The Australian Women's Register

The Sydney University Women Evening Students’ Association was established in April 1911 to cater for the needs of evening students, many of whom were teachers.

The Sydney University Women’s Society was established in 1891 with the object of assisting “anyone requiring and deserving help”.

Among other activities, members of the Society worked at Lewisham Hospital, Newington asylum for aged women, the Woolloomooloo girls’ club and the Harrington Street night school for girls at Millers Point.

Today the re-named Sydney University Settlement Neighbourhood Centre works primarily with the Aboriginal community and other disadvantaged groups in Chippendale, Redfern, Darlington and Waterloo.

A member of the Australian Labor Party, Kath Venn was elected to the Legislative Council of the Tasmanian Parliament representing Hobart in 1976. During her period in parliament, she served as Deputy Leader of the Government in the Legislative Council for three years. She was defeated at the 1982 election.

Originally a member of the Australian Labor Party, Mary Willey was elected to the House of Assembly in the Parliament of Tasmania in 1979 representing the electorate of Bass. She resigned from the Labor Party in 1981 in support of the premier of the time Doug Lowe in his approach to the damming of the Franklin River. She fought the 1982 election as an Independent and was unfortunately defeated on that occasion.

Abbotsleigh was founded by an English woman, Marian Clarke, in 1885. An Anglican school for girls, it was first located in a terrace in North Sydney. The school then moved to Parramatta in 1888, and finally to its current premises in Wahroonga.

Abbotsleigh was one of the first girls’ school to have a sports field, which was opened in October 1901.

Located in the eastern suburbs of Sydney, Ascham School is one of the oldest private girls’ schools in Australia.

The school was founded by Marie Wallis in 1886 with nine pupils in a Darling Point terrace. She named the school after Roger Ascham, tutor to England’s Queen Elizabeth I.

Ascham’s teaching is influenced by the Dalton Plan, a philosophy of learning which emphasises self-responsibility and independence. Developed in the United States of America, the Dalton Plan was introduced to Ascham by its longest serving headmistress, Margaret Bailey, in 1922.
Former pupils of Ascham include Linda Littlejohn and Virginia Clare Walker.

The Association of Women Employees of the University of Sydney (AWEUS) was formed in July 1980 to represent the interests of women on campus. It was open to all women on the university staff. An annually elected executive met to discuss matters concerning the improvement of the status of women on campus, e.g. Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) policies and childcare facilities. It also gathered information on cases of discrimination and sexual harassment.

The Women’s Collective raised awareness of issues concerning women on campus at the University of New South Wales and it also organised activities for women. It was one of the clubs and societies affiliated with the Students Union at the University of New South Wales.

The University of new South Wales Wives Group was stablished at the New South Wales University of Technology (renamed the University of New South Wales in 1958) in 1950 as the Technical Education Women’s’ Group. The Group acted primarily as a social organisation in welcoming the wives of new staff members and students to the University.

The U Committee exists to raise funds for the University of New South Wales through activities such as the Book Fair and the sale of memorabilia. It has supported numerous scholarly and community activities including the University of New South Wales Art Prize and Travelling Scholarship, the Literary Fellowship and the Kensington Lectures for High School Students. Women played a leading role in the group.

The last book fair was held in May 2012 and the U Committee officially disbanded in 2013.

As a Lecturer in Humanities and Social Sciences, Ruth Atkins was the first female academic appointed to the New South Wales University of Technology, later University of New South Wales. She subsequently became Associate Professor in the School of Political Science at UNSW.

Dr Judith Robinson-Valéry was a leading international figure in the study of French literature. She completed her undergraduate studies at the University of Sydney, staying at the Women’s College while Betty Archdale was in charge, and received her doctorate at the Sorbonne, Paris.

Robinson-Valéry was the first woman to be appointed a full professorship at the University of New South Wales, taking up her appointment in the foundation chair of French and as the head of the school of Western European Languages on 21 February 1963.

In 2005, she was awarded France’s highest decoration, the Legion of Honour (Chevalier).

Ravenswood School for Girls was founded by Mabel Maude Fidler in 1901. Classes took place in a schoolroom erected on the block adjacent to her home, ‘Ravenswood’, in Gordon, Sydney. While it was a non-sectarian private day school for girls, boys were enrolled in 1901 but the older ones departed by July the same year. They continued to be enrolled until 1913 in the Infants area and again during the war years but only in Kindergarten.

Fidler sold the school to the Methodist Church in 1924, by which point it had 180 pupils. The school became a Uniting Church school in 1977.

Ravenswood continues to operate today and has an enrolment of 1 130. It has always remained and grown on the original site at Gordon and is a member of the Alliance of Girls’ Schools (Australasia).

Mabel Maude Fidler was the founder of Ravenswood School for Girls.

Mabel Fidler and her sister, Isabel Margaret Fidler, attended Emily Baxter’s Argyle School in Surry Hills and both were winners of the prestigious Fairfax Prize.

Fidler worked as a governess for several years before opening her own school in 1901. The classes took place in a schoolroom erected on the block adjacent to her home, ‘Ravenswood’, in Gordon, Sydney. It was a non-sectarian private day school for girls.

Fidler sold the school to the Methodist Church in 1924, by which point it had 180 pupils. She retired as Headmistress the following year but continued on as the President of the Old Girls’ Union (ROGU) until 1938. One of her last ‘official’ appearances was at the Jubilee Celebrations of ROGU in 1958 at which the new Mabel Fidler Library was opened.

The Sydney University Women Undergraduates’ Association was formed in 1899. It ran a variety of social activities for women students.

Work by Presbyterian Deaconesses was established in Victoria in 1898 when six women were ‘set apart’ by the Commission of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, ‘in a special way for Christian service as the chief object of their life.

From the beginning, two important principles were clearly stated:

• that the ministry of the deaconess was to be seen as a ministry to the less privileged and persons in need
• that adequate training for such ministry was necessary.

After a peripatetic existence for the first 15 or so years, training was provided at Rolland House in Carlton, from 1915, for almost sixty years.

As for the special ministry of deaconesses – the following lists some of the activities they engaged in. They:

• ministered to the body as well as the soul. Some of the first nurses ever seen in the Australian outback were deaconesses. Trained as they were, they could conduct services where there was no minister. As nurses, they were important leaders in the establishment of the Dr John Flynn’s Australian Inland Mission.
• Personal work and contact in the inner suburbs have proven a friends to those in material, moral, social and spiritual need.
• Assistants to ministers in large parishes.
• In 3 states, been very important in organising youth work – including camps, Sunday schools, bible classes etc.
• Important to teaching scripture in government schools, thereby getting the word across to children in homes where religion in unknown. ‘the greatest open door in front of the church today, and the main hope of preserving Christian ideals in this land’.
• In change of hostels for country girls, visited gaols, attend children’s courts and ‘as probation officers have been able to keep girls from entering a life of crime.
• Missionary trainees to Korea, China, Pacific Islands.
• that adequate training for such ministry was necessary.

Although a nursing service commenced in Oodnadatta in 1907, a hospital wasn’t opened there until 1911. It came under the gamete of Australian Inland Mission activities and was the organisation’s first bush hospital. The first nursing sisters to serve there were also both Deaconesses trained at the Presbyterian training institute in Melbourne

Only five foot tall and seven stone (45 kg) wringing wet, ‘Little Sister’ Mary Ann ‘Latto’ Bett arrived in Oodnadatta in March of 1910. Her arrival was keenly awaited by the local doctor, who had a number of sick men in outback communities to attend to. Known as ‘The little angel of the north’, she worked there for four years, as a nurse, preacher, teacher and Sunday School mistress. Perhaps her greatest attribute was her ability to relate with ease to the rough and ready people she encountered in the outback.

She left Oodnadatta to serve as an Army nurse in the Great War. She was discharged from the service in 1918 upon marriage to Lieutenant William Paul Boland in London. They returned to Australia to settle in Seymour and later lived in Melbourne. She died in Ulverstone, Tasmania in 1968.

The order of the Faithful Companions of Jesus Sisters (FCJ Sisters) was founded in Amiens in France in 1820 by Marie Madeleine de Bonnault d’Hoüet.

They arrived in Australia in response to requests from local priests for assistance in establishing a viable Catholic School system. The Education Act of 1872 spelt the end of government financial support for all religious and independent schools which meant that if the Catholic Church wanted to maintain existing schools and establish new schools, it had to find all necessary finance. The priests and bishops sought help from religious communities overseas.

In June 1882, 12 FCJ sisters arrived in Melbourne, Victoria where they soon founded a school in the inner city suburb of Richmond. Vaucluse College FCJ was soon at capacity, so land was purchased in Kew, to the east. They built a new convent and boarding school which marked the establishment of Genazzano FCJ College. In 1900 the Sisters set up a school in Benalla called FCJ College and in 1968 founded Stella Maris Convent and boarding school in Frankston, Victoria. The Stella Maris Convent and Vaucluse College FCJ have since closed.

In recent years, FCJ sisters have engaged in ministry abroad, in such places as Sierra Leone, Bolivia, the Philippines, Indonesia and Romania, as well as in remote communities in Australia, such as the Kimberley.

A member of the Australian Labor Party, Liddy Clark was elected to the Parliament of Queensland as Member for Clayfield in 2001. She held the Ministerial portfolio of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Policy from February 2004 until March 2005. She was defeated at the 2006 election.

The Catholic Diocese of Maitland was established in 1886 with the Right Rev Dr James Murray serving as Bishop. Presiding over the spiritual well-being of Catholics residing in a geographic area that spread north all the way to the Queensland border and west as far as far as could be reached, Bishop Murray knew the task was enormous, much too big for the Sisters of the Good Samaritan, who arrived in the area two years earlier, to deal with on their own.

Recognising the tradition of the Dominicans as educators, and acknowledging Catholic education in the diocese as a priority, he called upon their Irish leaders to support a long term plan. Dominican Sisters provided a unique possibility. Not only could they continue the work of the schools for the less fortunate, as did the Josephites and Good Samaritan Sisters, but they could also educate young women who would have the financial backing and social standing to become the first of generations of Catholic teachers for the people of the Maitland Diocese.

Born to Australian-born parents of Irish descent, Catherine O’Brien received her senior education at the Dominican Convent, Maitland, where she won a teacher-training scholarship. In July 1914she entered the same convent, and received the habit in April 1915, taking the religious name of Mary Anselm. She made perpetual vows in April 1917 and remained at Maitland, teaching in the secondary school, until 1920.

She left Maitland In 1921, and moved to Santa Sabina Dominican Convent School, Strathfield, so that she could attend the University of Sydney. She graduated B.A. in 1924 with first-class honours in English and Latin and the University medal for English. She gained her diploma in education in 1925, and in 1928 took a first-class honours M.A. in English literature, with a thesis on tragedy.

She taught at Santa Sabina for twenty years, between 1925-45, and became well known and respected for her innovative methods and range of publications. She was an enthusiastic educator who aimed to provide a high quality education for girls. She was particularly interested in ensuring that girls received opportunities to participate in sport and other forms of physical education. In 1922 she convened the first meeting of principals of Catholic girls secondary schools to facilitate co-operation in sporting competitions, which became a feature of Catholic schools in the 1930s.

In the early twentieth century, white Australians began to push settlement into remote regions in Northern Australia. Concerns about the type of society that such a harsh environment might produce were a real concern to Europeans. How could a balanced and healthy society develop in such an isolated, masculine environment? The Australian Inland Mission (AIM) was established in 1912 to help alleviate these concerns.

On the advice of some women who lived, or had lived, in the ‘outback’, a Presbyterian minister, Reverend John Flynn, travelled widely in the Northern Territory, surveying conditions in 1912 and speaking to residents who appeared to be in it for the long haul. As he visited people where he found them, nearly all men, he was concerned that community couldn’t develop unless people were prepared to bring their wives and raise their families in those remote regions.

His vision, therefore was to provide pastoral care to a range of people with a variety of needs that were significantly different to those of the metropolitan centres. Alongside that he saw the need for nursing services so that women particularly would feel safe in outback Australia. Arguably, the main reason for th establishment of the Australian Inland Mission was to provide for the well-being of women and children in remote Australia.

He facilitated this vision through the use of modern technology. He pioneered the development of radio communications in the bush, at the same time as he started to develop the outback nursing clinics, and created a network of patrol padres on the road to be there for people wherever they were found.

From 1912 the Australian Inland Mission established 15 nursing homes/bush hospitals in remote Australian locations.

Following the establishment of the Uniting Church in Australia in 1977, the work of the AIM continued in the Presbyterian Church as the Presbyterian Inland Mission and in the Uniting Church as Frontier Services.

A member of the National Party of Australia, Leisha Harvey was elected to the Queensland Parliament as Member for Greenslopes in 1983. She served as Minister for Health from December 1987 until January 1989. She was defeated at the election which was held in December 1989.

A member of the Australian Labor Party, Anne Warner served as Member for Kurilpa in the Queensland Parliament from 1983-86 and then as Member for South Brisbane from 1986-95, when she retired from Parliament. She held the Portfolio of Family Services and Aboriginal Affairs from 7 December 1989 until 31 July 1995.

A member of the National Party, Judy Gamin was elected as the Member for South Coast in 1988 at a by-election, but was defeated at the 1989 election. She was elected as Member for newly created seat of Burleigh at the 1992 election. She was re-elected in 1995 and 1998, but was ultimately defeated at the 2001 election. Before her election to the state parliament, she stood unsuccessfully in the federal seat of Moncrieff at the 1984 election.

A member of the Australian Labor Party, Molly Robson was elected the Member for Springwood in the Parliament of Queensland in 1989 and remained in the seat until 1995. During her period in parliament she held the ministerial portfolio of Environment and Heritage from September 1992 until July 1995.

A member of the Australian Labor Party, Judy Spence was elected to the Parliament of Queensland as the representative for the electorate of Mount Gravatt in 1989. She is currently the Leader of the House in the Parliament as well as Parliamentary Secretary to the Premier and Minister for the Arts, Anna Bligh. She has held ministerial portfolios, which have included Police and Corrective Services and Seniors, since 1998.