The Australian Women's Register

Beryl Miller was born in Geelong, Victoria. The daughter of British migrants she came to Adelaide after her marriage in 1945. She joined the Eureka Youth League at 15 and joined joining the Communist Party of Australia in 1952. She was involved with the Union of Australian Women, the Women’s International Democratic Federation and the Australian Peace Committee. She left the Communist Party and became a foundation member of the Socialist Party of Australia. Miller represented South Australia in 1964 when the Communist Party of Australia organised the first women’s delegation to Russia.

Lenore Bishop, née Wilson, was born in Mount Gambier, South Australia where her father was a butcher. After finishing high school she began working, first as a legal secretary, then as a journalist, and then with her husband in a hardware business. Lenore became heavily involved in community work during her three children’s school years. Following the retirement of Mount Gambier’s first woman councillor in 1959, Lenore was asked to stand. She was re-elected two years later unopposed. At this time she was one of very few women in local government. In 1964 Lenore nominated for mayor and was unopposed, becoming the first woman mayor in South Australia. Lenore retired from council in 1967 but returned as the region’s first woman alderman in 1972.

Anna Victoria Ey (née Oster) was born in Metz, Germany. The daughter of a Lutheran Pastor, she migrated to Australia in 1847. She married a paster Johannes M R Ey in 1861 and bore 13 children of which 7 survived. She lived in and around Lobethal, located 33 km from Adelaide, for the rest of her life.

Toni Turnbull, née Richmore, was born in Japan where her father was stationed. Toni went to school in several countries and matriculated at an Adelaide Catholic girls school. She began Science at Adelaide University before transferring to Medicine. In her fourth year Toni married, and in her final year her first child was born. Working for the Family Planning Association and in general practice, Toni became increasingly disturbed by the number of women seeking abortions for convenience. In the early 1980s Toni came to believe that God was asking her to speak out and she also became convinced of the extent of post-abortion grief.

Luise Homann was born on 21 August 1837 in Hanover Germany. She married Wilhelm Wendtlandt, a Lutheran missionary on 13 July 1855 and had 4 children. They travelled widely, first to Madras then to South Africa, South America, England and then back to Germany. Wendtlandt died in 1861. After his death, Luise became a missionary in Germany. She remarried Ernst Homann 3 October 1867 and followed her husband to South Australia, where they worked at Hermannsburg Mission station.

Gaye Barnes, née Robinson, grew up in Angle Park, Adelaide where her parents ran racing stables. Within an eighteen month period, between the ages of 19 and 20, she had three abortions for personal convenience. This had a profound effect on her resulting in ‘a life-altering religious experience’ arising out of continuing depression. She later became determined to help others. In 1990 she and her husband Peter, also a Christian, sold their home to establish the non-denominational Genesis Pregnancy Support service at Marden.

Berthe Mathilde Fritsch (née Simpfendor) was born in 1896 in the Baranduda – Leneva District in Victoria, Australia. Her father was a Lutheran Pastor. She took over the housekeeping duties after her mother died in 1920. She married Walter Fritsch in 1922, moved to New South Wales then back to Victoria, before settling in Adelaide in 1938 at St Stephen’s. There she joined the Lutheran Women’s Guild, and the Lutheran Women’s Association of South Australia. Fritsch served on the Ladies’ Committee of Emmanuel College from 1942-1971 and represented the Lutheran Women’s Association at the Women’s Jubilee Convention in Canberra in 1951. In 1954 she went to Minneapolis, USA, to the LWF (Lutheran Womens’ Federation?) assembly. She had 5 daughters who all graduated from the University of Adelaide.

Helen Jericho (née Vogelsang) was born 20 August 1896 at Kapperamanna, an outpost of Bethesda Mission near the Birdsville Track. Her father was a lay missionary, and one of the founders of Bethesda Mission. She left the Mission after her father’s death in 1916, and married in 1920

Frieda Johanna Henriette Strehlow (née Keysser) was born 31 August 1875 at Geroldsgruen in Bavaria. She arrived in Australia 15 September 1895 and 10 days later married missionary Karl Strehlow to whom she bore 6 children. Visiting Germany, in 1911, she and Karl left all but the youngest there for their education and the family were then separated for many years by the war. She worked at Hermannsburg Mission for 28 years with the Aboriginal people there until Karl died in 1922. She then became housekeeper for Pastor R Held and then matron at the Lutheran College and Seminary in North Adelaide for 6 years. She returned to Germany in 1931 where she died in 1957.

Dianna Lobb, the daughter of Leonard and Violet (née Davidson) Lobb, was educated at Fort Street Girl’s High School, Sydney. In 1978 she became the first woman to review guard at Headquarters 2nd Military District at Victoria Barracks, Sydney. The same year she became commanding officer and chief instructor of the Women’s Royal Australian Army Corps (WRAAC) School, Sydney. On 12 June 1971 Lobb was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire.

Pre-school teacher and educator Heather Lyon was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire on 11 June 1977 for her service to education.

Former primary school teacher Barbara MacLeod joined the Women’s Royal Australian Naval Service in 1954. During her service she served in every Australian state except Western Australia. In 1976 MacLeod became the first woman officer of any service to attend the Australian Administrative Staff College (AASC). Three years later she was the first woman naval officer of Captain’s rank to be posted to a male Captain’s position. In 1982 MacLeod became an Honorary Aide-de-Camp (ADC) to Queen Elizabeth. She was the first Australian woman to be appointed as an ADC, a post which had to be relinquished on her retirement. On 9 June 1975 Naval Officer Barbara MacLeod became a Member of the Order of Australia. She was also awarded the Queen’s Silver Jubilee Medal (1977) and the National Medal (1977) and Bar (1979).

Senior Lecturer and Convener of the Classics Program at the Australian National University (ANU), Dr Ann Moffatt was one of the first women wardens of a mixed hall of residence when acting warden of Bruce Hall at the ANU in 1973.

Moffatt attended Unley High School in Adelaide and University High School, Melbourne, before graduating with a Bachelor of Arts (Hons) from the University of Melbourne. She obtained her Master of Arts from the Australian National University and her Doctor of Philosophy from the University of London.

Joyce Nicholson was born in Melbourne, the daughter of publisher D.W. Thorpe. She was educated at Methodist Ladies College before completing a Bachelor of Arts at the University of Melbourne, where she was vice-president of the Student Representative Council. She has been active in the women’s movement, involved in early years with the Women’s Electoral Lobby (W.E.L.) and Sisters Publishing Ltd. She was Managing Director, and later sole owner, of D.W. Thorpe Pty Ltd from 1968 until 1987, when the firm was sold. She is the author of over 25 books, many of them written for children, others dealing with women’s issues.

Daughter of Arthur Walker and his wife Frances (née Sinclair), Ellinor Walker was born in Melbourne, Victoria and moved to Adelaide, South Australia when she was nine years old. She attended the Wilderness School, and was awarded the Tennyson Medal for English at the age of fifteen. Walker graduated as a kindergarten teacher, and spent two years as Director of the Halifax St Free Kindergarten. She then opened the Greenways School at her family home in Fullarton, and directed this for 24 years. At the age of eighteen she and a friend formed a Girls’ Club to study political matters, and this led to her joining, at the age of 21, the Non-Party Association. She was an active member of this for 65 years, and when (as the League of Women Voters, which it had become) it voluntarily ended in 1979, she gave the valedictory speech. She was a passionate supporter of the League of Nations and the movement to maintain world peace. In 1940, with the help of Roma Mitchell (later Governor of South Australia) she drew up the Bill which became the Guardianship of Infants Act, No. 55 (1940), giving mothers equal rights with fathers over their children. In 1962 and 1963 she organised an Australia-wide campaign which resulted in recognition of the needs of civilian widows with dependent children. She was a member of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU). In 1964 she helped form the Local Government Women’s Association, and in 1971 was president of the Women’s Christian Temperance League, of which she had been a member since 1935. Walker wrote several historical pageants and she also wrote a monologue, ‘The Story of the Franchise: How Women Won the Vote in SA’ (1944) for the Golden Jubilee of Women’s Suffrage. Her poem ‘Lullaby’ was set to music by Ruby R McCulloch, and is held in the Mortlock Library. Ellinor Walker was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire on 12 June 1971 for her service to the community.

The Queen’s Fund was established as ‘the chief permanent Jubilee Memorial of Victoria in commemoration of the completion of the Fiftieth year of the Queen’s reign, raised by women, managed chiefly by women, for the good of women, and in honour of the long reign of a good woman, during which the general position of women has been in a hundred ways improved’. Elizabeth Loch, its founder and inaugural president stated that the Fund existed ‘solely for the relief of women in distress’. The Fund still operates and celebrated its centenary in 1987. Meetings are held monthly at the Melbourne Town Hall. The 1987 Annual Report noted an increase in applications to the fund. This was attributed to larger numbers of separated and divorced women who received no maintenance to care their children.

PLEASE NOTE: THE AUSTRALIAN WOMEN’S REGISTER IS NOT AN AGENT FOR THE QUEEN’S FUND. YOU MAY CONTACT THEM BY MAIL AT:

GPO Box 2412
Melbourne VIC 3001

Octavia Wilson, daughter of Thomas Samson of Berwick upon Tweed, married a congregational minister the Reverend William Wilson (1827-1895) in 1855. They both emigrated to Australia in 1857 and founded Point Pearce Aboriginal mission.

Henrietta Greville established her life-long involvement with the labour movement when she moved to the goldfields at West Wyalong, following the breakdown of her marriage to John Collins. Here she pegged out a claim, sold meals to the miners and helped establish a branch of the Political Labor League, as well as meeting her future husband, miner and union organizer, Hector Greville. To help support her family Greville, at times, worked as a seamstress. Later she became an organizer for the Australian Workers’ Union, the Women Workers’ Union, and for some time acted as its delegate at the Trades and Labor Council. As a Labor candidate, Greville was defeated for the federal seat of Wentworth in 1917 and the state seat of Vaucluse in 1927. Greville became associated with the Workers’ Educational Association of New South Wales in 1914 when she joined an economics class. By 1918 she was branch secretary at Lithgow, became a member of the executive in 1919 and the first woman president in 1920. Greville was still active with the association in 1954, at the age of 94. On 1 January 1958 Henrietta Greville was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire for social welfare services in New South Wales.

Marlienne Thomson was born at Ceduna, South Australia. After two years as a dental nurse she began training at the Royal Adelaide Hospital (RAH) in 1951. When training was completed she had appointments as staff nurse and charge nurse at the RAH. Marlienne attended the College of Nursing, Australia in 1958 and gained a diploma in ward management and teaching. On her return to Adelaide she was active in introducing new procedures at the RAH. She resigned in 1961 to attend the Adelaide Bible Institute and in 1964 went to South India to serve as a missionary at the Christian Medical College and Hospital at Vellore.

The Catholic Welfare Organisation (CWO), an initiative of the Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne, Daniel Mannix on the outbreak of World War Two in September 1939, foresaw the need to establish service canteens, hostels and rest rooms, in addition to catering for the spiritual needs of servicemen and women. Its objectives were to promote the spiritual welfare of the Catholic members of the fighting forces and to cater for the material welfare of all the fighting forces, regardless of creed. On the retirement of the inaugural president, Dr A L Kenny, Mary Daly was appointed to the position in 1941. She held that office until the completion of the work of the Catholic Welfare Organisation in 1948.

Joan Durdin, author of They Became Nurses: A History of Nursing in South Australia, 1836-1980 (1991) and Eleven Thousand Nurses: A History of Nursing Education at the Royal Adelaide Hospital 1889-1993 (1999) is a nursing historian and as a nurse educator has contributed much to the advancement of nursing through the development of advanced education in the higher education sector. In addition to her ten year’s teaching at Royal Adelaide Hospital she spent six years as a nurse educator in Papua New Guinea. She conducted extensive oral history interviews for the Royal Adelaide Hospital Heritage and History Committee, 1991-1998. Durdin is commemorated by the Joan Durdin Oration, an annual event initiated and sponsored by the Department of Clinical Nursing at the University of Adelaide.

The Queensland Women’s Electoral League (QWEL) was an organisation formed in the last stages of the campaign to obtain woman suffrage for white women in Queensland. While the league claimed to have all women’s interests at heart, and that it was to be apolitical, it was very much a liberal-conservative organisation. Although its stated aims included the desire to ‘advance political knowledge among women’, they also included the desire to ‘encourage and preserve private enterprise, and to combat unnecessary interference by the State’. Labor women who attended the QWEL launch in 1903 left once the political agenda became obvious. They went on to form the Women Workers’ Political Organisation in opposition. The Women’s Christian Temperance Organisation, in response to this political wrangling, called upon its own members to avoid ‘the venom of party politics’ and concentrate on the task at hand.

Members of the Woman’s Equal Franchise Association (WEFA) joined the Women Workers’ Political Organisation (WWPO) when established in 1903. The aims of the Organisation included:
• To secure just political representation in state and federal parliaments
• To promote and safeguard the interests of women in body politic
• To advance the political representation of women by meetings and other means.
Under the guidance of their president, Emma Miller, WWPO members worked diligently to ensure that when women voted, in the federal election on 16 December 1903, their vote would be valid. They organised three mock elections; held ten public meetings; and printed four leaflets and distributed them during door-to-door canvassing and visits to working women at their factories and workshops.

Emma Miller was foundation president of the Woman’s Equal Franchise Association between 1894 and 1905. The vote for women in Queensland State elections was finally won in 1905; women had had the right to vote in Federal elections since Federation, and voted for the first time in the 1903 Federal election. On 2 February 1912, known as Black Friday, at the height of a general strike, Miller led a contingent of women to Parliament House, avoiding police with fixed bayonets. The women were charged by baton swinging police on their return from Parliament House. Miller reputedly stuck her hatpin into a horse ridden by the Police Commissioner, Patrick Cahill. Cahill fell from his horse and claimed to have been permanently injured. Direct political action was not Miller’s only cause. She was anti-militarist and opposed conscription in World War I. She believed that ‘those who make the quarrel should be the only ones to fight’. As vice-president of the Women’s Peace Army, Miller attended the Peace Alliance Conference in Melbourne in 1916. She also fought hard for free speech and civil liberties. During the First World War, Miller preached equal pay to those fearing that women would take the jobs of men away at the war.

Bella Guérin became the first woman to graduate from an Australian university when she was awarded her Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Melbourne (number 255) in December 1883. She taught first at Loreto Convent, Ballarat then as lady principal of Ballarat School of Mines university classes, resigning upon marriage to Henry Halloran. A civil servant and poet, Halloran married Guérin on 28 June 1891 aged 80. Following his death Guérin married George D’Arcie Lavender.

Bella Guérin was politically active and a member of the suffrage movement. She became vice-president of the Women’s Political Association in 1912, and later joined the Labor Party.

The Catholic Women’s League Australia (CWLA) was established in 1975. It evolved from the Australian Council of Catholic Women, which began in 1928. Its major objectives are to enable women to participate more effectively in working for and building Christianity by promoting the spiritual, cultural, intellectual and social development of women. It aims to foster ecumenism and inter-faith dialogue and provides a national forum for the voice of the Catholic Women’s League Organisations in Australia.

Joyce McConnell was appointed to the Order of the British Empire on 12 June 1976 for community services. She was an active member of a number of national women’s groups and Australian Capital Territory associations. McConnell was President of the National Council of Women of Australia, member of the National Women’s Advisory Council, National Women’s Consultative Council and the Federation of University Women. In 1976 McConnell was Australia’s delegate to the International Council of Women conference in Vancouver.