The Australian Women's Register

Lady Mildred Watt’s obituary in the Canberra Times reports that she obtained a university medal in philosophy at Sydney and was a highly literate writer. She was also a Russian scholar and translator, who at one time translated a book on Australian foreign policy written by a Soviet official into English. Her manuscript was then donated to the Department of Foreign Affairs.

Lady Mildred Mary Watt was the wife of Sir Alan Watt, a diplomat and public servant, and together they had four children.

Best-selling author Mem Fox has written over 40 children’s books and five non-fiction adult books. Her first book, Possum Magic, was released in 1983 and is still in publication today.

As an Associate Professor, Mem taught literacy studies at Flinders University, South Australia, for 24 years. She has been the recipient of numerous honours and awards and has received three honorary doctorates.

Hilda Abbott was the first president of the Northern Territory Division of the Red Cross. She was also an author, broadcaster, and an interior decorator.

Virginia Spate was born in the United Kingdom, moving to Australia with her family in 1951. She holds Bachelor of Arts (Honours) and Masters degrees from the University of Melbourne and a PhD from Bryn Mawr College, Pennsylvania.

Virginia Spate returned to the UK in 1967, where she was a teacher for the Inner London Education Authority, the Bath Academy of Art and the Central School of Art. She was appointed to the Department of Art History at Cambridge University in 1970 and in 1979 became Power Professor of Fine Art at the University of Sydney, a position, she held until her retirement in 2003.

During this time, Virginia Spate secured a home for the large collection of contemporary art purchased through the Power Bequest, which became known as the Museum of Contemporary Art. She organised or contributed to a number of major exhibitions, notably The Revolutionary Decades: French Painting 1760-1830 (1980-81); Dreams, Fears and Desires (1984); Claude Monet, Painter of Light (1985-6); Monet and Japan (Canberra 2001). She has published books on John Olsen, Tom Roberts and Claude Monet.

Virginia Spate was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Humanities in 1981. She was honoured with the award of a Centenary Medal in 2001, the Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres in 2003 and Companion in the Order of Australia 2018.

Gay Bilson was the chef and co-owner of Berowra Waters Inn, a restaurant located on an estuary of the Hawkesbury River, New South Wales. After the Berowra Waters Inn close in 2005, Gay opened the restaurant Bennelong, at the Sydney Opera House.

Gay’s book Plenty: digressions on food was named 2005 Age Book of the Year.

Romola studied at the Slade School of Fine Art in London from 1953 to 1955, followed by a year of study at the University of Western Australia where she became a medical artist. Romola held her first solo exhibition at the age of twenty-one, at Perth’s Skinner Galleries, in 1959.

Romola has won the Claude Hotchin Prize and also the Helen Rubinstein Portrait Prize (1960). She is the former director and art consultant of Molongolo Press.

Miriam Hyde was one of the Australia’s leading pianists and composers of the twentieth century.

In 1946 Jessie Hope Black became the first woman to be appointed a curator at the National Museum of Victoria.

Helen Bainton was a musician for thirty years for the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. Both her mother and father, Edgar Leslie Bainton, were musicians.

Helen was first taught by her father, before becoming a graduate of the Royal College of Music. She had received a scholarship to the College for five years. Helen broadcast a number of recitals with the BBC and taught at Downehouse School, Newbury. In Australia she taught singing at the Pymble Ladies’ College and played violin in the New South Wales Conservatorium Orchestra.

Beatrice Tange was a well known Sydney concert pianist.

Jean Stevenson was a poet and friend of Dame Mary Gilmore. She received an honourable mention in an essay competition. ‘Mary Gilmore: Dreamer and Doer’, through the Henry Lawson Memorial and Literary Society in Melbourne, in 1939. She worked as a typist at the Australian Forestry School in Canberra, the Department of Defence in Melbourne and the Department of Air in Penrith, moving to Woodford in the Blue Mountains in 1955.

Ruth Pearce-Jones was a Sydney Soprano singer. She studied in both Austria and London before returning to Australia in 1939 with a signed contract with the Australian Broadcasting Commission. She went on an inter-state tour lasting eight weeks.

Dawn Ryan was an anthropologist who undertook extensive fieldwork in Papua New Guinea.

Millicent Bryant was the first woman in the in Australia to gain a pilot’s license.

Diane Fahey has published twelve collections of poetry, in addition to numerous anthologies published in both Australian and international publications.