The Australian Women's Register

The Catholic Women’s League Tasmania was established in 1941 in Launceston to bring together Catholic women, to help them meet socially, to engage in charitable work and to assist them to play their part in public life. Gwen Mullins, the catalyst for its formation, expressed concern about the isolation of Catholics from the general community in Launceston and particularly the non participation of Catholic women in any civic sphere at all. It has been involved in a range of issues including the family, immigration, media programs and educational opportunities for girls. By the 1980s it had developed a greater international awareness with the creation of the office of International Secretary. It is affiliated with the Catholic Women’s League Australia Inc.

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.

The Australian Nursing Federation Employees’ Section formed in 1953 out of an amalgamation of the Australian United Nurses Association [formed in 1949] and the Royal Victorian College of Nurses Employees’ Association. From 1971, this new body was commonly known as the Australian Nursing Federation and in 1975 it amalgamated with the Royal Victorian College of Nurses to become the new Royal Australian Nursing Federation. The ‘Royal’ prefix was dropped again in the 1980s.

The Victorian Federation of Catholic Parents’ Clubs, originally named the Victorian Federation of Catholic Mothers’ Clubs, was established in August 1958. The decision to form the federation was made at a meeting held in the Carmelite Hall in the Melbourne suburb of Middle Park. Five hundred women delegates from one hundred and six organisations associated with schools in suburban and country parishes attended. Its aims were to support and publicise the work, achievements and needs of Catholic schools in Victoria and to seek free education for all children in the schools of their parents’ choice. Its motto was ‘Love Conquers All’. It worked for forty years to achieve its aims and ceased functioning in 1998.

The Catholic Women’s League was established in 1913 as the Catholic Women’s Association,(later became the Legion of Catholic Women in 1941 and in 1959 the Catholic Women’s League). Its aim was to provide Catholic women of Sydney with a broader society, one which crossed parish boundaries and provided them with a focus for social life. As it evolved, the Parish branches became the power base, with women contributing to parish life as Catechists, Eucharistic Ministers, through hospital visitation, care and support groups, welcoming committees, discussion groups and fundraising. The Catholic Women’s League continues to provide a voice for Catholic women in Church and society by addressing social and moral issues affecting family life, particularly women and children. It is affiliated with the Catholic Women’s League Australia Inc.

The Victorian Women’s Suffrage Society, the first women’s suffrage society in Australia, was founded in 1884 largely due to the efforts of Henrietta Dugdale and Annie Lowe. Dugdale, very much a ‘freethinker’, claimed to been Victoria’s first activist for women’s suffrage-having publicly advocated women’s suffrage since 1868, along with married women’s property rights and the admission of women to the universities. In 1883 she published a utopian novel, A Few Hours in a Far Off Age, which she used as a vehicle for her then radical ideas about education, marriage, Christianity and rational dress for women. The Society’s platform was ‘To obtain the same political privileges for women as now possessed by male voters’. It had both male and female members.

The Australian Women’s Suffrage Society was founded in 1888 by Brettena Smyth. Smyth had previously been a member of the Victorian Women’s Suffrage Society but some members apparently objected to her outspoken opinions on birth control precipitating her decision to form a breakaway suffrage group. The new Society was very much linked with Smyth’s advocacy of every woman’s right to information about and access to contraceptives and she distributed advertisements for contraceptives, which she sold from her drapery and druggist shop in North Melbourne, at the Society’s meetings. Smyth had become convinced that the major problem facing most women was not the lack of political rights so much as frequent and involuntary childbearing. The Society had both male and female members. Particularly, Dr William Maloney, a member of the Victorian Legislative Assembly who introduced several (unsuccessful) women’s suffrage bills into parliament between 1889 and 1894. The Society apparently disbanded with Brettena Smyth’s death in 1898.

The United Council for Woman Suffrage was originally formed in Melbourne in 1894 largely due to the efforts of Annette Bear Crawford who became its foundation president and secretary. Its aims were: to coordinate and amalgamate suffrage societies and to lobby members of parliament and municipal councillors about women’s suffrage; to educate the public about women’s suffrage; to educate the public about women’s suffrage; to educate the public about women’s suffrage and to train women speakers to address meetings. Those involved included representatives from suffrage societies, the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, the Victorian Trades Hall Council and the Vigilance Society. The Council conducted extensive lobbying during the Victorian municipal elections in 1896 and the Commonwealth Constitutional Conventional in Melbourne in 1898. The Council floundered with Bear Crawford’s illness and then death in 1898. The following year, however, Vida Goldstein became its organising secretary-which in 1900 became a full-time, paid position. Goldstein allowed a broader spectrum of organisations to affiliate with the Council, considerably expanding its support base-by 1900 it had 32 member organisations. While Goldstein resigned in 1901, the Council continued as an effective co-ordinating body for the suffrage campaign, often working with Goldstein’s new group, the Women’s Political Association, until Victorian women’s gained the vote in 1908.

The Victorian Woman’s Suffrage League was founded in 1894 at a meeting organised by Annette Bear Crawford in the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union headquarters in Melbourne. Its platform was votes for women on the same terms as men. Its formation was prompted by the belief that the three existing groups working for women’s suffrage in Victoria (the Australian Women’s Suffrage Society, the Victorian Women’s Suffrage Society and the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union) were all associated with extremist views. Although initiated by the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, the League had an entirely separate existence, supposedly not linked to the prohibitionist agenda of the Union. The new League was formulated on a Christian, non-party basis. As such, it was an organisation that moderate women could comfortably join and was immediately popular. It ceased in 1908 with the granting of the vote to women in Victoria.

M U Australia (known for most of its history as the Mothers’ Union) is part of the worldwide Mothers’ Union which is an organisation within the Anglican Church. First established in England in 1876, its early objectives were:
1. To awaken in all mothers a sense of their great responsibility in the training of their boys and girls-the fathers and mothers of the future.
2. To organise in every place a band of mothers who will unite and prayer and seek by their example to lead their families in purity and holiness in life.
The first Australian Mothers’ Union was formed in Cullenswood, Tasmania, in 1892. The movement spread quickly across the country, becoming a major organisation both for Anglican women and within the broader women’s movement in the years up to 1960. Apart from Christian outreach, the Union has been involved in wide range of social and political reform activities, mostly relating to the welfare of women and children, as well as charitable work.

Endeavour Forum was established in Melbourne in 1979 as Women Who Want to Be Women, largely through the efforts of Babette Francis. It is a Christian, pro-life, pro-family lobby group with members in all Australian states. According to its website, the group was set up to ‘counter feminism, defend the unborn and the traditional family.’ Although outlawing abortion is high on their agenda, the group’s broader aim is to prevent economic forces such as high taxation ‘destroying families’. In particular it lobbies for the right of women to choose to be full time homemakers without suffering what they see as economic discrimination. While. it supports equality of opportunity for men and women in employment and education, it opposes affirmative action or positive discrimination.

The Girl’s Realm of Service and Good Fellowship was an Australian branch of a Guild founded in London in 1900. Its main aim was to encourage girls to help other girls. In 1934 their stated aim was to assist girls who show promise and ability to undertake an approved course of training when lack of means from any other source would prevent them from so equipping themselves. The Guild ceased to exist in 1976 and donated its assets to the University of New South Wales for a scholarship.

What eventually came to be known as the Royal Australian Nursing Federation was formed in 1924 as an unincorporated association of the various Australasian Trained Nurses’ Association state ‘branches’ and the Royal Victorian Trained Nurses’ Association. Originally it was known as the Australian Nursing Federation. While concerned with protecting the interests of nurses, its initial focus was maintaining professional standards. It was not until 1949 that it began to function as a trade union.

In 1955 the federation was granted use of the royal prefix. In 1970 the Royal Australian Nursing Federation, as it was then known, was dissolved and its professional objectives were assumed by the other federally registered nurses organisation- the Australian Nursing Federation Employees’ Section.

The formation of the Australian Local Government Women’s Association – South Australian Branch was preceded by the formation of a national Australian Local Government Women’s Association in Canberra in 1951. A non-party organisation, it was inspired particularly inspired by the belief that more women should be involved in local government partly because this arm of government was especially relevant to housewives and mothers.

The Association of Civilian Widows of Australia originated in Western Australia in 1953 at a meeting convened by the Women’s Service Guild. Its formation was largely due to the efforts of Mrs Invy Kent. Over the following two years Apex helped to establish a National Executive and over 200 branches of the Association across Australia. The Association is non-party political and non-sectarian and its objects are to promote the interests of the widow and her child wherever possible. It also engages in welfare work for its members and holds fund raising and social meetings. It’s motto is ‘Friendship and Service.”

The Australian Red Cross Society (ARCS) was formed just after the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914, initially as a branch of the British Red Cross Society. Its first president was Lady Helen Munro Ferguson, wife of the then governor-general. Via a network of state branches and division, also presided over by women, the organisation extended its influence throughout the community of Australian women, urban and rural, to the point where women constituted the vast majority of its membership, as well as featuring prominently in its leadership. Although the organisation was involved in a range of activities, including the establishment of agencies overseas dedicated to supplying families in Australia with information about wounded and missing soldiers, it is probably best known for its success in mobilising volunteers to create the much appreciated and eagerly anticipated ‘comfort’ parcels that were sent to servicemen overseas. From the date of its inception until the armistice the ARCS dispatched 395,695 food parcels and 36,339 clothing parcels. Thousands of women contributed their time and money to make this possible

In 1929, Dr Lucy Bryce founded the first Australian blood service on the lines of the British Red Cross Society in London. By 1931 the Blood Transfusion Service, based in the Victorian Division of the Red Cross, was the recognized medium for metropolitan hospitals to obtain donors. The following year, it was operating around the clock. In 1938, the first Red Cross Blood Bank was established at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, with a number of its medical consultants, from the onset, being women.

The Victorian Division of the Australian Branch of the British Red Cross Society was formed on August 21, 1914. Lady Margaret Stanley, the wife of the Governor of Victoria, was the first president. The wife of the Governor has continued to preside and women have maintained an active role in all aspects of the Australian Red Cross. They have continuously taken leadership roles in branches, units and regional committees, as well as in council and senior management.

The Grail is an international women’s movement , which describes itself as ‘a spiritual, cultural and social movement of women grounded in Christian faith and committed to the vision of a world transformed into a global community of justice and peace’. It was established in Sydney in 1937 after the arrival in 1936 of members of the Women of Nazareth, an international lay Catholic women’s organisation with its headquarters in The Netherlands. It sought a new and significant role for lay women Catholics in the church. In the view of Sally Kennedy, author of Faith and Feminism, ( Sydney 1985), ‘it combined a strong sense of women’s potential in the Catholic Church with a realistic appraisal of women’s powerlessness in it, and a high level of pragmatism to overcome this’. Its original focus was on the concept of specialised long-term training of youth leaders. Its focus is now ‘upon women’s education and personal development, on social and cultural critical analysis and organised action grounded in conviction’. It has centres in Sydney and Melbourne.

The Female Middle Class Emigration Society, founded by Maria Rye and Jane Lewin in 1862, was one of a number of organisations that emerged in the late nineteenth century and sought to tackle the perceived ‘surplus women’ problem in the United Kingdom. Like the Colonial Intelligence League, and the South African Colonisation Society, its aim was to assist unemployed, educated British women with emigration by finding them employment, usually as governesses or clerks, in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Canada. These three organisations amalgamated in 1919 to form the Society for the Overseas Settlement of British Women.

The Female Orphan School was set up in George Street, Sydney, by Governor King in 1801 to house destitute young girls. When it was officially opened on 17 August, 1801, 31 girls aged between the ages of 7 and 14 were in residence. By 1829 the population had grown to 152 and included some Aboriginal children. On 30 April, 1850 the Male Orphan School, which had been relocated at Liverpool in 1823 was closed. The remaining residents moved to the Female Orphan School site at Parramatta and the two establishments amalgamated to form the Protestant Orphan School, which operated until 1886.

The Institute of Sisters of Mercy of Australia evolved from the seventeen individual congregations operating in Australia before 1981. It forms part of the world-wide network of Mercy Sisters. Catherine McAuley founded the Sisters of Mercy in Dublin, Ireland in 1841. In 1846 the Sisters of Mercy came to Australia. Ursula Frayne, a friend of Catherine McAuley, arrived with six Sisters and settled in Perth , Western Australia, later moving to Melbourne. By 1954 the seventeen distinct autonomous groups had emerged through the processes of amalgamation and division. In 1953 eight of the autonomous groups formed the Australian Union of Sisters of Mercy, and in 1957 the remaining nine groups joined to form the Australian Federation of the Sisters of Mercy, which by 1981 became the Institute of Sisters of Mercy of Australia. The Mercy Sisters describe this structure as ‘a unique mode of governance continuing to express the traditional Mercy thrust towards decentralisation and unity but giving a clearer sign of the equally strong concern for a deep unity of spirit.’ The Sisters of Mercy are committed to those most vulnerable in our society and wish to share God’s loving kindness with others.

The Women’s Liberation Movement submission on equal pay was delivered in 1969 to the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Commission in Melbourne, by Sylvia Shaw.

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.