The Australian Women's Register

A council member of the Invergowrie Foundation, Sutton is a former Headmistress of Camberwell Anglican Girls Grammar School.

A council member of the Invergowrie Foundation, Cowling is Headmistress of Genazzano FCJ College, Kew, Victoria.

Anne Walton, daughter of Ronald Ferguson and Ellen Betty Collis, was educated at both Sydney and La Trobe Universities. From 1982 to 1999 she was Principal of Tintern Anglican Girls’ Grammar School, following which she became Principal of the Tintern Schools (Ringwood East, Victoria), comprising Tintern Anglican Girls’ Grammar School and Southwood Boys’ Grammar School.

Walton was Deputy Chancellor of La Trobe University from 1997 and Chancellor from 2006 until 2011. She was also a member of the Invergowrie Foundation.

A council member of the Invergowrie Foundation, Jane Munro has been Principal of Firbank Grammar School (Brighton, Victoria), since 1990.

Candy Broad was elected Member of the Legislative Council representing the Australian Labor Party for the Melbourne North Province at a by-election in 1999. She was appointed Minister for Energy and Resources, Ports in 1999 and was Minister for Housing and Local Government from 2002-2006 in the Labor Government. At the 2006 election, which was held in 25 November she was elected to the new Legislative Council Region of Northern Victoria and was re-elected in 2010, when the Labor government was defeated. She resigned from parliament on 9 May 2014.

Christine Campbell was the Member for Pascoe Vale representing the Australian Labor Party in the Legislative Assembly of the Victorian Parliament from 1996. She was re-elected at the elections held in 1999, 2002, 2006 and 2010. She has held the ministerial portfolios of Community Services, Senior Victorians and Consumer Affairs. She retired from parliament in November 2014.

On 25 February 2003, Monica Gould was elected 18th President of the Legislative Council of Victoria. She was the first female to hold this position and retained it until November 2006.

In 1990 Joan Kirner was elected the first woman Premier for the State of Victoria. She held the position for two years but her legacy will extend for much longer. As the Premier of Victoria, Daniel Andrews said in a statement after her death:

“Through her decades of advocacy for gender equality, [Joan Kirner] fundamentally changed [The Victorian ALP] and our society. In the process, she raised a generation of Victorian Labor women – one of whom became Prime Minister…
She fought every day for fairness. Our state is stronger for her service and our lives are greater for her friendship. She was our first female Premier and because of her work, she won’t be the last.”

Margaret Forrest was one of Australia’s early botanical artists, and the wife of Western Australia’s first Premier. She was born Margaret Elvire Hamersley in 1844, to Edward Hamersley and his French wife Anne Louise (Cornelis). They left London with their two young sons aboard the Shepherd, and arrived at Fremantle in 1837. Edward quickly acquired land around Perth and Fremantle, and became involved in viticulture and horse breeding. In 1843 the family made the first of two voyages back to Europe, and on this first extended sojourn, Margaret was born at La Havre, France, in October 1844. The Hamersley’s returned to the Swan River colony in 1850.

From an early age, Margaret Hamersley showed enthusiasm for watercolour painting, spending much time studying and sketching wildflowers. She later travelled on sketching trips with other noted botanical artists Marianne North and Rowan Ellis. She married John Forrest on 29 February, 1876 at St. George’s Cathedral, Perth, and became heavily involved in political life, accompanying her husband on overseas and interstate trips. Lady Forrest was an active member of Western Australia’s first society for artists and exhibited six wildflower watercolours in the Wilgie First Annual Exhibition of Paintings in 1890. She was a founding member of the Western Australia Society of Arts and the Karrakatta Club which was organised to broaden women’s outlook by bringing them in contact with the fine arts. After her death in 1929, her collection was bequeathed to the Art Gallery of Western Australia in 1933.

Source: http://www.anbg.gov.au/biography/forrest-margaret.html [accessed 15/03/2002] and Australian Garden History, vol. 7, no. 6, May/June 1996, p.12.

In 2002 Dr Deborah Seifert became Head of University College, The University of Melbourne. She was Principal of Fintona Girl’s School, Balwyn (Victoria) from 1992-2000. Seifert is a council member of the Invergowrie Foundation.

While studying at the Adelaide School of Design under H P Gill, Principal, and Louis Tannert, Master of the School of Painting, Rosa Fiveash chose to specialise in painting Australian flora. She was commissioned by the conservator of forests, John Ednie Brown, to illustrate his Forest Flora of Australia and orchidologist R S Rogers to illustrate his works on South Australian orchids. The Botanic Gardens of Adelaide and the State Herbarium have a collection of her original flower paintings. It was Fiveash who introduced the art of china painting to Adelaide.

Ellis Rowan was a botanical artist who had no formal art training. She received encouragement from her family and husband, Frederick Charles Rowan, whom she married in 1873, to develop her own style in painting wildflowers.
Her work was exhibited in both Australia and overseas for which she won a variety of art prizes.

Along with her sister Harriet (q.v.), Helena was educated by her father Alexander Walker Scott, an entomologist and entrepreneur. After the publication of Australian Lepidoptera, the sisters were elected honorary members of the Australian Entomological Society.

Jean Blackburn was a feminist, socialist and staunch advocate of the critical importance of good quality teaching and resources in shaping children’s’ lives. After completing an economics major at the University of Melbourne in1940 she became a research assistant for the Department of Economics. A mother who experienced the isolation of suburban living, she worked with Winifred Mitchell in organising the New Housewives’ Association to help overcome this isolation.

She later completed a Diploma in Education and began her teaching career. In 1969 she was seconded as a consultant to the Committee of Enquiry into South Australian Education issuing the Karmel Report in 1973. This was the first of several such appointments. In 1983 she conducted a public enquiry into Victorian senior secondary education, issuing the Blackburn Report in 1985.

Anne Hunt attended Sacred Heart College, Geelong, Victoria, before completing a Science degree at the University of Melbourne.
She began her teaching career in 1978 as a teacher of Maths, Science and Chemistry with the Victorian Department of Education and later transferred to the Catholic schools sector. She also completed a degree in Theology at Yarra Theological Union. From 1983 to 1986 she was Deputy Principal of Loreto Mandeville Hall in Toorak, Victoria.

In 1987 Hunt travelled to the USA, where she completed a Masters degree in Educational Administration at Fordham University in New York City, and the next year a Masters degree in Theology at the Catholic Theological Union, Chicago.

Hunt returned to Australia in 1989 and became the first lay principal of Loreto Mandeville Hall. Once again she combined study with her career, completing doctoral studies in Theology in 1994 with the Melbourne College of Divinity. In 2002 Anne Hunt became the Rector of the Aquinas Campus of the Australian Catholic University.

Heather Schnagl is Principal of Ivanhoe Girls’ Grammar School and a Director of the Invergowrie Foundation.

Prior to completing her Science degree at the University of Melbourne, Butt attended Fintona Girls’ School, Balwyn, Victoria. In 1950 she became a Scientific Officer for the Defence Standards Laboratory (Vic), and in 1952 was appointed Assistant Mistress at Heathfield School, UK. From 1955 to 1959 she taught at Shelford CEGGS, before joining the staff at Fintona in 1960.

Elizabeth Butt became Headmistress at Fintona in 1963, retaining this position for 29 years until her retirement in 1991.

(Source: http://www.fintona.vic.edu.au/history.htm accessed 18/03/2002)

Fay Surtees Marles AM (née Pearce) is a former Australian public servant. She served as Victorian Commissioner of Equal Opportunity from 1977 to 1987 and Chancellor of the University of Melbourne from 2001 to 2004.

As a young parent with children growing up in Canberra, Lyndsay Connors was one of many whose lives were enriched by the philosophy of Jean Blackburn. Along with many other active members of the public education community and the feminist movement at that time, Lyndsay Connors found in The Karmel Report, Schools in Australia, and, in particular, in Girls, Schools and Society a set of directions for the continuing struggle for quality and equality in education.

Having served on the ACT Schools Authority as a parent member, Lyndsay Connors was then appointed as a full-time Schools Commissioner. Her later appointments included Chair of the Schools Council of the National Board of Employment, Education and Training; and Deputy Chair, Board, Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Following a period of 8 years as a director with the New South Wales Department of Education and Training, she was appointed in 2000 to chair a Ministerial Working Party Review in Victoria, ‘Public Education: The Next Generation. She was the Australian College of Education Medallist, 2001.

In 2017, Lindsay Connors was awarded an Order of Australian in the General Division for ‘distinguished service to national public education policy, to improved school performance and equitable funding delivery, and as a role model and mentor of young women.’

(Source: Biography supplied by Dr Shirley Randell AM)

A former Principal of Ruyton Girls’ School Melbourne, in 2012 Carolyn Anderson is chair of the board of trustees of the Invergowrie Foundation.

A former principal of Strathcona Baptist Girls’ Grammar School (1990-2001), Ruth Bunyan became a member (and then a director) of the Invergowrie Foundation Council, a philanthropic organisation that issues grants to community groups to advance girls’ education in Victoria.

Jan Douglas, a former Principal of Mentone Girls’ Grammar School, was a member of the Mentone Girls’ Grammar School Council and a director of The Invergowrie Foundation. She was also a council member for International House, a residential college of the University of Melbourne, and vice-principal at Presbyterian Ladies’ College in Melbourne.

A former principal of Camberwell Anglican Girls’ Grammar School, Fary is a director of the Invergowrie Foundation.

A council member of the Invergowrie Foundation, Henry is the former principal of St Margaret’s School, Berwick.

After leaving school Dorothea Henslowe worked as a teacher and governess. During World War I she was a Voluntary Aid at Hornsey Hospital at Evandale after which she returned to teaching. After both her parents died in 1935, Henslowe travelled to Canada and then settled in Battery Point, Hobart. She worked in an honorary capacity for the Australian Board of Mission, a missionary organisation of the Anglican Church that works largely in Asia, the Pacific and with Aboriginal communities, for over 30 years.

Otzen, principal of Korowa Anglican Girls’ School, Victoria since 1991, is a council member of the Invergowrie Foundation.

Ruth Crow and her husband Maurie, long term members of the Communist Party, were active in various progressive movements, in later years becoming especially involved with the North Melbourne Association.

(Source: Historical Note Melbourne University Archives)