The Australian Women's Register

A member of the Australian Labor Party from 1965, Jean McLean made her first attempt to gain election to the Victorian parliament in 1973 when she stood as a candidate in the Legislative Council Province of Monash at the state election, which was held on 19 May. She served in the Victorian Parliament as the Australian Labor Party member for Boronia Province in the Legislative Council from 1985-92 and then as the member for Melbourne West Province from 1992 until her retirement in 1999. Before her entry into parliament she was active in her opposition to conscription and the Australian involvement in the Vietnam War as convenor of the Save Our Sons Movement from 1965-73 and as Vice-chairperson of the Vietnam Moratorium Movement.

Josephine Conway is a feminist activist who has made a difference to the lives of women living in New South Wales’ Hunter Valley District for over thirty years. Best known for her long term involvement in the Right to Choose Abortion Coalition, she remains active in the Women’s Electoral Lobby, the Hunter Valley Home-Birth Group, Women’s Action against Global Violence, the Union of Australian Women, Jobs for Women and the Women’s Action Group. In 2005, as a mark of appreciation and respect for her commitment to the promotion of women’s issues, she was awarded the National Foundation For Australian Women’s Edna Ryan Award for Community Activism.

Roberta (Bobbi) Sykes was born and brought up in Townsville, Queensland. She left school at 14 and trained as a nurse. In 1971 she moved to Sydney, and in 1972 helped establish the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Canberra. She worked as Education and Publicity Officer for the newly founded Aboriginal Medical Service in Redfern, and began a ten-year career as a freelance journalist. She has written poetry and film reviews, and contributed to contemporary discussions on a wide range of indigenous issues.

From 1975 to 1980 Bobbi Sykes was an adviser on Aboriginal health and education to the New South Wales Health Commission, following which she moved to the United States and completed her doctorate on Aboriginal education at Harvard University. Upon her return to Sydney, she continued writing and lecturing. She has held appointments at Charles Sturt and Macquarie universities and has worked as a consultant.

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

In 1979, Gracia Baylor became the first woman member of the Liberal Party to be elected to the Victorian Legislative Council when she was electedthe member for Boronia. That year, she was one of the first two women to be elected to the Upper House, the other being Joan Coxsedge of the Australian Labor Party. Baylor held her seat until 1985 when she resigned to contest (unsucessfully) the Legislative Assembly seat of Warrandyte.

Dorothy Leila Rankine, of Ngarrindjeri and Kaurna descent, grew up at Raukkan (Point McLeay) on Lake Alexandrina in South Australia. Her lifelong involvement with music and singing began with her family and the local Salvation Army church. She later became a soldier of the Salvation Army. After completing only primary education she moved to Adelaide in 1965, where she joined the Aboriginal Women’s Council and later the Port Adelaide Aboriginal Friendship Club.

In 1972 Rankine became a founding member of the Adelaide Aboriginal Orchestra, which later developed into the Centre for Aboriginal Studies in Music (CASM), of which she was chairperson until her retirement in 1986. She acted as counsellor, liaising with the local Aboriginal community and organising annual camps and concerts. She edited and contributed poems to the journal Tjungaringanyi; was elected chairperson of the urban committee; and was an active singer, trombonist and speaker. She appeared in the films Sister, If You Only Knew (1975) and Wrong Side of the Road (1980).

Dorothy Leila Rankine served on the boards of the Aboriginal Community College, the Aboriginal Community Centre, and the Aboriginal Sobriety Group. She was a member of the Australia Council, the Aboriginal Artists Agency in Sydney, and the Aborigines Advancement League of South Australia, and was a life board member of Warriappendi Alternative School. She contributed to Aboriginal education curriculum materials for South Australian schools, told Ngarrindjeri stories on ABC television, and was one of the founders of Camp Coorong, a Ngarrindjeri cultural centre.

Una B. Porter (née Cato) was a renowned psychiatrist, philanthropist and devotee of the Methodist Church in Melbourne, Victoria. She was the first female member of staff at Ballarat Mental Hospital in 1946. In 1963 she was elected World President of the YWCA and travelled extensively. In recognition of her services to the community she was appointed Officer of the British Empire (OBE) in 1961, and Commander of the British Empire (CBE) in 1968.

Tracey Moffatt is an internationally renowned Aboriginal photographer, documentary maker and director. Moffatt’s photography is reflected in her films and documentaries, which explore Aboriginal culture by confronting commonly held stereotypes.

Tracey Moffatt was born in 1960 in Brisbane, where she graduated from the Queensland College of Arts. Her debut film, Nice Coloured Girls, won the Most Innovative Film award at the 1988 Festival of Australian Film and Video. At the same festival, she won the Best New Australian Video award for her 5-minute Aboriginal and Islander dance video, Watch Out. Moffatt also produced Moodeitj Yorgas, which includes interviews, dances, and storytelling by Western Australian Aboriginal women. Her film Night Cries: A Rural Tragedy (1990) draws from the 1955 Chauvel film Jedda.

Moffatt’s photographic exhibitions include “Some Lads” and “Something More”.

Louisa Lawson was an independent and resourceful woman who fought for women’s rights during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century in Australia. Married at eighteen years of age to Niels (Peter) Larsen, later Lawson, she produced five children, one of whom died in infancy. Another child, Henry became one of Australia’s most famous writers. On her move to Sydney from country New South Wales in 1883 she supported her family by doing washing, sewing and taking in boarders. In 1887 she bought the Republican and with her son Henry edited and wrote most of the newspaper’s copy. In 1888 she established the Dawn, a journal devoted to women’s concerns and continued publication until 1905. In May 1889 Louisa launched the campaign for female suffrage and announced the formation of the Dawn Club where women met to discuss ‘every question of life, work and reform’ and to gain experience in public speaking. Louisa Lawson could claim success when women in New South Wales gained the suffrage in 1902.

Janet Clarke (née Snodgrass) was a society hostess and leading patron of good causes in Melbourne from the 1880s until her death. She was a member of the Charity Organisation Society, the Austral Salon, the Melbourne District Nursing Society, the Talbot Epileptic Colony committee, the Alliance Française, the Dante Society, the Women’s Hospital Committee, the Hospital for Sick Children and the City Newsboys’ Society. She helped to organise the Women’s Work Exhibition in 1907. Clarke’s influence was such that she became the first president of the National Council of Women of Victoria in 1902, and of the Australian Women’s National League in 1904.

The Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (Victorian Branch) has its origins with the formation of the Sisterhood of International Peace in Melbourne in 1915. When the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) was founded in Zurich in 1919, the Sisterhood reconstituted itself as the Australian section of this new organisation. The Victorian branch formally separated from the Australian Section in 1920, although considerable overlap continued between these two bodies.

Aside from campaigning for international disarmament and an end to all war, WILPF has taken action on a wide range of social justice issues.

The Australian Local Government Women’s Association (ALGWA) was formed in Canberra in 1951. A non-party, not for profit organisation, the formation of the Association was inspired by the belief that more women should be involved in local government both as elected members and senior managers.

As of 2008, its aims were:
To assist in furthering knowledge and understanding of the function of local government
To encourage women to participate in local government
To encourage women to make a career in local government
To watch over and protect the interests and rights of women in local government
To take action in relation to any subject or activity affecting local government and local government legislation
To act in an advisory capacity to intending women candidates for local government election.

The Association has branches in all Australian states and the Northern Territory and membership is open to all interested in encouraging and supporting women’s participation in the Local Government sector.

The Business and Professional Women’s Club of Wollongong was formed on 17 March 1953. The Club’s objectives include a commitment to the removal of sex discrimination in the employment and remuneration of women. The Club is affiliated with the Australian Federation of Business and Professional Women’s Clubs and through that body to the International Federation of Business and Professional Women.

The Australian Local Government Women’s Association – New South Wales Branch was formed in Sydney in 1952 with Ald. Marjorie Proposting of Lane Cove Council as first president. Its formation was precipitated by the formation of a national Australian Local Government Women’s Association in Canberra the previous year. A non-party organisation, it was inspired particularly inspired by the belief that more women should be involved in local government partly because this arm of government was especially relevant to housewives and mothers.

Its aims are:
-to assist in furthering women’s knowledge and understanding of the function of local government; to watch over and protect the interests and rights of women in local government; to take action in relation to any subject or activity of particular interest to women affecting local governing bodies or local government legislation; to encourage women to make a career in local government and to act in an advisory capacity to suitable women candidates for local government election.

Nancye Enid Kent Perry was born in Killara on 16 December 1918. She graduated in science from Sydney University and did postgraduate entomological research work in England. Perry later concentrated on her painting, working with the Heidelberg Art Group and others.

Studied Sydney University 1939-42; worked National Standards Laboratory, Sydney, 1943-4; postgrad. In agricultural economic entomology 1945; DSIR England 1947-50; CSIRO Melb. 1950-51; Walter and Eliza Hall Institute 1951-2; Fisheries and Game 1953-5; C’wealth Dept. of Health, Canberra and Tasmania 1955-7; married Warren Perry 16 November 1957; demonstrator in zoology for medical students at the University of Melbourne, 1958.

Lorelei Emmeline Booker (1906-1994) was born in Brisbane, daughter of Sidney North Innes and Caroline Matilda Noble. She was President of the League of Women Voters of New South Wales, 1964-1976, and founder and honorary editor of the League’s newsletter, Equality. The League was a state affiliate of the Australian Federation of Women Voters, formed in 1922 and dissolved in 1983. She was N.S.W. Board member of the A.F.W.V., 1945-1983, and both Honorary Secretary, 1963-1966, and President, 1976-1983, of the A.F.W.V. She was also honorary editor of the Federation’s journal, The Dawn.

Addie Viola Smith, lawyer and feminist, held various offices with the Australian Federation of Women Voters and the League of Women Voters (New South Wales) from the late 1950s until her death in 1975. She was Liaison Representative for the International Federation of Women Lawyers to the United Nations, 1952-1966. She was a member of the Australian delegation that attended the International Alliance of Women Congresses in Dublin, 1961, and Trieste, 1964. She served as Vice-President, 1968-1970, and was made an honorary life member in 1972, of the Australian Local Government Women’s Association.

Caroline Chisholm was famous for her work with new immigrants to New South Wales during the 1840s and 1850s, and later in the goldfields region of Victoria. She lobbied to ensure these people were provided with adequate accommodation and personally organised the often destitute young women to journey to rural areas in order to secure employment. Her benevolent crusade to better the lives of immigrants earned her the title ‘The Immigrants’ Friend’.

Ivy Lavinia Weber was the first woman to be elected to the Victorian parliament in a general election in 1937. She stood as an endorsed candidate for the Women Electors’ League of Victoria for the seat of Nunawading. As an active member of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, she was encouraged to stand for parliament as an independent candidate to represent women. She was re-elected on two occasions, but resigned her state seat in 1943 to contest the federal seat of Henty as part of the League of Women Voters Women for Canberra Movement. She was unsuccessful on that occasion and in 1945 when she again stood for state parliament. She retired from politics after the second defeat.

Anne Fraser Bon had just turned twenty and was newly married when she arrived in Victoria, from Scotland, in 1858. Her husband, John, who was twenty-eight years her senior, was already well-established in pastoralism at Wappan Station in the Bonnie Doon area of south-eastern Victoria. Anne accompanied him to what was then a remote area and bore five children in quick succession. She was widowed at the age of thirty, in 1868, when John Bon died of a heart attack.

Unusually for a women, after her husband’s death, Anne Bon assumed management of the station. She was also unusual amongst her peers for her attempts to act on the behalf of the indigenous people of the region. A devout Presbyterian and humanitarian, Anne Bon supported Aborigines’ resistance to increasing state regimes of control and surveillance. While some of her ideas and goals for the ‘improvement’ of Aboriginal people now seem paternalistic and outdated, many members of indigenous communities nevertheless expressed gratitude for her assistance in thwarting if not defeating the diminution of Aboriginal entitlements and civil rights. It was a cause she remained actively committed to until her death in 1936.

Alice Marshall Moyle was an ethno-musicologist of high renown whose work is always referred to whenever Aboriginal music is studied in schools and tertiary institutions. A talented musician, she was prompted by a talk by A.P. Elkin, then Professor of Anthropology at the University of Sydney, to undertake a study of some recordings of Aboriginal music he had made. She was awarded the Master of Arts (Hons) for this work in 1957. She then undertook her own field trips to complete the first systematic attempt to identify and musically characterise the many different styles and genres of Aboriginal music found in northern and central Australia. Her doctoral thesis, awarded in 1975, was one outcome of this work.

Moyle was a founding member of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies (AIAS) and became a Research Officer there from 1964 to 1965. From 1966-73 Moyle was AIAS Research Fellow in Ethnomusicology, based at Monash University and later a Research Fellow and Research Officer at the Institute in 1973 and 1974 respectively. Her work included the documentation of Aboriginal sound instruments, the history of Aboriginal music and dance through film, field recordings, archaeo-musicology, analysis, taxonomy, and the cataloguing and indexing of ethno-musicological material held in the Institute. She took a great interest in the preservation of recorded sound material and was the guiding force behind the establishment of the ‘Sound Archive’ at the (then) AIAS.

Moyle also played a key role in the establishment of the Musicological Society of Australia and in 1982-83 served as the Society’s National President. She was later instrumental in forming a branch of the International Council for Traditional Music in Australia. She became a Member of the Order of Australia – General Division on Australia Day 1977, was elected as an Honorary Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities on 4 November 1994, and received a degree of Doctor of Music (honoris causa) from the University of Sydney in 1989 and another from the University of Melbourne in 1995.

Elspeth Young was a geographer who spent many years studying Indigenous communities in Australia and Papua New Guinea. After completing her PhD in human geography at the Australian National University in 1977, she was appointed to the position of Research Fellow in the ‘Aboriginal component in the Australian economy project’ led by Fred Fisk in the Development Studies Centre, ANU. In 1978, while working with Fisk, Young began a study of the newly established Aboriginal-owned pastoral enterprise at Willowra station, north of Alice Springs. Thus began her interest in Aboriginal land management from which she became one of the most influential champions of the Aboriginal English term ‘Caring for Country’.

Subsequently, she became the first geographer to have worked on Northern Territory land claims, contributing to the successful claims to Ti Tree and Mt Allen (1980-85). Her professional expertise was also usefully employed while she was a Senior Research Fellow (1982-1985) in the North Australia Research Unit of the ANU in Darwin. At this time, Young contributed to the East Kimberley Impact Assessment Project led by Nugget Coombs and a study on Aboriginal mobility.

Young made a significant contribution to a variety of professional organisations. She was a Council Member of the Institute of Australian Geographers (1987-1992); editor of Australian Geographical Studies (1989-1992); holder of the IAG Professional Services Award for 1998; Member and then Chair of the National Committee for Geography; Treasurer and member of the Executive Committee of the Federation of Australian Social Science Organisations; and Chair of the Australian Antarctic Naming and Medals Committee.

Carol Mills was appointed librarian at the newly-formed Canberra College of Advanced Education in 1969. Her publications include a bibliography of Northern Territory literature and numerous articles on early Australian writers, book illustrators and book history. She worked subsequently as librarian of the Charles Sturt University at Wagga, and the University of the South Pacific in Suva, where she published articles on library management and literacy in the South Pacific.

The New Housewives’ Association (NHA) was formed in Sydney, New South Wales, in 1946. A number of suburban branches, including Chatswood, were established. The NHA’s Central Committee adopted the Australian Women’s Charter seeking equal status for women, launched at the Australian Women’s Conference for Victory in War and Victory in Peace, 1943. The NHA’s progressive platform attracted Communist women to this working-class body. It campaigned for the reduction and strict control of prices, mainly of household commodities; equal pay for women and increased Child Endowment; and the establishment of municipal markets in order to bring cheaper goods to housewives. In 1949 the NHA supported trade-union demand for a 30 shilling increase in the Basic Wage. It published a journal, The New Housewife, and a magazine, The Housewives’ Guide. In 1950 the NHA National Committee moved to change the Association’s name to reflect a broader constituency beyond women in the home; this gave rise to a new organisation, the Union of Australian Women.

Marie Kirk was a leading figure in the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union both in Victoria and nationally and helped to establish the Victorian Union in 1887. She held numerous executive positions in the organisation. She was also a strong supporter of women’s rights, a member of the Victorian Women’s Franchise League, and helped to establish the National Council of Women of Victoria in 1902. She supported equal pay, raising the age of consent for girls, and also took a keen interest in the welfare of women prisoners and in the kindergarten movement.

The Queen Victoria Club was established in 1901 as the Women’s Liberal League of New South Wales. In 1907 it changed its name to the Queen Victoria Club. It aimed to foster friendship between women, assist musical artists and promote the love of good music. As a way of achieving its aims, the Club held monthly ‘musicales’ under the patronage of the Governor’s wife and established two scholarships at the Sydney Eisteddfod, one for piano and the other for violin. It sponsored also, scholarships for violin and cello at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. From 1970 until 1994 the Club met in the rooms of the Girls Secondary Schools’ Club in the Gowings Building, Market Street, Sydney. The Club was dissolved in 1995, with the remaining funds used for the establishment of a piano scholarship at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.

Wendy McCarthy is an experienced businesswoman who has assumed many major leadership roles in both the public and private sectors for nearly forty years. Her first experience as a political lobbyist came about when, newly pregnant, she and her husband joined the Childbirth Education Association (CEA) in Sydney, campaigning for (amongst other things) the rights of fathers to be present at the births of their babies. Since then, she has had three children, and been an active change agent in women’s health, education, broadcasting, conservation and heritage and Australian business.

Her senior executive and non-executive positions have included: CEO – Family Planning Association of Australia (1979-84); Member – National Women’s Advisory Council (1978-81); Member – Sydney Symphony Orchestra Council; Director – Australian Multicultural Foundation. She has held executive and non-executive director roles in many of Australia’s leading private and public institutions including Executive Director, Australian Federation of Family Planning Associations; Deputy Chair of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) for eight years; General Manager of Marketing and Communications, the Australian Bicentennial Authority; Chair of the National Better Health Program; Executive Director of the National Trust; Director Star City; Chair of the Australian Heritage Commission; and Chair of Symphony Australia. In 2005 she compiled ten years as Chancellor of the University of Canberra.

In 2013 she is Chair of Circus Oz, McGrath National Youth Mental Health Foundation and Pacific Friends of the Global Foundation. In 2010 Wendy became a Non-Executive Director to GoodStart Childcare Limited. In 2009 after 13 years of service to Plan International, she retired from her most recent role as Global Vice Chair. She is Patron of the Australian Reproductive Health Alliance.

Wendy’s contribution to Australian life has been recognised in various ways. In 1989 she became an Officer of the Order of Australia for her contribution to community affairs, women’s affairs and the Bicentennial celebrations and in 1996 she received an Honorary Doctorate from the University of South Australia. In April 2003 she was awarded a Centenary of Federation Medal.