcomb at the residence of Dr Alexander Thomson. In October 1840, the two women took up a 10,000 acre lease on the Barwon, known as ‘Boronggoop’, later extending it to Leep Leep. Their sheep run was a success, and in 1843 they obtained the Coryule run at Indented Head, purchasing the freehold in 1848, and subsequently disposing of Boronggoop. Anne Drysdale died at Coryule in 1853, aged 60. The township of Drysdale in Victoria is named for her

The Geelong District Nursing Society (For Nursing the Sick Poor in their own Homes) was founded on 1 February 1907. An initial meeting was convened by Geelong’s Lady Mayoress, Mrs Bostock, in October 1906, which was presided over by the mayor, and a committee formed of volunteer workers. The first nurse, Miss Edwards, was engaged and began work on 31 January 1907. By the mid –twenties, a car had been purchased for the nurses’ use.  The Society was funded by donations, bequests and subscriptions, grants from the Hospitals and Charities Commission, and collections, and received support from the Geelong Hospital. The Society applied to the Ladies’ Benevolent Society when help was needed for a patient, relieved distress where extra nourishment was needed, and distributed parcels donated by Geelong societies to patients at Christmas. Though they deleted the words ‘poor and needy’ from the description of their work in 1960, by 1980 demand for the Society’s services had risen, because of the aging population, the policy of early discharge from hospital, and the desire to nurse the aged and terminally ill in their own homes.

Yvonne Henderson was an Australian Labor Party member of the Legislative Assembly of Western Australia. She was elected on 19 February 1983 and served until 14 December, 1996.

Sheila McHale was a Western Australian parliamentarian (Australian Labor Party) and member of Legislative Assembly from December 1996 – September 2008.

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.

Carrard was a Hungarian-born virtuoso pianist who came to Perth, Western Australia, in 1941 and remained there until her death in 2000. She had studied in Hungary with Béla Bartók, and toured extensively as a concert pianist. In Australia, she had a long involvement with the Australian Broadcasting Commission, and taught a legion of pupils, most famously pianist David Helfgott. She was awarded an MBE in 1976, and lived to the age of 102.

Wilhelmina Scott arrived in Australia with her parents at the age of two, grew up in Carlton and Fitzroy, in Victoria, and attended Presbyterian Ladies’ College. She married Reverend John Mathew on July 6, 1897. After he retired from active church work in 1923, she assisted her husband in the establishment of a home mission station in Moreland, in Melbourne’s northern suburbs, in 1925.

Described as ‘the complete minister’s wife’, she raised five children, supported her husband in his calling and was involved in many community based activities. She was president of the Presbyterian Women’s Missionary Union in Victoria from 1924-1935, serving as a branch president of that organisation for forty-four years. She taught at Moreland Sunday School for eighteen years and was the convenor of the Coburg Chinese School for fifteen years.

Lady Elizabeth Renwick and her husband, physician and politician Sir Arthur Renwick, were prominent in the nineteenth century evangelical reform movement in Sydney, New South Wales. They shared membership and often leadership of many of Sydney’s major charitable institutions, especially those relating to the needs of women and children. Their interests included the Institution for the Deaf, Dumb and Blind, the State Children’s Relief Board, the Children’s Hospital, the Child Studies Association, the Australasian Trained Nurses Association and the Ladies’ Sanitary Society, to name only a few.

Lady Renwick’s charitable and evangelical work was undertaken through her involvement in the Sydney Female Mission Home, the Sydney City Mission and as president of the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA). She also served as a vice-president of the National Council of Women in New South Wales. A member of the Womanhood Suffrage League of NSW, she supported suffrage for women as a means of promoting evangelical values. She served as vice president of Sydney University’s Women’s Society while her husband was prominent in university affairs.

In 1924 a committee of middle-class women of Geelong, concerned that girls beginning work at fourteen were not fully prepared for life, met to form the Blue Triangle Community. Their stated aim was ‘to help Girls to find the best in life by offering opportunities to develop all their powers’. Employers provided support, including an annual donation. Industry-based teams played basketball on Saturday afternoons, and  tennis clubs and a swimming club were formed. Club rooms were secured, and educational and social activities were held for Senior girls (those over 20) and  younger ‘Girl Citizens’.  They included sex education. A Friday night ‘At Home’ and Sunday teas were instituted. Volunteers visited workplaces each pay day to collect money to bank on the girls’ behalf, a summer camp was run to provide an annual holiday at a reasonable cost, and opportunities were provided for service to the community. 

May Freeman was born into a privileged Geelong, Victoria, family. Her great and lifelong contribution to her local community was as a committed volunteer leader and member of community organisations. May was a Sunday School teacher, and was involved in the Guides and Brownies from their earliest days in 1925 until her death.  She was a committee member of the Girls Unity Club, which provided education, recreation and support for Geelong’s working girls, and was a member of Rotary, the YWCA, the Red Cross, the Victoria League, The Royal Commonwealth Society Women’s Group and the Trefoil Guild.