The Australian Women's Register

Mary Montgomerie Bennett spent her childhood in Queensland, returning to London from 1903 to 1908 to study, and again in 1914 to marry. When her husband died in 1927 she returned to Western Australia to pursue her interest in Aboriginal education. She worked at the Mount Margaret Mission from 1932, dramatically improving educational outcomes through the implementation of progressive teaching methods. Over the next three decades Bennett was a passionate advocate for Aboriginal rights employing her connections with international humanitarian groups and women’s organisations to support her campaigns to improve the lives of Aborigines, in particular Aboriginal women.

Unionist and activist Madge Cope was born in Yorkshire and migrated to Australia in 1915, aged 11. With her parents and two brothers she settled on a farm in Carnamah. She later married her neighbour, Harold Cope, and the pair had four children. Cope himself was born to an English father and an Australian mother.

During wartime, the Copes sold pies at Victoria Park. They grew tomatoes at Geraldton, then Guildford, where they also sold flowers. In 1966, while driving on a gravel road, Madge lost control on a bend and hit a truck. Harold was thrown from the vehicle and died on the road after telling the truck driver to look after his wife, who was trapped in the car.

Madge became involved with the Communist Party in Guildford, and was made a life member of the Guildford Association. She joined the Peace Movement and the Union of Australian Women. She also wrote short stories, two of which were published in the magazine Our Women. Madge died in 2001, aged 97 years.

Roma Gilchrist was first a member of the Modern Women’s Club before joining the Union of Australian Women, Western Australian Branch. She was vice-president in 1954 and president from 1957 until 1971.

Katharine Susannah Prichard, author, pacifist, Communist, indefatigable political activist, chose to live on the outskirts of Perth, Western Australia, for fifty years, from 1919 until her death in 1969. Her life is one of courage, determination, hard work, great joy and satisfaction, and tragedy. During her lifetime she developed an international reputation as a novelist, she was recognised as one of Australia’s foremost writers, and she established an almost legendary reputation locally as a political activist whose initiatives made a profound impact upon the lives of many West Australians. In the midst of such physical isolation and unsophisticated conservatism, how was her brilliant light able to shine so readily?

Annette Cameron was born in Middle Swan WA in 1920. Her interest in politics was sparked by the Spanish Civil War, prompting her to join the Modern Women’s Club, the Anti-Fascist League, and, in 1941, the Communist Party. She was an active campaigner for peace, human rights, and Aboriginal causes.

Nell Allgrove, née Hannah, came to South Australia from the West with her family when she was an infant. She began nursing training at the Royal Adelaide Hospital in 1936 and worked in the hospital’s Blood Transfusion Unit until she was called up to the Australian Army Nursing Service in 1940. In 1941 she joined the 2/4 Casualty Clearing Station and was sent to Malaya. She was among those who escaped from Singapore just before its capture by the Japanese in February 1942. When the ship ‘Vyner Brooke’ was sunk in Banka Strait, Nell and fellow nurses were interned by the Japanese. She was among 24 nurses (from a total of 65) who survived until their release in September 1945.

Tommy Lyon went to schools at Canarvon and Perth. She completed her nurse training in Perth and Broome. Following her midwifery course Lyon nursed at Norseman. Lyon moved to Adelaide and worked at the Adelaide Hospital. In 1944 she left to get married. Lyon returned to nursing in 1964 working at St Andrew’s and Wakefield St Hospitals. She retired in 1981 when she was 67.

Bessy Cameron was educated at a ‘native institution’ (later known as Annesfield) at Albany, opened in 1852 by Anne Camfield, a teacher and governess. Bessy took her certificate of Proficiency with honours, and was sent to Sydney to attend a ‘model school’, where she became an accomplished pianist. In 1866 she returned to Albany to help Mrs Camfield in the school and was employed as church organist. In 1867 Bessy was sent to the Moravian Ramahyuck mission as a teacher. Not being able to marry a European man of her choice, she was transferred to Lake Tyers, were she married Donald Cameron, a Jupagilwournditch man from Ebenezer in 1868. Bessy lost her initiative and enthusiasm, which was reflected in a marked deterioration in her status. Her married years were spent moving from Ramahyuck to Lake Tyers and back, in a struggle to support her four surviving children. Her marriage deteriorated, and in 1887 Bessy fell seriously ill following another miscarriage. The rest of her life was spent battling to prevent the forceful removal of her children and grandchildren.

Daisy Bindi was born probably around 1904 on the Western Australian edge of the Gibson Desert. She learned to do housework and to ride and manage horses while working on ‘Ethel Creek’ station from an early age. In the 1940s she organised a strike of Aboriginal workers on the stations near her, despite the threats by the police and Native Welfare Department that she would be removed from the area. Her initiative was largely responsible for spreading the strike to the further inland Pilbara stations; the strike changed the structure of labour relations in the north of the State. In the 1950s Daisy lived with others in a well-ordered collective, the Pindan Cooperative, the first Aboriginal cooperative formed in Western Australia. When she visited Perth for the first time in October 1959, she spent much time lobbying for a school for Pindan. Her later visit to Perth gave her the opportunity to associate with women who supported the Aboriginal cause at the Union of Australian Women.

Joan Winch grew up in Fremantle, Western Australia. In 1977 she gained a Bachelor of Applied Science in Nursing at the Western Australian Institute of Technology (now Curtin University). She went on to study midwifery and child care, becoming a triple certificated sister.

From 1975 she was involved in the Perth Aboriginal Medical Service. In 1982 she started up a mobile unit, driving around the Swan Valley fringe dwellers’ camps, servicing medical needs and assisting Nyungars to hospitals. In 1983 she founded the Aboriginal Health Workers Program, Marr Mooditj college, in Perth, integrating traditional Aboriginal approach to health and healing with western medicine.

Joan Winch was awarded her PhD in Aboriginal Studies from the Centre for Aboriginal Studies in May 2011. On the recommendation of each of her examiners, she also received a commendation from the Chancellor. Her PhD was executively approved on 11 May, four weeks before her 76th birthday. Her doctoral thesis presented a history of Marr Mooditj using an auto-ethnographic approach.

Dr Winch was named WA Citizen of the Year in 1986, State and National Aboriginal of the Year in 1987, and in the same year received the World Health Organisation Sasakawa Award for Primary Health Care Work on behalf of Marr Mooditj. She served as Director of the Centre for Aboriginal Studies between 1999 and 2001. In 2008 she received Curtin University’s John Curtin Medal for her services to the community.

Shirley McPherson was born in 1948 in Perth, Western Australia. A champion schoolgirl athlete, she also excelled academically and won a teaching bursary on completing her leaving certificate at Dominican ladies college, Dongara. She completed a three-year accountancy course at the Western Australia Institute of Technology in 1967 and, in 1974, opened her own tax consultancy business in Perth. When the family moved to Geraldton, she worked as a tax agent there.

She was appointed a commissioner of the Aboriginal Development Commission in 1983 and became full-time chairperson in 1986. Despite the commission’s growing budgets and staff levels, McPherson’s nine fellow commissioners were dismissed by Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Gerry Hand, in 1988, and she only retained her position because it was an appointment made by the Governor-General. The new commissioners twice passed motions of censure against her.

Disappointed, McPherson resigned in 1989 and returned to Western Australia. She resumed accountancy and also worked as a consultant on Aboriginal affairs to the state government.

Mary Ann Bin-Sallik has played a monumental role in the advancement of Aboriginal studies with a proliferation of posts in the tertiary sector. She has been part of government committees of inquiry into Aboriginal employment; discrimination in employment; and the forced removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children.

In 2017, Mary Ann Bin-Sallik was made an Officer in the General division of the Order of Australia ‘for distinguished service to tertiary education as an academic, author and administrator, particularly in the area of Indigenous studies and culture, and as a role model and mentor.

Gloria Brennan, of Pindiini (Nyanganyatjara) descent, was born in 1948 in the eastern goldfields of Western Australia. She graduated in linguistics and anthropology from the University of Western Australia in 1978.

Brennan was one of the founders of the Aboriginal Medical Service and Aboriginal Legal Service in Western Australia. She continued her work in Canberra with the Equal Employment Opportunity Bureau of the Public Service Board. She was Aboriginal Australian delegate to the Second World African and Black Festival of Arts and Culture in 1977 and travelled extensively, making contacts with other indigenous people. She was also a classical pianist. Brennan died of cancer in 1985.

Sally Morgan is a renowned Aboriginal artist and author of the award-winning My Place.

Mundja, of Kukatja descent, was born at Naaru in the Canning stock route area of the Great Sandy Desert in northern Western Australia. Her husband, a much older man, had several wives and caused her a leg injury which brought her ongoing trouble. In the 1940s her family moved out of the desert to Balgo.

Mundja spoke several languages from her area, and was a custodian of many songs, ceremonies and dances, especially women’s. She was one of the two women leaders in the important, partly secret Djuluru Dreaming complex that travelled through the Kimberleys and the Northern Territory. She travelled widely to ceremonial gatherings at places such as Yuendumu, Kintore, Christmas Creek, Jigalong and Wiluna, and to Broome and Derby, to renew contacts with relatives and create new friendships. She acted as an adviser on Aboriginal traditions in the local school, and was nominated as a local Justice of the Peace. She was also engaged in the women’s art movement at Balgo.

June Oscar, of Punuba descent, was born in 1962 at Fitzroy Crossing, Western Australia. She was sent to Perth for her secondary education at the John Forrest senior high school. She left school at the age of 16.

After returning to Fitzroy Crossing, Oscar worked for the state community welfare and health departments. She later became a women’s resource officer with the Junjuwa community. She chaired the Marra Worra Worra resource agency until 1991, when she was appointed to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission for a two-year term as a commissioner.

She was a principal of Bunuba Productions, which made the film Jandamarra, based on the life of ‘Pigeon’, the leader of Punuba resistance against European settlement.

Doris Pilkington is the author of Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence; the story on which Phillip Noyce’s celebrated feature film is based.

Patricia Torres, of Yawuru, Nyikina, Bardi, Punuba and Walmatjarri descent, was born in Broome, Western Australia. She completed a secretarial training course, a Bachelor of Arts degree and a Diploma of Education.

Torres became a health worker with the national Aboriginal trachoma program in Western Australia. In 1978 she became a Legal Aid Field Officer with the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre, where she designed and conducted a statewide socioeconomic survey of Aboriginal families. She was a Curriculum Development Officer with the state Education Department in Hobart during 1981. Upon her return to Western Australia, she was appointed Secretary to the Kimberley Land Council at Derby. From 1982 to 1989 she worked for the federal Department of Education and Youth Affairs, serving in Broome, Darwin and Canberra.

Since then, Torres has concentrated on writing, art and community work. She has recorded Kimberley oral history, published a couple of bilingual children’s books which she also illustrated, created posters for national events and recordings of stories. She has worked with many Kimberley community organisations, including the Yawuru Aboriginal Corporation, Winarn Aboriginal Arts and Crafts, Magabala Books and the Broome Aboriginal Media Association.

Julie Tommy, of Innawongia descent, grew up on the Onslow Native Welfare Reserve where her family was relocated from their traditional land in the Tom Price/Paraburdoo area of Western Australia. Her primary school years were spent in a native welfare hostel near the Onslow Reserve, and she had little interaction with her family.

Tommy commenced a social work degree at Curtin University before working with the Western Australian Aboriginal Child Care Agency (ACCA) from 1980 to 1986. She became Coordinator of the Agency and attended national conferences on child care.

Helen Corbett, of Yinggarda and Bibbulman descent, was educated in Carnarvon, Perth and Sydney. She was Director of Studies at Tranby Aboriginal Cooperative College in Sydney. She also worked as executive officer in the Western Australian Aboriginal Legal Service, the largest of its kind in Australia, operating 13 branches and providing legal services to over 48,000 Aboriginal people in that state.

In 1983 Corbett co-founded the Committee to Defend Black Rights (CDBR), and became its national chairperson. The Committee was at the forefront of a national and international campaign which forced the federal government to establish the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. Helen has represented the Committee at national and international meetings, and has travelled widely to advocate indigenous interests. She is also vice-president of the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organisation and has received a number of awards and scholarships in recognition of her work.

Nance Loney, a once only candidate (ALP, New South Wales Legislative Assembly, Vaucluse, 1981), took an active part in matters of politics and public policy as a member of  the New South Wales Labor Party and activist groups such as Citizens for Democracy, the Labor Women’s Conference, the nuclear non-proliferation movement, Eastern Suburbs Friends of the ABC and Labor for Refugees.

Mrs Ilona Hrubos was born in the town of Mahr, Schonberg in the Sudetenland, in 1928. At the end of the Second World War she, like millions of others, became a refugee. She, her husband and child migrated to Australia, arriving in Fremantle on 1 January 1951. They lived first in the Northam migrant camp, moving to Glen Forrest in April of 1951.

Meitka Gruszka was a member of the Polish community in Western Australia who took an active role in multicultural issues. As well as being a leader in the Polish community and having served as President of the Polish Association of Western Australia, she was involved in a number of multicultural organisations. At various times throughout the 1980s and 90s she was a member of the Ethnic Communities Council of Western Australia, the Catholic Migrant Centre and the National Ethnic and Multicultural Broadcasters’ Council.

In September 1960, seven months after the death of Mary Bertha Raine, the Sunday Mirror was reporting with incredulity that ‘The singing barmaid of a dilapidated outback New South Wales pub became the woman who left most of her £439,626 estate to the University of Western Australia Medical School. The bequest will bring her total gifts to the University to nearly £750,000’.

Nancy Reardon was a gifted Tasmanian athlete who excelled in rowing and netball.

Priya Cooper was born with Cerebral Palsy and began swimming at a young age for therapy. In 1991, whilst swimming at a school carnival, Priya was selected to represent Wheelchair Sports Western Australia at the 1991 National Wheelchair Games, winning 9 gold medals. Priya debuted internationally at the 1992 Paralympics in Barcelona, winning three gold medals and two silver medals and breaking two world records. Her performances earnt Priya an Order of Australia Medal. She went on to further success at Paralympic Games in Atlanta in 1996 and Sydney in 2000.

In 1995, Cooper was named the Paralympian of the Year, in 1999 she was acknowledged as Young Australian of the Year (Sport) edging out Pat Rafter and Ian Thorpe, who were both finalists.

Born in St Kilda, Melbourne, Victoria, Emily Pelloe was educated at a private school in South Yarra before moving with her family to Western Australia. In 1902 she was married in Perth to Theodore Parker Pelloe, a bank manager. The pair had no children.

A member of the Perth Riding Club, Pelloe competed successfully in equestrian events in Sydney, Melbourne, Launceston and Perth. She made several long rides in New South Wales and Western Australia. In 1916 she turned her talents to the study of botany, and went on to produce a number of illustrated publications including Wildflowers of Western Australia. Some of her landscape watercolours were purchased by government departments.

From 1920, Pelloe was writing the ‘Women’s Interests’ column for the West Australian. She supported the Country Women’s Association, the Women Writers’ Club, and the Women’s Riding Club. A year after her death, Pelloe’s husband Theodore presented 400 of her wildflower paintings to the University of Western Australia.