The Australian Women's Register

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.

Marie Sexton (nee Kinsella) co-drafted the constitution of the Women Lawyers’ Association of New South Wales and was the organisation’s first honorary secretary. The eldest of five children of Edward Parnell (Ted) Kinsella and his Belgian wife, Marie Louise Josephine Graff, the then Kinsella matriculated from Fort Street Girls’ High School and went on to earn three qualifications from the University of Sydney: a Bachelor of Arts in 1943; a Diploma in Education in 1944; and a Bachelor of Laws in 1949. (It was during a year-long stint as teaching assistant at Inverell High School in northern New South Wales that Kinsella decided that teaching was not for her, had her last day on 29 January 1945 and thence turned her sights to the study of law). She began working as an associate to her father, then Mr Justice Kinsella of the Industrial Commission of New South Wales. On 18 January 1950, Mr Justice Kinsella was elevated to the Supreme Court of New South Wales; Kinsella became clerk associate to her father and clerk of arraigns. Although admitted to the New South Wales Bar on 11 February 1949, Kinsella did not practise at the Bar. She later worked in the Department of Territories, Sydney, and the Attorney-General’s Department in Canberra, producing the respected Annotated Constitution. Kinsella retired in 1980.

Heidi Yates is Head of General Practice at Legal Aid ACT, a position she has held since 2015. A well-known solicitor and human-rights advocate, Heidi has been appointed to roles including Executive Director of the ACT Women’s Legal Centre, advisor to the ACT Human Rights and Discrimination Commissioner and a Clinical Education Convenor at the ANU College of Law.

Heidi’s professional reputation is well-established at a national level as an advocate for the development and funding of free legal services across Australia (particularly for victims of family violence) and as a trailblazer in gender-related law reform.

Heidi has also been a spokesperson and advocate at a local and federal level for the removal of legislative discrimination on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation. She has undertaken this work through roles including spokesperson for the community law reform group ‘Good Process’ and as the inaugural chair of the ACT LGBTIQ Ministerial Advisory Council.

After just two years of practice, her work was recognised when she won the ACT Law Society’s Young Lawyer Award in 2008. In 2011, Heidi was also a state finalist in the Young Australian of the Year Awards.

Go to ‘Details’ below to read a reflective essay written by Heidi Yates for the Trailblazing Women and the Law Project.

Jenny Aitchison was elected as the Member for Maitland representing the Australian Labor Party in the Legislative Assembly of the New South Wales Parliament in 2015.

Anna Flanagan began playing hockey when she was five years old. She made her international debut when she was eighteen and went on to represent Australia as a member of the Australian women’s hockey team at both Olympic and Commonwealth Games.

Angie Ballard was paralysed as a result of a car accident as a child. Her first Paralympic Games were in Sydney (2000). She went on to win a bronze medal in Athens (2004) and two silver medals at the Paralympic Games in London (2012). She was a gold medal winner at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow in 2014.

Susan Hollingsworth was a widow with three of her eleven children and six grandchildren living at home in Hall, a small village in the north of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT – now the ACT) when World War One broke out. When two of her sons-in-law enlisted with the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) she offered safe haven to her daughters and their children who moved back to Hall. Her son Clyde died in France in 1917 aged 23 years. Susan was well-known as a supporter of the Red Cross in their fundraising ventures.

Ellen Rohrmann was living with family in Singapore when World War I broke out. Declared an enemy alien by the ruling British, she and other relatives were transported to Australia and initially interned at Bourke, New South Wales before being moved to the Molonglo Concentration Camp in the Federal Capital Territory where Ellen died in 1918.

Catherine ‘Katie’ Sheaffe represented the Tharwa community on the Federal Capital Territory War Food Fund committee during World War I.

The Supreme Court of the Australian Capital Territory was established by the Commonwealth Seat of Government Supreme Court Act, 1933. It commenced operation from 1 January 1934 as the superior court of record for matters originating in the ACT. It has unlimited jurisdiction within the territory in civil matters (although matters involving less than $250 000 are usually brought in the Magistrates Court), and hears the most serious criminal matters.

Within the Australian court system it is one of eight state and territory Supreme Courts having unlimited jurisdiction in their respective parts of Australia. These Supreme Courts are second only to the High Court of Australia as the final court of appeal in the Australian judicial hierarchy.

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

Read more about Marie-Louise Uhr in our sister publication The Encyclopedia of Women and Leadership in Twentieth-Century Australia.

Read more about Isobel Mary White in our sister publication The Encyclopedia of Women and Leadership in Twentieth-Century Australia.

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

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

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

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

In 1948 Hazel Dobson was commissioned by the first Minister for Immigration, Arthur Calwell to investigate the living conditions and social problems of newly arrived refugees. Her report successfully recommended the employment by the Department of Immigration of professionally qualified social workers to assist migrants and refugees experiencing settlement difficulties. It also successfully recommended the enlistment of community organizations in helping new arrivals settle through what became the Good Neighbour Movement. She became the first Director of The Department of Immigration’s Assimilation and Social Welfare Section and continued in that role until her death.

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

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.

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.

Violet Josephine Bulger (née Freeman) was among the first Aboriginal children forcibly removed from their families under New South Wales’ Aborigines Protection Act, 1909. She raised eight children on her own near Yass after being widowed in 1939 and went on to raise many of her grandchildren. She was respected as an Elder in the Canberra Aboriginal community until her death in 1993.

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.

A student of Newnham College, Cambridge, and a suffragist, Pattie Craske completed a natural sciences degree in botany with second-class honours at a time when the university did not grant degrees to women. After teaching in England, she married Australian entomologist, Robin Tillyard, in Sydney. In 1928, by then the mother of four daughters, she moved to the small, isolated community of Canberra where she became a leader in community, sporting and university organisations and was elected to the Canberra Community Hospital Board in 1935. She was the social face of the growing city, renowned for her welcome to newcomers, in later years being regarded as the ‘grande dame’ of Canberra.

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.

Air Vice-Marshal Margaret Staib was the Australian Defence Forces’ (ADF) most senior female officer when she took over as Airservices Australia CEO on October 15, 2012. As the ADF’s senior logistician, AVM Staib served as Commander Joint Logistics and played a key role in implementing a $2.4 billion logistics reform program under the 2009 Australian Defence White Paper.