The Australian Women's Register

Francie Kay completed her nursing training at Balaklava, South Australia. She ran a private hospital before entering the social work field. Kay went to Melbourne to study and returned to work in the TB Service where she travelled around South Australia visiting sanatoria. She worked in the service for 25 years and helped to rehabilitate many patients. She attended various conferences worldwide. She then moved to the Walkerville Nursing home and helped develop an assessment system and a day and craft centre. Following an overseas holiday Kay and returned to work for Burnside to look at their community services. It was discovered there were many problems with elderly people and Pine View was established and community activities were organised to provide companionship.

Honor Cameron Wilson studied physiotherapy in the 1930s. She joined the Australian Army during World War II serving in the Middle East, Perth and with a plastic surgeon in Heidelberg, Victoria. Wilson returned to the Physiotherapy department at the Royal Adelaide Hospital. She completed post graduate work in London and became a lecturer. Her interests included art, and she was involved with the Lyceum Club art circle.

Madge Parker was born on the Yorke Peninsula and lived near Ardrossan. Her father grew wheat, barley and oats. They moved to Adelaide when her father retired and Madge was 16. She went to London in 1939 to completed a course dealing cosmetics and came home via America. She worked in Sydney and was in Melbourne when she joined the Women’s Royal Australian Air Force (WRAAFS) where she completed an officers’ course.

Dorothy Hughes was born in Western Australia and came to Adelaide where she worked as an accountant from 1934. She became the organising secretary for the Kindergarten Union in the late 1940s. The first kindergarten was opened in 1906 in Franklin Street with Miss de Lissa in charge. Several kindergartens opened in the following years and training courses began. In 1939-1940 the Lady Gowrie Child Centres were introduced in each capital city financed by the Commonwealth Government. In 1951 the Education committee was replaced by the Pre-School Council and the College Council. In the early 1980s the Children’s Services Office of the Education Department took over responsibility for pre-school education.

Myra Jarrett lived in Adelaide all her life. Her two sons both have Chairs at Adelaide University. Jarrett joined the Lyceum club in 1966, had two terms as leader of the Travel Circle and was Convenor of Circles for 3 years. In 1977 the Australian Association of Lyceum clubs moved to Adelaide and Jarrett became Secretary. In 1979 the triennial conference was held in Adelaide. Jarrett was on the executive from 1989 to 1994 during which time the Club moved from the IOOF building to 54 Currie St. In 1990 the Australian Association of Lyceum Clubs secretariat returned to Adelaide and a Congress was held at Annesley College in 1991. In 1992 the 25th International Congress took place in Melbourne and Adelaide acted as a pre-Congress host to 50 overseas members. The Club’s 50th birthday was celebrated in 1992.

Elizabeth Richards was born and lived in Highgate. She attended Greenways and MLC schools and became a pre-school teacher. Richards taught at Tiverton School at Unley Park and Gosse Home on Greenhill Road. She then moved to Lockleys kindergarten, Stephney and was the director of Netherby kindergarten in the 1970s. Richards became secretary of the Peace Pledge Union and she attended a Peace Conference in India in 1961 and one in Sheffield in 1972. She was president of the pre-school teachers’ association for six years and was involved in a pay case which increased salaries. In 1975 she mounted a display of resources for 0-8 year olds which was held at the Institute of Teachers in May 1976. It was repeated in 1977. Richards worked with children for forty years and retired in 1979. In retirement she worked for UNICEF, became a member of the Lyceum Club in 1982, was the patron of Children’s Week, did broadcasting for 5UV, and completed a TAFE course which enabled her to teach English to an Iranian migrant.

Stroma Buttrose was a pioneering figure for Australian women in architecture. She was the first female Planning Assistant in South Australia, and the first female Commissioner of the Planning Appeal Board. She was the author of numerous architectural publications, most notably City Planning in Australia in 1975.

The Victorian Section of the St Joan’s International Alliance, was established on the initiative of Margaret Flynn an Australian member of the English section of the St Joan’s International Alliance. An avowedly feminist organisation, it was open to all Catholics who agreed with the stated object of action ‘to secure the political, social and economic equality between men and women and to further the work and usefulness of Catholic women as citizens’. A New South Wales sector was established in 1946, with South Australia and Western Australia following suit in 1950. The first national conference was held in Sydney in 1951.

The Commission for Australian Catholic Women (CACW) was established on the recommendation of the Report on the Participation of Women in the Catholic Church in Australia, which was presented to the Australia Catholic Bishops Conference on 12 April 1999. Its aim is to promote the participation of women in the Catholic Church of Australia. Its commissioners include representatives from Adelaide, Sydney, Ballarat, Melbourne, Whyalla, Perth and Mt Isa. The Commission meets four times annually and works to facilitate the decisions and proposals of the Bishops to build a more inclusive church. The inaugural Chair of the Commission was Geraldine Hawkes.

Heather Crosby, née Gumley, was born in Oxford, England. Her father’s calling as an Anglican priest took the family first to India and then to Australia. Her Australian-born mother played a prominent role in the parishes in which they lived, and Crosby and her sisters were encouraged to gain tertiary qualifications. Crosby came to Adelaide to study social work and married in 1944. She helped her husband establish his general practice in Blair Athol, and they had two daughters. She became involved in community work and began her association with the YWCA in 1960. Crosby was President and Executive Director of the Adelaide YWCA, and a member of the National Council and the World Executive.

Lucy Retalic was born in 1910. Her mother was in the Red Cross and during WWI Lucy performed in concerts when she was 4 years old. She went to St Peter’s Girls’ School and joined Heather Gell’s Eurythmic classes after school. Miss Gell staged shows at the Tivoli theatre. Retalic became a kindergarten teacher and her first appointment was at the Riverside school. She became Director of the Lavis Kindergarten in Adelaide and then left teaching to work with doctors in Melbourne. In 1937 she went to England to work with ophthalmologists for 15 months. She returned home via Europe and during World War II worked with the RAAF trainee pilots to pass their eye tests. She married in 1948. Retalic was involved in the circles in the Lyceum Club and was leader of the Garden Circle. Retalic did a lot of overseas travel which she enjoyed. Retalic worked with ophthalmologists to provide screening for people in outback Australia to identify eye disease. This was organised through the Lions Club

Mary Colton, née Cutting, arrived in South Australia from London in 1839. She was closely associated with the South Australian Boarding out Society and the Adelaide Children’s Hospital. In 1879 she formed a city club for young women which became the Young Women’s Christian Association in 1884. She served as president until her death in 1898. She also worked with Mary Lee and others to form the South Australian Women’s Suffrage League and became its president in 1892.

Elizabeth Webb Nicholls was born in Adelaide to Mary and Samuel Bakewell in 1850. She joined the Christian Woman’s Temperance Union (WCTU) in 1886, and was elected provisional president in 1888. In 1889 she became Colonial president, a position she held until 1897. From 1894-1903 she was the Union’s Australian President, and post-Federation, she served as State President from 1906 to 1927. She joined the South Australian Women’s Suffrage League and subsequently became a League Councillor. In 1894 Elizabeth Nicholls assumed the role of Colonial Superintendent of the WCTU’s Suffrage Department. She was appointed to the Board of the Adelaide Hospital from 1895-1922 and was a justice of the peace – one of the four first women – from 1915. She died in 1943

Rosetta Jane Birks (née Thomas) was born in March 1856. She joined the Ladies’ Committee of the Social Purity Society which led to her interest in women’s suffrage. She joined the South Australian Women’s Suffrage League, becoming its treasurer. After suffrage was granted she joined the short-lived Woman’s League, working with Catherine Helen Spence, Lucy Morice and others. She was appointed to the board of the Adelaide Hospital in 1896. In 1902 she helped form the National Council of Women as well as becoming president of the Young Women’s Christian Association. She died in 1911.

Serena Thorne was born in Devon in October 1842, daughter of Samuel and Mary Thorne. In 1865 the church sent her to Queensland to help establish Bible Christianity and she arrived in South Australia in 1870, preaching throughout the colony from church halls to street corners. In March 1871 she married Octavius Lake whom she had known in Devon and they worked together to further Bible Christianity in South Australia. Serena Lake attended the foundation meeting of the South Australian Women’s Suffrage League in 1888 and was appointed to the Council. In 1889 the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) appointed her to the dual positions of Colonial organizer and Suffrage superintendent. In 1891 she was made a life vice-president of the WCTU. She died in 1902 aged 60.

Stella Sobels spent her childhood at Largs Bay and Semaphore. She attended the Lothian House School before moving to North Adelaide and attending St Peter’s Girls School and the Conservatorium, where she had singing lessons from Winslow Hall and Clive Carey. Sobels became involved in local theatre and radio. She went to England with the Australian choir in 1933. During World War I Sobels joined the Red Cross. When her father became ill she looked after him until he died in 1940. Sobels then returned to the Red Cross and stayed until 1957. A member of several Musical Societies in Adelaide, Sobels joined the Lyceum Club in 1947 where she organized music programmes.

Ruth Langley was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for service to community health particularly through the Asthma Foundation of South Australia on 26 January 1990. During World War II she completed voluntary work at the Cheer Up hut and joined the SA Transport Service. A member of the Lyceum Club Langley also was involved with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra and the Asthma Medical Foundation.

Mary Frost attended Miss Carter’s School, East Adelaide School and St Peter’s Girls School. She went to Adelaide University to do English. At the outbreak of World War II Frost was in England teaching at a school in South Devon. She returned to Adelaide after the war, returning in a flying boat. Frost became an English teacher at St Peters where she won two Tennyson medals at the school. Later she became head of the English Department. Frost compiled A History of St Peter’s Girls’ School from 1894-1968, in 1972.

Phyllis Crompton’s grandfather came to South Australia on the ship ‘Fatima’ and lived at Stonyfell. Her father worked for him in the business which sold skins, wool and olives. Crompton and her sister were born in her parents house at Malvern and after her brothers were born they moved to Parkside. She attended Creveen School at North Adelaide and caught the tram to school. Crompton and her sister went to London and attended the Queensgate boarding school for a term, followed by a year at a school in Paris and then the Sorbonne. Returning to Adelaide Crompton went to Adelaide University and studied history. She became honorary secretary of the Junior Red Cross and joined the Lyceum Club in 1928.

Dr Elma Sandford-Morgan was brought up in a Baptist household. She attended Miss Martin’s school before her family sailed to Europe. Here she went to Cheltenham’s Ladies College for a year as a boarder. Returning to Adelaide in 1905, she studied piano at the Adelaide Conservatorium under Herr Reimann. Later she travelled with her family around Australia and in Queensland she met a doctor who suggested she do medicine. In 1910 she commenced medicine at Sydney University. Three years later she went with her family on a trip from China across the Siberian railway to Moscow. She graduated in 1917 and worked in Australia, London and at the Women’s Mission Hospital at Bewanee in the Punjab. Then in 1920 she went to a hospital in Bagdad. Here she married Captain Harry Morgan and their daughter Rosemary was born in 1922. Son Gavin was born in 1925. Later the family settled in Sydney and she worked at the Rachel Forster Hospital. 1928 she was appointed Assistant to the Director of Maternal Welfare in the Public Health Department, and in 1929 was the first woman to become Director of Maternal Welfare in the Public Health Service. She was a district commissioner in the Girl Guides and a representative to the Australian Federation of University Women. Moving to South Australia, Sandford-Morgan became Health Officer with the Mothers and Babies Association and helped set up Torrens House, a mothercraft training centre. During World War II joined the RAAN as a medical officer, was working in general practice, and for two years organised the Health Services of South Australia as the only woman member of the Parliamentary Commission. After the war she visited Europe and on return obtained a locum tenens as neoplasm registrar to the Anti-Cancer Foundation. She was appointed by the University of Adelaide to the Radio Therapy Department where she worked for eleven years. Sandford-Morgan retired in 1964 and then worked at the Red Cross Blood Transfusion Service until she was 80 years old. During 1966-1968 she attended the Medical Women’s International Association conferences in Rochester and Vienna and became president of the Australian Medical Women’s Association to work against bias according to sex and equal treatment of women doctors. Her main interest was preventative medicine and public health.

After marrying Dr Hubbard Champion Hosking in Adelaide in 1927, Lorna Hosking and her husband moved to Kokope near Rabaul where he was the Government medial officer. Two years later they moved to Rabaul. In May 1937 there was a temporary evacuation of the town when a volcano erupted sending steam, pumice and debris 25,000 feet into the air. During World War II women and children were evacuated to Australia when the Japanese were about to invade, Dr Hosking was put on board the ‘Montevideo Maru’ by the Japanese and it was bombed by the allies off Lugan as it had no Red Cross marks. There were no survivors. Mrs Hosking remained in Adelaide with her two daughters, Margaret and Elizabeth. She worked with the War Widows Guild which had been set up by General George Vasey and his wife. Shops were set up in each state and the Guild worked to improve pensions for the widows. In 1965 the Guild extended one of their buildings. It is named ‘Lorna Hosking House’ after the then Senior Vice-President. Lorna Hosking and one of her daughters returned to Rabaul in 1986 to see the town and place where they used to holiday on the coast.

Dorrie West went to school in Horsham, Victoria, before moving to Adelaide with her family. She completed a Bachelor of Arts at the University of Adelaide in 1921 and her teacher training. A teacher at Adelaide High School she left her position upon marriage in 1934, as was the custom of the time. During World War II she returned to teaching. She was an active member of both the YWCA and the Australian Federation of University Women. Following the death of her husband she joined the Lyceum Club and was President 1957-59. Her bequest to the University of Adelaide supports postgraduate scholarships for women and concerts at the Elder Conservatorium in Adelaide. Relatives remember Dorrie as being very engaging and encouraging.

Maisie Hone was born in 1897 in Mitcham. Her family moved to London when she was three so her father could study medicine. On their return he bought a motor car which was driven by a chauffeur. She went to school at Mitcham, Miss Thornber’s and MLC and studied at Adelaide University. She organised annual concerts for women only. In 1923 she married Ray Hone and they went to England on a cargo ship as Ray was the ship’s doctor. They returned in 1924 and their daughter Mary was born. Hone joined the Lyceum Club when it was still on North Terrace and was involved in the luncheons and the circles. Ray was away for three and a half years during the war. She started looking after children on Friday mornings to help mothers on their own and continued this for 20 years.

Kathleen Waterhouse was born at Clare, South Australia. In 1914 she commenced training at the Adelaide Children’s Hospital. In 1917 Kathleen joined the Australian Army Nursing Service, and was posted to India until after the end of the war. In 1930 she was appointed Deputy Matron of the ACH, and in 1945 she became the Matron of that hospital, until her retirement in 1952. Miss Waterhouse was active in nursing affairs, and was a Foundation Fellow of the College of Nursing, Australia. She also served on the Council of the SA branch of the Australian Trained Nurses’ Association.

Marjorie Caw was the fourth child of Edith Agnes Hubbe, née Cook, 1859-1942, a South Australian educator. Her father was killed in the Boer War and her mother opened a school at Knightsbridge. Caw trained as a kindergarten teacher and taught at Halifax Street and Bowden. She travelled to Europe with her mother and Miss George of the Advanced School for Girls. They returned home when World War I broke out. On their return Caw set up a kindergarten in their drawing room (at Knightsbridge) following the Montessori methods she had observed on her travels. At the same time she studied economics at the University of Adelaide under Professor Heaton. She married Alfred Caw and they moved to Western Australia to farm at Kojonup. Her son William was born one year later and then her daughter Virginia. They returned to Adelaide by ship each year to visit her family. On one of these visits in 1929 she joined the Lyceum Club. During the depression she formed a branch of the Country Women’s Association (CWA) in Kojonup and over the years the branch helped many country people. She taught her children via correspondence school and sent her son to St Peter’s in Adelaide to board. She and her daughter went to Denmark for a world conference of the CWA. In 1922 they sold the property to her brother and returned to Adelaide where she became involved in the Lyceum Club. The Club helped her celebrate her 90th birthday in 1983.

Dora Woods, née Birks, was born in Adelaide and began training at the Adelaide Children’s Hospital in 1909. In 1916 she was called up for nursing duties with the Australian Army Nursing Service. This interview deals with her army nursing experience, mostly in France, and with the period following the end of the war, in London. Dora returned to Australia in 1919.

Doris Chambers grew up on Noonameera which was an isolated cattle station and stores arrived via camel teams every six months. She moved with her family to Wannaminta which was owned by the Morden Pastoral Company and covered a million and a quarter acres. Chambers boarded at Woodlands school for three years from 1927. She married Jim Chambers in 1943 whose family dated back to 1836 when James Chambers jumped ship from the Coromandel. Her mother Myrtle White, who was born in 1888 in a tent on Acacia station, wrote several books about the outback and her friends included Dame Mary Gilmore and Miles Franklin. Doris and Jim stayed on at Wannaminta for 25 years, Jim having won the property in a ballot of land leases. Doris was responsible for publishing and sorting all the unpublished writings of her mother.