The Australian Women's Register

A tireless campaigner and activist for over fifty years, Irene Adelaide Greenwood’s interests in feminism and the peace movement were formed through her mother Mary Driver’s involvement with the Women’s Services Guild. The achievements of Greenwood’s life’s work are considerable and her commitment and energy was recognized in the many awards bestowed on her. These include Member of the Order of Australia, the first woman to receive an Honorary Doctorate at Murdoch University, recognition as the strategist behind the implementation of the Chair in Peace Studies at Murdoch University, the United Nations Association of Australia Silver Peace Medal and honorary life membership, Queen’s Silver Jubilee Medal, appointment to the National Advisory Committee on Women’s Affairs in 1974 and the naming of the flagship of the State ship’s fleet M.V. Irene Greenwood in her honour. Greenwood was also a life or honorary member of many key international, national and state peace and women’s organizations.

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.

Rachel Roxburgh was born in Sydney, New South Wales in 1915. She attended East Sydney Technical College and Adelaide Perry School. Afterwards she spent ten years in England and Europe, where she continued her studies at London Central and Hammersmith Art Schools. After her return to Australia she taught arts and crafts.

Roxburgh wrote a number of books on architecture and early Australian families. Her published works include The Early Australian scene: illustrated by example of early buildings in New South Wales (1969), Thomas Potter Macqueen of Segenhoe, New South Wales (1972), Early colonial houses of New South Wales (1974), Colonial farm buildings of New South Wales (1978), Berrima Court House (1981), Throsby Park: an account of the Throsby Family in Australia 1802-1840 (1989) and Some early colonial buildings (filmstrip, 1962). She also published a number of articles on old buildings, for example those published in the Journal of Royal Australian Historical Society (New South Wales).

Roxburgh died on 13 April 1991 in Castle Hill, New South Wales and is survived by her brother, Mr J. Roxburgh.

Social reformer, Rose Scott was born at Glendon, near Singleton, NSW, on 8 October, 1847. Rose Scott was one of the key figures in the turn-of-the century movement committed to the universal suffrage and a general improvement in the condition of women. She lived at home and did not marry, she devoted her life to the women’s movement.

In 1889 she helped form the Women’s Literary Society in Sydney and it was out of this society that the Womanhood Suffrage League developed in May 1891. She wrote and debated and lectured and argued until in 1902 the Women’s Suffrage Act became law in New South Wales. She lobbied for the establishment of Children’s Courts for juvenile offenders, for the ‘age of consent’ to be raised from fourteen to sixteen for girls (Crimes (Girls’ Protection) Acts 1910), and for a more comprehensive and equitable system of family maintenance to be established.

She opposed Federation and, in later years, conscription. She was president of a local branch of the London Peace Society, formed in 1907, and international secretary of the National Council of Women of New South Wales, formed in 1896.

One of the most important figures of her time she died in Sydney on 20 April 1925.

Ivy Shore won the Portia Geach Memorial Art Award (Australia’s richest and most prestigious art award for women painters only) with her first entry – a portrait of Della Elliott- in 1979. She went on to win “Most Highly Commended” prizes in the ‘Portia’ three times thereafter, making her the top winner in the history of the award.

Joy Warren was a tireless fundraiser and patron of the arts in Canberra. She was the owner-director of Solander Gallery since 1974 and ran a public relations business geared towards the arts.

She had been an arts journalist and spent fifteen years with Canberra Repertory Society.

On 26 January 2001 Joy Warren was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for service to the arts, particularly in the Australian Capital Territory.

Ros Kelly was elected with a large majority as the first woman member of the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) House of Assembly and later became the first Labor woman federal minister in the House of Representatives and the first to give birth while holding office.

Ann Dalgarno was the only female member of the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) Advisory Council, serving from 1959 to 1967 as a Liberal Member and from 1970 to 1974 as an Independent. She also ran the Nursing Service Agency.

She was a major advocate for Canberra’s women, youth, the physically handicapped, and the disadvantaged. She was an active member or leader of around twenty-two community organisations.

Lilias Stuart Humphreys, artist and genealogist, was born at Orange, New South Wales, in 1909, the fourth daughter and eldest child of Percival Stuart Garling (1873-1951) and Margaret Isabella Jane McSpadden. She married, in 1936, Jack Iorweth Humphreys (1905-1989) at her parents’ home ‘Wanganui’, Longueville, New South Wales; they had a daughter, Jennifer Karen (1937-1983). In 1927 the family home had been the venue for the celebration of the 112th anniversary of the arrival in Australia of Lilias’s great-great grandfather, the solicitor and magistrate Frederick Garling Senior (1775-1848). Her great grandfather was the customs officer and marine artist, Frederick Garling Junior (1806-1873), whose son was Arthur Crawford Garling (1833-1910).

In the 1960s, Lilias Humphreys began her genealogical researches into the descendants of Frederick Garling Senior and their extensive connections with other families. She carried on the earlier researches of her uncle, William Mylam Nicholas Garling. She was assisted by her daughter, Jennifer, who conducted her own research on Susannah Matilda Ward, nee Baldwin, appointed by Governor Macquarie as matron and superintendent of the Female Orphan Institution. Lilias Humphreys died in 1985.

Dr Jean Hailes was a pioneer in women’s health in Australia. In 1970 she began the first clinic in Australia dedicated to the management of women in midlife and beyond. Hailes was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia for service to medicine particularly in relation to women. Following her death in 1988, her colleagues and friends created the Jean Hailes Foundation to honour her memory.

Lady Margaret Stanley became the first President of the Australian Red Cross, Victoria, in 1914.

Born Margaret Evelyn Evans Gordon, she married Arthur Lyulph Stanley, 5th Baron of Alderley, in 1905. Appointed K.C.M.G. in 1914, Sir Arthur served as Governor of Victoria from 1914-20.

Lillias Skene was a prominent member of numerous women’s groups and social welfare organisations in Melbourne from the early 1900s into the 1940s. She initially focussed on philanthropic work, but from the 1920s she devoted most of her energies to the Red Cross and the National Council of Women of Victoria. She was present at the inaugural meeting of the British (Australian) Red Cross on 25 August 1914 and was a member of the Victorian council from about 1920 until 1941. She became assistant-secretary of the National Council of Women in 1914, honorary secretary in 1916, vice-president in 1921 and president in 1924. In this year she also became foundation president of the federal council of the various State-based National Councils of Women.

Lady Millie Peacock was the first woman member elected to the Victorian Parliament and the third woman elected to Parliament in Australia. On 1 January 1901 she married Victorian Parliamentarian Alexander Peacock (knighted 1902). Lady Peacock was the first President of the Creswick branch of the Australian Red Cross Society. She was a member of the Provisional Committee of the Victorian Division of the Australian branch of the British Red Cross Society (1914-1915). She then became a member of the Victorian Divisional Committee until 1934 and was a member of the Victorian General Committee until 1938. Following the death of her husband in 1933 Lady Peacock stood for and won her late husband’s Legislative Assembly seat of Allandale. During her time in Parliament she made only one speech. She retired from Parliament in 1935.

Judy Finlay has been treasurer of the Australian Women’s Land Army Association New South Wales since 1996.

Trained as a pharmacist in Brisbane, Kate Carnell came to Canberra in 1977, becoming one of the first woman pharmacy owners there in 1981. From 1982 she held positions in a number of professional organisations, including inaugural and first female president of the Australian Capital Territory Branch of the Pharmacy Guild of Australia 1988–94. Elected to the Legislative Assembly for the Australian Capital Territory in 1992 she became Liberal Leader in 1993 and Chief Minister from 1995 to 2000. Her subsequent positions include director of the NRMA and chief executive officer of the Australian Divisions of General Practice, the Australian Food and Grocery Council, Beyond Blue and the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry. She was the inaugural Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman from 2016 to 2021.

Sylvia Curley qualified as a nurse in 1926 and spent her early years of nursing in country New South Wales. She worked for the Canberra Community Hospital (later known as the Royal Canberra Hospital) from 1938 until her retirement in 1966 as deputy matron. In her ‘retirement’ years she ran a nursing employment agency in Canberra and was a strong advocate for changes to nurses’ education. In 1994 she donated her family home, Mugga Mugga, to the people of Canberra and oversaw its development into an environmental education centre. Sylvia Curley was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia on 8 June 1992 for her services to nursing, to local history and to the National Trust.

Stasia Dabrowski has voluntarily run a mobile soup kitchen since 1979, providing hot soup, bread, drinks, clothes and blankets to the homeless and needy of Canberra, and is dedicated to the welfare of young people. For nine years she raised the funds herself to purchase ingredients for the soup kitchen.

She was the 1996 Canberra Citizen of the Year, and the 1999 inaugural Australian Capital Territory (ACT) Senior Australian of the Year.

Stasia Dabrowski passed away at the age of 94 in August 2020.

Rosemary Follett was born in Sydney in 1948 but is Canberra in her heart, describing herself as ‘in lock step’ with the city. (Interview) ‘It’s a peaceful, tolerant place’ with a ‘sense of spaciousness and community’ she says. (Interview)

It is also the place where she, as the Australian Capital Territory’s (ACT’s) first chief minister, in 1989 became the first woman to lead an Australian state or territory government. As ALP leader, she presided over 3 ministries and remained in parliament until 1996 as the member of Molonglo. Her portfolio responsibilities included Social Justice, Treasury and Public Service, Attorney-General, Law Reform, Consumer Affairs, Police and Emergency Services.

Follett described herself as belonging to the Left faction of the ALP and came to power with a platform of open accountable government, social justice and a policy that half of all positions on government advisory boards and committees should be filled by women.

After leaving politics she served as the ACT Discrimination Commissioner from 1996 until 2004.

Annabelle Pegrum held the position of Chief Executive of the National Capital Authority from 1998 to 2008. Prior to this she held a number of senior executive management positions with the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) Government.

Pegrum has been involved in several architecture organisations, and has served as President of the ACT Chapter of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects.

She was the 1998 Telstra ACT Business Woman of the Year and received a Centenary Medal in 2003.

In 2008 she took up an appointment as a professorial Fellow at the University of Canberra and is the University Architect.

Alice Creswick (née Reid) is best known for her work in the Free Kindergarten Union (FKU) although she was also an important figure in the Australian Red Cross Society (ARCS) during World War 2. A woman of considerable energy and acumen, she developed a life-long interest in the area of early childhood development. She was president of the committee of the Lady Northcote Free Kindergarten for ten years (1928-1938) and joined the executive of the Free Kindergarten Union (FKU), becoming president in 1939. In 1940, she was ‘headhunted’ by the Australian Red Cross Society, when they asked her to become its principal commandant. In this capacity, she travelled widely, both inspecting and establishing Red Cross services and activities. She resigned from this position in 1946 and immediately resumed her presidency of the FKU, picking up where she left off as an energetic leader who tirelessly lobbied the government for greater support for pre-school training. Ill health forced her to resign in 1949, but she maintained her interest and activism in the area of early childhood development. She died in 1973, leaving large bequests to the organisations she supported in her lifetime: the FKU, the Australian Red Cross and the Anglican Church.

Lady Helen Munro Ferguson, daughter of the viceroy, the Marquess of Dufferin and Ava, was president and founder of the Australian Branch of the British Red Cross Society. The wife of Sir Ronald Munro Ferguson (1860-1934), Governor-General of Australia 1914-1920, she established the Australian Branch of the British Red Cross Society on 13 August 1914. During World War I the ballroom of Melbourne’s Government House was taken over by Lady Munro Ferguson’s work for the Society. In 1918 she was appointed Dame Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire (GBE) for her work during World War I. Following the end of her husband’s term as Governor-General, on 6 October 1920, the Munro Fergusons returned to Scotland.

In 1926, Lord and Lady Somers sailed to Australia following Lord Somers’ appointment as Governor of Victoria. The couple disembarked the R.M.S. Cathay at Port Melbourne, where they were escorted by launch to an official landing amid much celebration at St Kilda Pier. At “Stonnington”, the Vice-Regal residence in Glenferrie Road, Malvern, 220 scouts formed a guard of honour lining the driveway and school children gathered to welcome the new Governor and his wife.

Born Muriel Violet Turner Laing, Violet Brooks was the wife of Sir Reginald Alexander Dallas Brooks, governor of Victoria from 1949-1963.