The Australian Women's Register

Patti Warn was the first female president of the Tasmanian Branch of the Australian Labor Party.

Dr Evelyn Ruth Scott was an indigenous rights activist and social justice campaigner who played a pivotal role in the reconciliation process in Australia. She was a key figure in the ‘yes’ campaign of the 1967 referendum whereby 90 per cent of Australian voters chose ‘Yes’ to count Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the census, and give the Australian Government the power to make laws for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Jean Laby was the first woman to be awarded a PhD in Physics from the University of Melbourne. She combined a lectureship in the Department of Physics with a senior lectureship in the RAAF Academy at Point Cook, Victoria. Jean was the only woman on staff at the Academy.

Jean was inducted into the Victorian Honour Roll of Women in 2009.

Myra Roper was Principal of the University of Melbourne’s Women’s College for 14 years. She led a varied life as both an educator and public intellectual.

Myra served on the ABC Advisory Committee, the Elizabethan Theatre Trust and the Melbourne State College boards. She was also President of the Committee for Australia-China Relations and in 1958 was a member of the first Australian women’s delegation to China.

Myra received an AM in 1985 for her service to international relations.

The Australian Council for Women (ACW) was established in late 1993, replacing the National Women’s Consultative Council, to co-ordinate planning in Australia for the Fourth World Conference on Women to be held in Beijing in September 1995 and to consult with women and transmit their concerns and ideas to the government. Council members travelled widely in Australia, meeting women and consulting with community groups.

On International Women’s Day 1994 the ACW launched its Purple Postcard survey, asking women to list one concern, and sent questionnaires to non-government organisations. The major issues emerging from the survey were fear of violence, breast cancer, and the cost and availability of child care.

In February 1995, the ACW released its report listing strategies to tackle these issues of concern, to be included in Australia’s presentation to the UN Fourth World Conference. The ACW Chair, Sandra Yates, was a delegate to the Beijing conference and advisor to the Australian official delegation which was led by Dr Carmen Lawrence, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Status of Women and Minister for Health. The Council was disestablished on 31 December 1995.

The Gippsland Women’s Network (GWN) was incorporated in 2006. It had its beginnings in the 1970s-1980s during a time of rural recession, when farming women in the Gippsland area of Victoria began an active role in lobbying the Australian government for financial support, putting together proposals for ways to better market the products of their region. From those early days, the GWN has broadened its role to encompass a variety of activities aimed at raising the profile of women in the rural sector. This has included developing projects and running seminars and workshops aimed at fostering the establishment of community networks, and empowering rural women to take a more active role in creating a sustainable future for their communities.

Professor Carole Pateman is a British-born political scientist and academic who is internationally renowned for her contribution to feminist political theory and democratic theory. Carole taught in Australia from 1972 to 1990, during which time she played a central role in introducing feminist critique to Australian political science. In 1979, she and Marian Sawer co-founded the Women’s Caucus of the Australasian Political Studies Association (APSA) to improve the status of women in the profession of political science and make women visible in the political system.

The Women’s Caucus of the then Australasian Political Studies Association (APSA) was established in 1979. It was set up to improve the standing of women in the political science profession and to promote the study of women and politics. The annual general meeting of the Women’s Caucus is held during the annual conference of APSA. A representative serves on the APSA Executive. The caucus conducts regular reviews of the status of women in the profession and of the extent of the successful implementation of APSA’s policy that the study of women should be integrated into all politics courses.

Molly Lyons was an amateur photographer. Working in the Pictorialist style, she is best known for her travel photography.

Susan Jennifer Watkins was a prominent Western Australian photographer. Watkins is said to be the first Western Australian woman to work on photography autonomously. She was highly regarded for her stylish portraiture.

Helen Ferber’s lifelong engagement with public affairs and social welfare, both in Australia and Europe, reflected her commitment to the common good. She began her working life in World War II, monitoring and translating enemy radio broadcasts for the Australian Short Wave Listening Post. After the war, her language skills, love of other cultures and strong sense of social justice led her to work with United Nations refugee agencies in Europe.

In 1948, Helen married David Ferber, US Vice Consul in Melbourne, and took up the work of a ‘diplomatic wife’. In the mid 1950s the family returned to Australia and Helen spent much of her time caring for their disabled son. During this period she undertook volunteer work with women’s organisations in Melbourne, and rose rapidly to positions of authority.

In 1965 she took a part-time position with the Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research at the University of Melbourne. Initially employed to interview non-English-speaking households, she soon progressed to writing and editing reports, becoming the editor of the institute’s publications and a respected writer on social policy. Throughout her life she developed and cherished many deep friendships and was both an inspiration and support to other women as they developed their skills and careers.

Heather George was a commercial photographer who began her career in Sydney, and also worked in Melbourne and regional Victoria. George was known for her industrial, fashion and outback photography.

Helen Mackay worked at a photography studio in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia, where she specialised in portraiture.

Judith Fletcher is remembered for being one of the first women portrait photographers to work in Sydney (along with May and Mina Moore) and to establish her own studio.

Kate Ivens was an early, amateur ethnographic photographer of Indigenous people. She also photographed flora and fauna.

Mabel Hookey was the first woman journalist in Tasmania. She was also a poet, a painter and an amateur photographer.

Margot Donald worked as a commercial photographer in Sydney and London. Donald was known at the time as one of the best colourists working in Sydney.

Sarah Chinnery was an amateur photographer known for her unique ethnographic photography of the Indigenous peoples of New Guinea, where she lived between 1921-1937. Despite the challenges she faced developing film in the tropics, Chinnery had many of her photographs published in the press, including the New York Times. Later in Australia the focus of Chinnery’s photography shifted to portraits of artists and floral studies.

Inspired by her newsreel photographer father, Adelie ‘Front Page’ Hurley is known as a pioneering woman press photographer; she was one of only three Australian women press photographers working in her time. She was fearless in pursuing her shots, and also fearless against the gender discrimination of her field, lasting over two decades in press photography. Her photographs include a diverse range of subjects, from army photography, vice squad busts, life at outback stations and taipan hunting.

Known as D.C., Dorothy Coleman was a successful commercial photographer known for her photographs of society people in Brisbane. An innovative photographer, D.C. was highly sought after for the effects she could achieve in portraiture and dance photography. D.C.’s photography was published widely in newspapers and magazines of the time. She employed and trained a number of women photographers and colourists in her photographic studio.

Harriett Brims operated a number of successful photography studios in Queensland: the Britannia Studios in Ingham, c.1902-1903; as well as studios in Mareeba, Queensland, c.1903-1914.

Mina Moore was a successful photographer who worked initially in New Zealand and then in Sydney and Melbourne. Together with her sister the she specialised in portraits of prominent people and artists, including society/celebrity portraits, with some wedding and children’s portraits. Mina Moore later set up her own studio in Melbourne and utilised unconventional backdrops, such as untreated hessian.

Doris McKellar was an amateur photographer based in Melbourne, whose photographs documented university life and the social activities of a wealthy professional family in Melbourne in the first half of the twentieth century. Using a Kodak No.3A Folding Pocket camera, she captured many aspects of life at the University of Melbourne. The University of Melbourne holds McKellar’s archive.

Ester Baylis was a prize-winning Pictorialist photographer and an active member of the Adelaide Camera Club. Baylis’ focus was primarily architectural photography, having previously trained in architecture. Baylis initially used a Box Brownie camera, and with prize money purchased a Thornton Pickard enlarger and an Adams Minex camera. Baylis was the first woman photographer to be included in an Australian public collection.

Hedda Morrison was an ethnographic photographer who worked extensively in China, Borneo and later Australia, where she settled in 1967. She was influenced by Neue Sachlichkeit, or the ‘new realist’ style. Morrison’s photographs were widely disseminated in books, including the seminal Sarawak: Vanishing World, and Travels of a Photographer. Morrison was a resourceful photographer, using two car batteries to power her portable enlarger while without power for six years in Sarawak, and storing her negatives in an airtight chest using silica gel as a drying agent to overcome the perils of a tropical climate. Morrison worked largely in black and white, except for in the early 1950s.