The Australian Women's Register

Jessie Scotford was president of the National Council of Women of New South Wales (1967-1970), and national president (1970-1973). She brought to her work with the National Councils a strong sense of the importance of history and literature as the creators of national culture and identity. The same concern led her to join the National Trust, where she campaigned for ‘the importance of preserving not only the buildings, but the contents of the buildings’. In 1973, she ran in Sydney the first International Council of Women’s Regional Conference to be held in the Pacific region.

Dr Katy Le Roy is Parliamentary Counsel in the New Zealand Parliamentary Counsel Office. An expert in constitutional law, federalism, governance and Pacific legal systems, she has undertaken a number of consultancies for the United Nations Development Program. Le Roy was formerly Consultant Legal Counsel and Parliamentary Counsel for Nauru.

Katy Le Roy was interviewed by Kim Rubenstein for the Trailblazing Women and the Law Oral History Project. For details of the interview see the National Library of Australia CATALOGUE RECORD.

Read more about Jan Anderson in our sister publication The Encyclopedia of Women and Leadership in Twentieth-Century Australia.

Thelma Metcalfe was president of the Australian National Council of Women from 1957 to1960. She also held office in a variety of other organisations, including as president of the NCW of NSW 1948-1960. During her term of office as national president, she stressed the importance of regional activism and work towards improving social and economic conditions, particularly for women in the Asia-Pacific area, most urgently in Papua New Guinea. Metcalfe’s presidency also saw ANCW attention directed towards redressing inequality issues relevant to women, varying education standards in Australia, the declining value of child endowment, and the financial hardships of deserted wives. In light of her extensive community involvement, an ANCW obituarist claimed she was regarded as ‘the best authority on the women’s organisations in NSW’.

Heather Reid has been instrumental in forming, developing and promoting opportunities for women and girls in sport and physical activity, predominantly through football (soccer) since 1978. She has a sound knowledge of the cultural, social and political complexities of the Australian sport industry.

In 2004, she was the first woman appointed as CEO of a State football federation, at Capital Football. Since then she has led the integration of all aspects of football in the ACT – for male, female, junior, indoor and outdoor players along with referees and coaches.

She has won numerous awards in recognition for her outstanding service to sport in Canberra and at a national level. In 2006, she won the Australian Sports Commission’s Margaret Pewtress Memorial Award for her contribution to women in sport.

The City of Canberra is home to elite sportswomen, such as champion basketballer, Lauren Jackson and influential administrators like Heather Reid, CEO of Capital Football. It is represented at a national level by teams like the Canberra Capitals in the Women’s National Basketball League and the Canberra Darters in the Australian Netball League. But perhaps, more importantly, Canberra is home to the largest number of ordinary weekend warriors in all Australia. According to an Australian Bureau of Statistics report, published in 2012, 78.8 % of Canberra women regularly participate in Sport and Recreation, 9.7% more than the nearest ‘rival’ Tasmania at 69.1%. If we combine this record with the important role that Canberra has played as a developer of elite talent, through the Australian Institute of Sport, and the development of policy to promote and encourage women in sport through the Australian Sports Commission’s Women’s Sports Unit, then it most certainly is not overstating it to say that women have been very important in putting Canberra on the map of the sporting world.

Sylvia Parsons was a dressmaker and women’s fashion retailer who owned a popular dress shop in Kingston during the second half of the twentieth century. Parsons was active in the Canberra community and hosted regular fundraising fashion shows for local charities.

WILPF ACT is a branch of the Australian Section of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom-the longest-surviving international women’s anti-war organisation.

A former World War II refugee from Latvia, Zenta was asked to work at the CSIRO to assist communication between a Ukrainian refugee entomologist and his work colleagues. Working in CSIRO Entomology, specialising in assisting those working with Diptera (flies), became the rest of her life’s work. Her assistance was so valued that there are now at least two genera and 19 species named in her honour.

The Canberra Branch is the oldest of four located in the Australian Capital Territory. All four belong to the Monaro Group of the Country Women’s Association of NSW. The Canberra Branch was founded in 1946. By March 1953 the members had raised enough funds to build their own rooms on the edge of what was then the Central Business District of Canberra. In the early 1980s high-rise office blocks were being built next to the rooms and the branch was able to negotiate the sale of its lease to a developer who provided the branch with a large area of the ground floor of a new building on Barry Drive. The branch provides education, health and social welfare support to its community with the funds it raises and through its crafts and cooking.

Belinda Morieson was Branch Secretary of the Australian Nursing Federation, Victoria Branch (ANF(Vic)) from 1989-2001. She oversaw the biggest membership growth in the history of the Branch.

A more comprehensive entry for Morieson will appear later in 2013 when the Encyclopedia of Australian Women and Leadership in the Twentieth Century goes online.

Yvonne Bain was a woman who respected tradition while enjoying new challenges. She was passionate about education, for herself and for others. She was appointed to the governing council of Griffith University, and to a range of national and state advisory committees on aspects of education. Griffith University awarded her an honorary doctorate of the University in 1998. Bain was also passionate about the rights of women, working for decades in the Queensland National Council of Women and the National Council of Women of Australia. She served as the national president 1991-1994. In 1990, she was made a Member of the Order of Australia for service to women’s affairs, particularly through the National Council of Women. During her presidency of NCWA, Bain persuaded the Australian Bureau of Statistics to include the categories of work in the home and volunteer work in the national census data, allowing the calculation of the value of unpaid work within national productivity. This is perhaps her most lasting contribution to the Australian women’s movement.

Leonie Christopherson gave up a promising career in advertising to marry into the army. She turned her talent for communication to the service of political and community organisations: the Liberal Party of Australia, and the National Council of Women. She served as president of National Council of Women of Australia from 2003 to 2006 at a time of great change for the association, and her consensual style of leadership provided a secure basis for it to move forward. In 2006, she was made a Member of the Order of Australia, and, in 2013 she was invested as a Dame of Honour in the Order of Saint John of Jerusalem Knights Hospitaller, honouring her for her services to the community.

Dorothy Edwards was the first Tasmanian woman to be elected president of the Australian National Council of Women. It is significant that Edwards’ base was in the Launceston branch of the NCW, for her election thus had implications for the status of the NCW of Tasmania, based in Hobart and acknowledged in the ANCW constitution as the official state Council. Edwards held office in the Launceston Council as secretary and president before election to the ANCW presidency 1960-1964. Her period in office was notable for her forthright engagement with government on issues such as equal pay and for her enthusiastic promotion of the International Council of Women’s new ‘twinning program’ and, in particular, for fostering close relations between the Australian Council and the Councils of Thailand, Fiji and Papua New Guinea. Her presidency also saw the holding of an ICW regional seminar on international understanding in Brisbane in 1964. She went on to serve in the ICW as convenor for finance, vice-treasurer and vice-president, and travelled overseas regularly to executive meetings and triennial conferences until 1996. She was made an honorary vice-president of both the Launceston and Australian Councils (1974 and 1973) and admitted to ICW’s Committee of Honour (1979).

Dorothy Edwards was also the first woman to be elected to the Launceston City Council. She served as an alderman for 15 years and was mayor 1955-1957, the first woman city mayor in Australia. She was subsequently admitted as an Honorary Freeman of the City of Launceston (1984). She was also awarded an OBE in 1958 and a CBE in 1979, and was entered on the Tasmanian Honour Roll of Women in 2005.

Maureen Giddings has worked with a wide range of community organisations, many connected with the National Council of Women. She served as president of NCW NSW from 1970 to 1974, and as president of the National Council of Women of Australia from 1988 to 1991. She also worked for many years with the Liberal Party, serving as president of the Women’s Council of the Liberal Party of Australia (NSW division) from 1974 to 1979 and chairman of the party’s Federal Women’s Committee from 1977 to 1980. She was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1974, in recognition of service to the community.

Anne Hamilton was the second Queensland president of the Australian National Council of Women. She held office between 1964 and 1967, having already served as president of the Queensland Council from 1961 to 1964. Her period as state president was notable for successfully hosting the ANCW triennial conference and the International Council of Women regional seminar on international understanding in Brisbane in 1964. As national president in the ensuing 3 years, she set up the twinning relationship between the Australian and Thailand NCWs-a program initiated by the ICW to encourage ‘reciprocal relationships between N.C.Ws of contrasting economic patterns’. Her period in office also saw continuing lobbying of the federal government for the lifting of the marriage bar on the employment of women in the Commonwealth public service (achieved in 1967), for equal pay, and for seeking Australia’s re-election to the UN Status of Women Commission (achieved in 1967). As president, she also encouraged state NCWs to include welfare of Aborigines in the considerations of their standing committees, succeeded in persuading the government to include the portrait of an outstanding Australian woman on the new $5 note, and agitated for liberalising the means test for pensions with the aim of its eventual abolition. Hamilton represented the ANCW and the ICW at the International Federation of University Women conference in Brisbane in 1965, and led the ANCW delegation to the ICW triennial conference in Tehran in 1966.
Hamilton’s other major interest was the propagation and growth of Australian plants, and she served as president of the Society for Growing Australian Plants, Queensland from 1965 to 1966.

Dr Laurel Macintosh served for nearly 40 years as an ophthalmic surgeon in Brisbane hospitals, working all the while for women’s rights and as a community activist. In her professional life, she chaired the Queensland Branch of the Royal Australian College of Ophthalmologists. Her community work took her to the presidency of both the National Council of Women of Queensland (1977-1979, 1994-1996) and the National Council of Women of Australia (1979-1982), and to membership of state, national and international committees with the capacity to influence government. An achievement of which she is proud is the winning of the case for late night shopping for Brisbane and Ipswich in Queensland’s industrial court in December 1978.

As an early-career academic, Marian Sawer experienced first-hand the difficulties encountered by women in a male-dominated workplace. After establishing equal employment opportunity programs at the Australian National University and the Department of Foreign Affairs in the 1980s, she pursued an academic career as a political scientist at the University of Canberra and the Australian National University, becoming head of the Political Science Program in the Research School of Social Sciences at the Australian National University in 2000 and being promoted to professor in 2003. From 2002 to 2008 she led the Democratic Audit of Australia which assessed the health of Australian democracy and produced over 200 discussion papers and reports. Marian took a leading role in Women’s Electoral Lobby campaigns in the 1980s and 1990s, particularly around equal opportunity legislation, women’s policy machinery and tax reform. She has authored or edited around twenty books, including a history of the Women’s Electoral Lobby.

In 1988 the Embroiderers’ Guilds of Australia presented a commemorative embroidery to the Commonwealth Parliament as a gift to celebrate Australia’s bicentenary. This presentation was the culmination of eight years of unprecedented collaboration among the eight State and Territory Guilds, overseen by a standing committee of the ACT Guild – the Parliament House Embroidery Committee – convened by Dorothy Hyslop. Over 1000 women from all over Australia were involved in the work and the Guilds donated not only their embroidery skills but also the fabric and thread and the administration of the project.

The embroidery is one of the two major artworks hanging in the Great Hall of Parliament House. Designed as an eight-panel frieze in the tradition of the Bayeux Tapestry, 16 metres long and 65 centimetres deep, the embroidery’s theme is ‘the settlement of Australia’, in tune with the theme of ‘the land’ for all the public areas of the House. The exquisite embroidery is universally acknowledged as a nationally significant artwork and has given prominence to a long undervalued medium.

Anne Godfrey-Smith was a poet, theatre director and producer, broadcaster, political activist, and scientist. After studying biochemistry at university, she moved into a career in the theatre starting at the Launceston Players in Tasmania. In 1954 she moved to Canberra and became the manager-producer of the Canberra Repertory Society. It was in Canberra that she made her name as a poet (under the nom de plume Anne Edgeworth), publishing the popular collections, Poems for Off-Duty Hours (2007), Turtles All the Way Down (2000), and Poems of Canberra (1997), among others. She was passionate about community work and was active in the environmental conservation movement, the women’s movement, anti-war campaigns and Indigenous rights’ advocacy. Later in life, she devoted a lot of time to community radio.

Sue Salthouse has worked in the area of social justice since 1996, playing an active role in the systemic advocacy for women with disabilities. She lives in Canberra where she runs her own consultancy company that specialises in work in the disability sector and conducts social research, policy analysis and advice in a number of areas beyond disability advocacy, including project development and management, conference facilitation and TAFE teaching. She has worked extensively with Women in Adult and Vocational Education (WAVE) to develop leadership training projects for women, including women in Aboriginal communities. In 2013 she works hard in a voluntary capacity for Women with Disabilities ACT and Rights International (Australia).

In 2015, Sue was Canberra Citizen of the Year, in recognition of her outstanding commitment and contribution as a disability advocate. In late 2019, Sue was further acknowledged for her enormous contribution to the public good when she was awarded the honour of 2020 ACT Senior Australian of the Year.

Sue Salthouse died in a motor vehicle accident in Canberra on 20 July 2020.

Read an interview with Sue Salthouse in the online exhibition Redefining Leadership.

Wendy Craik has been described as ‘a woman of many firsts’ (Wisdom Interviews). In 1992, she became head of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA) a position she relinquished in 1995 when she created another precedent by becoming the first woman to lead the National Farmers Federation. She was the first female Chief Executive of the Murray Darling Basin Commission (2004 -2008) and has held numerous positions on boards and advisory councils, including President of the National Competition Council (2002), Chair of the Australian Fisheries Management Authority (2000) , Chair of the National Rural Advisory Council, member of the Productivity Commission (2009 -) and chair of the Board of the Australian Rural Leadership Foundation (2010 – ). In 2000 she worked in private industry as Chief Executive of Earth Sanctuaries Limited – a listed company pioneering a private approach to wildlife conservation. Currently (2013) she is also on the boards of the WorldFish Center and Dairy Australia and is on the Council of the University of South Australia.

New Zealand-born Australian artist Rosalie Gascoigne, is acclaimed as one of Australasia’s most significant artists. She moved to the Australian Capital Territory in 1943 and remained there for the rest of her life. With no formal art training apart from studying sogetsu ikebana, Gascoigne held her first solo exhibition in Canberra in 1974 aged 57 and four years later was the first Australian woman to be invited to the Venice Biennale. By the time of her death in 1999 she boasted work in the collections of all Australian and New Zealand major galleries, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York; she has been shown in public exhibitions in Europe and Asia. Gascoigne’s work, made with found objects, was inspired by her feelings for the Monaro region in which she lived.

Ngingali Cullen, who was formerly known as Audrey Kinnear, was a co-chair of the National Sorry Day Committee that worked to achieve wide recognition of the wrongs suffered by Aboriginal people across Australia. Although scarred by the policies of forced removal of Aboriginal children from their families, it was healing those wounds that was her constant preoccupation. A proposal initiated by her led to the Journey of Healing campaign launched by the National Sorry Day Committee in 1999.

Mary Stevenson was the first woman elected to the ACT Advisory Council and the President and founding member of the ACT Liberal Party Women’s Branch. She was a lifelong advocate for women’s involvement in politics and community affairs. As well as having a full and impressive political career, she devoted a great deal of time to community organisations such as the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA), the National Council of Women, the Business and Professional Women’s Association and the United Nations’ Association. She was awarded an MBE in 1954.