The Australian Women's Register

The Victorian Branch of the Australian Railways Union (ARU), in contrast to many other male unions, did not encourage female rail workers to set up a separate section. In 1920 the Victorian Railways commenced employing women in sizeable numbers mainly as waitresses, barmaids, laundresses and cooks at various city and country railway stations. At this time, the Refreshment Services Branch was established with the introduction of new machinery into railway administrative offices, however females began to perform clerical work traditionally done by better-paid men. During World War II women began working in positions traditionally reserved for men. The Union participated in the Council of Action for Equal Pay, a body formed in 1937 to further the interests of female workers, as well as contributing to the Australian Council of Trade Union organized conferences on equal pay held in April and September 1942. Women paid junior rates for their union fees until equal pay was achieved.

Aged fifteen, Eileen Powell joined the Australian Labor Party (ALP) and remained a member for over 45 years. She trained at the Party speakers’ classes in Balmain and became Assistant Secretary of the Stanmore Branch in 1929. After working for Grace Brothers (Broadway) Powell commenced work with the Labor Daily. From 1937 until 1944 she worked with the Australian Railways Union, New South Wales Branch. During this period Powell became an organiser for the Railway Refreshment Rooms (RRR) staff and achieved an Industrial Relations award for them. The mostly women workers were not employed directly by the Railways Department, were not covered by other awards and were dispersed throughout railway towns in New South Wales. On their behalf she appeared before the full bench of the NSW Industrial Commission and when the judgement was handed down there was a cut in the spread of hours, provisions for overtime, increased wages and the abolition of the compulsory board and lodging payments. Powell was also a member of the Council of Action for Equal Pay, the ALP Women’s Central Organising Committee and the United Associations of Women.

On Friday, 11 September 1925 in response to the statement made about them by retired naval officer Captain Oswald Carter, the waitresses of the Refreshment Services Branch of the Victorian Railways went on strike. Carter held a senior post in the railways and reported to the chief of the Refreshment Services Branch that he found [the staff] ‘lazy, dirty and unmanageable’. He further added: ‘I propose to get in touch with the Immigration Authorities with a view to ascertaining the possibilities of getting suitable servants. I do not think that girls from Melbourne are likely to give satisfaction.’

The waitresses demanded an apology and went on strike until they received one. The male leaders of the Australian Railways Union – Victorian Branch commenced negotiations on behalf of their members and after two days a satisfactory settlement with management was arranged when an apology was obtained.

The Charity Organisation Society of Melbourne was established in 1887 to help co-ordinate Melbourne’s charitable organisations and to foster the ideal of ‘self-help’ in the poor. The Society’s 21st Annual Report expressed the view that ‘to strengthen a man’s backbone rather than provide him with crutches, should be the aim of charity’. It has been claimed that it contributed to the development of social work as a profession, based on suitable training in appropriate disciplines. In 1947, the organisation became known as the Citizens Welfare Service of Victoria, reflecting a change in its approach towards casework counselling. It is now known as the Drummond St Relationship Centre.

Anna Brennan, member of a talented Victorian family, was a devout Catholic who actively pursued the cause of women’s equality throughout her life. She was one of the earliest woman to graduate in law at the University of Melbourne in 1909 and practised as a solicitor in her brother’s legal firm for fifty years. She was a foundation member of the Lyceum Club in 1912 and president from 1940-41.

The Victorian Legal Women’s Association was established in 1931 with Brennan serving as president. A founding committee member of the Catholic Women’s Social Guild in 1916, later the Catholic Women’s League, she served as president from 1918-1920. She joined the Victorian branch of St Joan’s International Alliance, holding the office of president from 1938-1945 and again in 1948 until her death in 1962.

The Tailoresses’ Association of Melbourne, Australia’s first female trade union, was established at a meeting held in Trades Hall on 15 December 1882. At this meeting women met in response to attempts by the Melbourne clothing manufacturer Beith Shiess & Co to reduce piece-rate wages. A strike was called on 15 February 1883 when clothing manufacturers had not responded to the log of claims. As each manufacturer accepted the log, employees resumed work. The strike is generally regarded as instrumental in the establishment of the Shops Commission and the eventual passage of the Factory Act. When the new Factory Act was passed in 1885, the recommendations of the March 1884 Royal Commission regarding outwork were not incorporated and working conditions in the industry were not substantially affected by its operation. In 1906, the Tailoresses’ Union amalgamated with the Tailors’ Society.

On 15 December 1982 the Honourable Pauline Toner, Victoria’s first woman Cabinet Minister, unveiled a plaque to commemorate the centenary of the Tailoresses’ Union. The plaque was placed at the entrance to the offices of the Textile Clothing & Footwear Union of Australia (formerly Clothing & Allied Trades Union of Australia) in Leicester Street, Carlton.

The Anglican Mission to the Streets and Lanes of Melbourne was established in 1886 by the Bishop of Melbourne as the Diocesan Mission to the Streets and Lanes of Melbourne. The Council, the governing body of the Mission comprised mainly women with the exception of the Bishop of Melbourne and the Chaplain. The Council’s aim was to employ deaconesses commissioned by the Bishop to ‘visit in the lanes and courts and bring the message of the Gospel to the poor and fallen and by the force of their sisterly sympathy, compel the outcast to come in’. It wanted to include people who were not reached already by the ordinary parochial organisations, especially the category described as ‘fallen women’. Miss Emma Silcock ( known as Sister Esther) assumed responsibility for the Mission in 1888. She was also the founder of the Community of the Holy Name in Victoria. By 1900 the Mission had a staff of six deaconesses and one probationer. Its first address was 171 Little Lonsdale St. It moved to a new building in Spring St in 1913 and in 1958 to Fitzroy St Fitzroy. In 1997 it merged with the Mission of St James and St John and the St John’s Homes for Boys and Girls to form Anglicare.

On 29 November 1924 a ceremony of the Perpetual Profession of Dr Mary Glowrey, now Sister Mary of the Sacred Heart took place in the Church of St Agnes at Guntur (India). Mary Glowrey, who completed her medical training at the University of Melbourne, (MBBS 1910, MD 1919), was the first president of the Catholic Women’s Social Guild (now Catholic Women’s League). After receiving assurance from the Pope that she would be allowed to continue in her profession, Glowrey left Melbourne for India in 1920. At this time nuns were still prevented from practising medicine, She entered the Society of Jesus, Mary and Joseph, a Dutch order of nuns and spent the next 37 years involved with medical work in Guntur, India. Glowrey House, the Catholic Women’s League headquarters in Nicholson Street, Fitzroy, is named in her honour.

The daughter of merchant Robert Lindsay and Jane Stocks (née Macfarlane) Jenny Greig graduated in medicine from the University of Melbourne in 1895. She devoted her life to the service of women, especially in the field of medicine. One of the founders of the Queen Victoria Hospital when Greig retired in 1948 she had been an active member of the honorary medical staff for over 50 years. When the hospital added a new pathology block in 1937 it was named after her. Greig is recognized as the first woman anaesthetist in Victoria: she was honorary anaesthetist at the Women’s Hospital in Melbourne from 1900 to 1917, honorary assistant anaesthetist at the Melbourne Hospital in 1903 and was admitted as a member of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians in 1940. Greig died will visiting London in 1950.

Cecilia John, who sang ‘I Didn’t Raise My Son to Be a Soldier’ until banned by the government under the War Precautions Act of 1915, founded the Women’s Peace Army with Vida Goldstein. Interested in social questions, John was a member of the Collins Street Independent Church, the Women’s Political Association and wrote for the Woman Voter. She established the Children’s Peace Army and ran a women’s co-operative farm, the Women’s Rural Industries Co. Ltd, at Mordialloc, providing employment to women in financial need.

The Wonthaggi Miners’ Women’s Auxiliary, the first Women’s auxiliary of a mining union, was established at Wonthaggi, Victoria during the Wonthaggi Coal Strike. The strike, which commenced on 6 March 1934, lasted for five months. Miners’ wives established a Board Committee and the President, Mrs Agnes Chambers issued an official statement on behalf of the Committee:

the women of Wonthaggi are firmly behind their husbands in this struggle. We women have for the past two years seen our husbands’ pay reduced by more than a third…If our men quietly accept these reductions without further protest where will they end?…Our men have stood solidly in this great struggle, and the Government, realising that it cannot break the spirit of the men, now turns and threatens to take our homes from us. The Government threatens to close the mine permanently….The dispute has now been in progress 17 weeks, and it would appear that we have a long and dreary winter in front of us, but with the help of the women of Australia we can hold out. [1]

By the second week of July the Hon. R G Menzies, Deputy Premier and Minister for Railways, the State Government Department that held responsibility for the mine, agreed to negotiate. He agreed to the immediate recognition of pit-top committees and the reinstatement of the five wheelers whose dismissal provoked the strike. He also proposed that the reinstatement of two men who had been dismissed for insubordination be negotiated once the miners were back at work – a palatable concession for most miners. [2]

The women’s independent organisation and their willingness to persist further throughout the winter was a factor in resisting efforts to call off the strike before their demands had been met.

[1] Cochrane, P, ‘The Wonthaggi Coal Strike, 1934’, Labour History, no. 27, 1974, p. 28
[2] ibid p. 29

Roslyn Russell is a historian, author, editor and museum consultant who has lived and worked in Canberra since 1982. She holds Bachelor and Masters Honours degrees in History from the University of Sydney, a Graduate Diploma in Applied Science (Cultural Heritage Management) from the University of Canberra, and a PhD in English from the University of New South Wales.

Her published works include Literary Links: Celebrating the Literary Relationship between Australia and Britain, One Destiny! The Federation Story: How Australia Became a Nation (with Philip Chubb), Ever, Manning: Selected Letters of Manning Clark 1938-1991, and The Business of Nature: John Gould and Australia. Editor of several museum magazines in Australia over the period from 2000 to the present, Roslyn has developed museum exhibitions in Canberra, interstate and overseas, including the Museum of Parliament and National Heroes Gallery of Barbados, and has co-edited a book on Caribbean museums, Plantation to Nation: Caribbean Museums and National Identity. She has also worked as a curator at the National Museum of Australia and is a Research Associate in the Museum’s Centre for Historical Research.

Dr Patricia Clarke is a writer, historian, editor and former journalist, who has written extensively on women in Australian history and media history. Several of her publications are biographies of women writers and others explore the role of letters and diaries in the lives of women. Since the 1980s she has played an active part in national cultural institutions and community organisations in Canberra and her work has been recognised by a number of awards and grants.

Jessie Clarke, daughter of Ivy Brookes and grand daughter of Alfred Deakin, trained in social work and was professionally active in the Port Melbourne, Victoria, area. She studied in New York in the 1930s, was a junior delegate to the League of Nations Union in Geneva and an activist on behalf of refugees. She founded the Nappy Wash delivery service in the period after the Second World War.

The Caulfield Ladies’ Benevolent Society was established in August 1930 when the decision was made to form separate societies for St Kilda and Caulfield in an attempt to meet the increasing demand for welfare in the area as a result of the effects of the Great Depression. It operated under the administrative umbrella of the Victorian Association of Benevolent Societies and its predecessors. Mary Armstrong was the inaugural president. The Society held weekly meetings to deal with cases and a fortnightly business meeting.

The Preston Ladies’ Benevolent Society was formed in 1888 with the aim of relieving ‘distress among the less fortunate’ in the Preston area. Mrs L Lyons was the inaugural president. Other early members included Mesdames Richardson, Robinson, Carson, Warr, Showers, Harrap, Bell, Dale, Howe, Rundle, McKenzie, Hattam and Stone. It held monthly meetings where the cases were discussed , but no applicants were refused assistance. One of the Society’s roles was to work with the Almoners from the hospitals to supply special cases with invalid food. Mrs Allchin, a long serving president, held the position for forty-nine years and died in December 1946. The Society operated under the umbrella of the Victorian Association of Benevolent Societies.

The daughter of Thomas and Gwenelian (née Bartleman) Laby, Beth Laby completed her secondary schooling at Korowa Anglican Girls’ School. She graduated with a Diploma of Foods and Cookery, Institutional Management, from the Emily McPherson College of Domestic Economy before becoming a demonstrator with the Metropolitan Gas Company.

In 1942 Laby was appointed to the cookery department at Emily McPherson College and part of her college war work included teaching members of the Australian Women’s Army Service, the Women’s Royal Australian Navy Service and army hospital cooks. She demonstrated to civilian women the use of diverse foodstuffs during a time of food rationing and uncertain supply, as well travelling to country towns to show women how to make ovens from oil drums in case the war moved south from Darwin.

Laby became acting head of the Emily McPherson College cookery department following the resignation of Miss Jose and later taught at Prahran Technical College. In her retirement she was a delegate to the National Council of Women of Victoria (NCWV) for the Home Economics Association of Victoria. From 1992 to 1997 she was an associate of the NCWV and continued to contribute to council fund-raising activities and assist the home economics advisers well into the 1990s.

Constance Ellis became the first woman graduate of the University of Melbourne to obtain the degree of Doctor of Medicine (MD) in March 1903. She joined the pathology department of the Queen Victoria Hospital in 1902 and was honorary pathologist from 1908 until 1919. Ellis was the first woman to become a demonstrator and lecturer of Pathology at the University of Melbourne.

A foundation member of the Lyceum Club, Ellis was also a member of the Medical Women’s Society, the Australian Association for Fighting Venereal Diseases, the Victorian branch of the British Medical Association, the National Council of Women of Victoria, the Victorian Baby Health Centre Association and the Emily McPherson College.

Camilla Wedgwood, the fifth of seven children of Josiah and Ethel (née Bowen) Wedgwood, came to Australia in 1928 to lecture in anthropology at the University of Sydney. She then lectured at the University of Capetown, South Africa and at the London School of Economics and Political Science before being granted a fellowship to study the lives of women and children on Manam Island, New Guinea by the Australian National Research Council. Later Wedgwood became principal of Women’s College at the University of Sydney and held this position until her appointment in the Australian Army Medical Women’s Service, at the express wish of General Sir Thomas Blamey. She developed policies for postwar educational reconstruction in Papua New Guinea. Following her discharge Wedgwood returned to lecturing. A member of the Australian Student Christian Movement she was also involved with the Rachel Forster Hospital for Women and Children, the Anthropological Society of New South Wales, the Australian Federation of University Women and the Australian Institute of International Affairs.

The Victorian Association of Benevolent Societies was formed as the result of the amalgamation of the Association of Victorian Benevolent Societies, which was established in 1911 and the Central Council of Victorian Benevolent Societies, which was formed in 1930. It became ‘the representative body for all affiliated branches in the country’. Mrs Eva Tilley, JP, was its founding president. The Association’s objectives were to present a united front on proposed legislation and regulation which might affect the work of the Benevolent Societies. The Association occupied rooms at 167 Collins Street, Melbourne. It worked to increase the number of local Benevolent Societies in order to meet the increasing need in the post World War Two period to relieve the distress of the unemployed, deserted wives and children, and into the 1960s, single mothers. It remained in operation until 1987, when reduced funding and lack of people prepared to assume positions on the executive, forced it to close. Its last address was Room 101, 10th Floor, Capitol House, 113 Swanston St, Melbourne.

The Melbourne Orphan Asylum was established in 1853 to provide residential care for orphans. It evolved out of the Dorcas Society, which was the first women’s organisation to be established in Melbourne in 1845 on the initiative of Mrs George Cooper and Mrs William Knight and the St James’ Visiting Society. It aimed to assist the most vulnerable members of society by providing emergency support for families and almost unintentionally launched into residential care work with children. The St James’ Visiting Society became the St James’ Orphan Asylum and Visiting Society in 1851, and in 1853 the Melbourne Orphan Asylum.

On 31 March 1965 Merle Thornton and Rosalie Bogner chained themselves to the Regatta Hotel bar rail to protest for women’s rights. They wanted to liberate public bars from being men-only. The two protestors were both mothers of two and married to university lecturers. They were refused service, the publican faced a fine of £10-£20 if he served them with liquor, but were bought a beer by sympathetic male patrons. Their action became the starting point for women’s liberation in Brisbane in the late twentieth century. It is now recognised as one of the defining moments of second wave feminism in Australia.

A post-graduate student in Philosophy at the University of Queensland, Thornton went on to establish the Equal Opportunities for Women Association in April 1965. She also introduced the teaching of Women’s Studies in Australia in 1973 and was the special guest of the Queensland Government and speaker at the 70th celebration of International Women’s Day in 1999. Besides her academic writing Thornton has also written episodes for the television drama series Prisoner and has written and produced documentaries. Her stage play Playing Mothers and Fathers had a successful season at the Carlton Courthouse Theatre (Victoria) in 1990. Merle Thornton, the mother of actor Sigrid, returned to the Regatta Hotel, that now has a room named after her, for the launch of her first novel After Moonlight in 2004.

Following her discharge from the Women’s Auxiliary Australian Air Force (WAAAF) on 29 November 1945 Dorothy Hawthorn joined the Reserve of Officers.

Educated at Brisbane Girls’ High School and Sommerville House, Hawthorn had been Deputy State Commissioner for the Girl Guides’ Association of Queensland, Secretary of the Federal Council for Girl Guides and worked for the Women’s Voluntary National Register with the Red Cross and the Australian Comforts Fund. She was one of the first WAAAF Officers appointed in March 1941, firstly with the Air Board and then Adjunct and Barracks Officer at the WAAAF Training Depot, Malvern. She became Commanding Officer of the Training Section in Sydney, and later, Section Officer with a Training Group. In 1944 Hawthorn was promoted to Wing Officer whilst in command of No 1 Training Depot, Larundel, Preston Victoria. Subsequently she served as Section Officer WAAAF at the North Eastern Area Headquarters of the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF).

Appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for her service to education, particularly in the field of history, on 26 January 1989, Kathleen Fitzpatrick was the first woman council member of the National Library of Australia, and a foundation member of the Australian Humanities Research Council (later the Australian Academy of Humanities).

After serving with the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAAF) during the Second World War, Elizabeth Backhouse worked as a scriptwriter with Korda Films in England. Backhouse returned to Australia in 1951. She was a writer of novels, children’s stories, plays, filmscripts, a ballet and a musical.

Following her education in Sydney, Berlin and Paris, Ruby Board devoted her time to social welfare issues. She became a Member of the Board of the Rachael Forster Hospital and for a period was President of the National Council of Women of New South Wales. During World War II, Board was president of the Women’s Voluntary National Register, a member of the executive of the Australian Comforts Fund and Defence Director of the Women’s Auxiliary National Service.

The author of the Billabong series of books, Mary Grant Bruce began writing poetry and short stories at the age of seven. Later she became editor of her school magazine. After completing her matriculation Bruce moved to Melbourne where she worked as an editor and wrote weekly stories for the Leader children’s page. Her first book A Little Bush Maid, originally a serial, was published in 1910. Between 1910 and 1942 she published 37 children’s novels. During her career Bruce was a contributor to Blackwood’s Magazine, Morning Post, Daily Mail, Windsor Magazine, Cassell’s Magazine, Strand, Argus, Age, Herald (Melbourne), Australasian, Leader, Sydney Morning Herald, Sydney Mail, Lone Hand Auckland Weekly Press, Woman’s World, West Australian and the British Australasian. During World War II Bruce worked for the AIF Women’s Association, sold her autograph at charity auctions for the war effort and broadcast a series of talks for the Department of Information.