The Australian Women's Register

Betty Twynam-Perkins and Leith Cameron married in July 1940. They both joined the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) in April 1941. After the war Betty Cameron joined the WAAAF Branch of the RAAF Association. She held various positions including president, secretary and treasurer. She also has been the convenor of two national reunions for the WAAAF, as well as a committee member. Her other community work included being a member of MU (Mothers’ Union) Australia and a voluntary driver at Concord Hospital.

Jess Prain was one of the first fourteen women to join the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) in 1941 and was stationed at Harman. From here she was drafted to Kuttabul where she was the first Petty Officer in Sydney. She did an Officer Training Course and returned to Harman as Third Officer. After her discharge in 1946 she was a welfare officer for Berlei and was recalled to the Navy in 1951 to train new recruits. Prain was Officer-in-Charge Women’s Royal Australian Naval Service (WRANS) at Flinders Naval Depot until 1954 and retired as First Officer. Married to Denis, Jess Doyle became Appeals Officer for Legacy (Sydney). [1]

Jo Cheers served with 10 Force Support Battalion in East Timor and was posted to Sydney early in 2002. She was presented with a Meritorious Unit Citation in the 2002 Australia Day Honours list (for sustained outstanding service in the provision of logistic support to warlike operations in East Timor) by the Commanding Officer of her present unit in the presence of military and civilian members of the unit.

Major Hilda Florence Meyer was appointed Assistant Controller Australian Army Medical Women’s Service (AAMWS) Land Headquarters (L.H.Q) and she served in this capacity from November 1942 until August 1944. She attended the third Australian Women’s Services Administrative School in Melbourne, which was established in 1943, to gain advanced training in Army organisation and administration. Courses were held at the school between October 1943 and July 1945. Major Meyer was appointed Deputy Assistant Controller AAMWS Headquarters, Western Command, to administer the movement and placement of AAMWS in Western Australian medical units between 1944 and 1945.

Source used to compile this entry: From Blue to Khaki by Betty Mount-Batten p. 48

Joan Christie was promoted to the rank of Major during the Second World War. In 1943 she worked in New Guinea supervising members of the Australian Army Medical Women’s Service.

Joan is acknowledged as the driving force behind the establishment of both the Orana Community TAFE College and the Dubbo campus of Charles Sturt University.

Honor Darling was a journalist who played a significant role in the Girl Guide Movement in Australia. She held various roles, including that of local publicity officer and ultimately, Chair of the Australian Publications Committee. Whilst a member of the armed services (the Women’s Auxiliary Australian Air Force) she edited the members’ magazine.

The Association began in 1946 and was founded by Miss Gwen Stark (later Caldwell). The ex-WAAAF joined the RAAFA (New South Wales Division) as associate members and in 1947 were accepted with full membership.

Mickey Syer enlisted at Claremont, Western Australia, in the Australian Army on 6 February 1941. A member of the Australian Army Nursing Service, she was stationed with the 2/10th Australian General Hospital when captured by the Japanese during the fall of Singapore. Mickey spent three and a half years in Japanese prisoner of war camps in Sumatra.

During October 1945, she returned to Australia and was discharged from the Army on 10 August 1948.

A nursing sister serving with the 2/10th Australian General Hospital, Pat Gunther (later Darling) was one of the Australian nurses taken prisoner by the Japanese in Sumatra during World War II. She writes about her three and a half years incarceration and survival in Portrait of a Nurse published in 2001.

Tootie Keast (later MacPherson) was one of six Australian Army Nursing Service sisters who were taken Prisoner of War on 23 January 1942 in Rabaul, New Britain. The sisters spent three and a half years interned with civilian nurses and missionaries. At first they were held at Vunapope Catholic mission before being transferred to Yokohama and then Totsuka.

After the War in the Pacific had ended a Japanese official told the women that their imprisonment was over. At the end of August an American officer found them, and arranged for their repatriation. They were flown back to Australia via the Okinawa Islands and Manila. [1]

On 10 April 1946, MacPherson was discharged from the Australian Army.

[1] Guns and Booches p. 149

Una Boyce was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) on 10 June 1991 and appointed an Officer of the British Empire (OBE) twenty years earlier, on 1 January 1971, for services to War Widows. She was state secretary of the War Widows’ Guild of Australia (New South Wales) from 1961 until 1989, becoming a life member of the War Widows’ Guild in 2000.

The daughter of Charles and Kate E. D (née Swan) Robertson, Boyce was educated at Abbotsleigh School for Girls, Wahroonga, and completed her education at the University of London. On 26 April 1940 she married war veteran Norman Boyce and the pair had three children. Boyce joined the War Widows’ Guild of Australia (New South Wales) in 1946 after her husband’s death.

Una Boyce enjoyed reading, travel, gardening and music and was a member of the Royal Automobile Association of Australia and Victory Services, London.

Jean Greer (later Pemberton) enlisted in the Australian Army on 16 December 1940. Attached to the 2/10 Australian General Hospital she was posted to Malaya in 1941.

On 14 February 1942, Jean was one of the 65 nurses aboard the ship Vyner Brooke when it was sunk by Japanese bombing. After reaching the shore she was captured by the Japanese and was a Prisoner of War for the next three and a half years before being liberated.

Jean Greer was discharged on 23 September 1946 and married Scotsman Duncan Pemberton in Singapore in 1947.

The couple moved to England where Jean died on 7 December 2001.

The daughter of Alholstane Chase and Rosina (née Sherrin), Elizabeth Burchill completed her education at the Camberwell State School and the Ladies Business College, Melbourne, as well as at Melbourne and Monash Universities.

Before World War II Burchill worked at the Australian Inland Mission, Innamincka, Labrador, Grenfell Mission, and was a member of the British Ambulance Unit, caring for refugee children during the Spanish Civil War. She enlisted in the Australian Army Nursing Service on 21 December 1939 and was one of the first nurses from Victoria to go to the Middle East with the 2nd Australian Imperial Force in 1940. After the war she combined nursing with writing – particularly about the area in which she had nursed. Her publications include Australian Nurses since Nightingale: 1860-1990, a largely biographical history published in 1992.

On 8 June 1998, Sister Elizabeth Burchill was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for service to nursing, particularly as an historian, author and philanthropist. Also she has won the Jessie Lichfield Annual Award and the Veterans’ Affairs Writers Award.

Frances Provan was one of the first 14 females posted to HMAS Harman, the communications station in Canberra, on 28 April 1941, making her one of the first members of the Women’s Royal Australian Naval Service (WRANS).

The daughter of R G and F H Anderson, Margaret Darling was educated at St Catherine’s College Toorak. After serving with the Women’s Royal Australian Navy Service from 1943 to 1945, she married L G Darling and they had four children. A member of the Alexandra Club (Melbourne), Margaret Darling enjoys travel, gardening, music and country pursuits. On 10 June 1991, Margaret Darling was made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for service to the National Trust of Victoria.

After moving to Canberra with her family in 1926, Jessie Daley became involved with a variety of community associations. She joined the Canberra Society of Arts and Literature, was the first President of the Canberra Ladies’ Choir, became a member (later President) of the Canberra Golf Club Associates as well as being a member of the Canberra Women’s Hockey Club and school associations.

In 1930 Daley became President of the local Girl Guides’ association and was district commissioner (1931-1932).

A member of the Canberra Mothercraft Society, Daley was Vice-President from 1930 until March 1935 when she became President. It was at a difficult time for the society with board disharmony and staffing problems. She resigned as President in May 1935 and was not re-elected.

Daley became a member of the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA), using her expertise to organise social, sporting and cultural activities as a welcome for newcomers to the city and to raise funds for charity. In 1937 she became Vice-President of the YWCA’s Canberra branch and a non-resident member of the national board.

On 4 July 1939 Daley was elected Foundation President of the Australian Capital Territory branch of the National Council of Women. The Council worked with the Canberra Relief Society to assist the needy.

Jessie Daley died of cancer on 10 November 1943 at Mosman.

On 8th June 1992, Sheila Scotter was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for services to the Arts, particularly through fundraising. She was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (Civil) on 13th June 1970 for services to journalism and commerce.

Elva Batt enlisted in the Australian Army on 29 October 1941. Originally a Voluntary Aid she later joined the Australian Army Medical Women’s Service. Batt was then transferred to the Australian Women’s Army Service.

Before attending the Australian Women’s Services Officers Training School, Batt was a sergeant working as a clerk in the orderly room. Upon completion of the course she was promoted to Lieutenant (later Captain) and became an Amenities Officer with the Australian Women’s Army Service.

It was Batt’s job to organize sporting events (i.e. swimming carnivals, basketball matches, etc.) and entertainment and to oversee the supply of goods from the Canteen Funds, such as bedspreads, irons, jugs, sewing machines etc., to make a servicewoman’s tent or hut seem like home. [1]

Nearing the end of the war, Batt was transferred to Melbourne Headquarters to oversee the disbanding of the Australian Women’s Army Service. She was discharged on 28 June 1946.

Later, in 1946, she married Barry Batt and they had two children. Batt states that one of her major challenges was now having to cook, as during the previous five years all meals had been cooked for enlisted personnel.

In retirement Batt and her husband became volunteer members of the Royal Blind Society (New South Wales). She has been president of the ex-AAMWAS Association of New South Wales for eight years.

In 2020, Elva was living in a retirement home in Sydney, where she celebrated her 100th birthday.

[1] From Blue to Khaki p. 217

Pamela O’Neil was Australia’s first Sex Discrimination Commissioner.

Patricia Rawlings served with the WRAAC for 23 years. She has held executive positions with state and national WRAAC Associations.

Helena Marfell was the inaugural national president of the Country Women’s Association of Australia in 1945.

Annie Laidlaw devoted her life to nursing and served in both world wars. She completed her nursing training at the Children’s Hospital (later Royal), Melbourne. In 1917 Laidlaw joined the Australian Army Nursing Service (AANS) and served in military hospitals at Bombay and Poona.

After the war Laidlaw returned to the Children’s Hospital as ward sister. In 1925 she was granted a year of leave to complete midwifery training at the Royal Hospital for Women, Sydney. Returning to Melbourne, Annie became assistant lady superintendent (assistant-matron) at the Children’s Hospital. In 1930 she was promoted to lady superintendent of the hospital’s orthopaedic section at Frankston. She held this position for 12 years.

Selected to head the Royal Australian Naval Nursing Service (RANNS) in 1942 she was in charge of the Flinders Naval Depot hospital as well as being in charge of the RANNS. After her discharge from the navy Laidlaw returned to her position at the Children’s Hospital until 1950.

From 1951-52 she worked in London. On her return to Melbourne she took the position of Matron at the Freemason’s Homes of Victoria, Prahran until her retirement in 1957. Aged 89, Annie Laidlaw died on 13 September 1978 at McKinnon, Victoria.

Judy Abbott was awarded the Royal Red Cross, 1st Class on 18 February 1943 for her leadership while matron with the 2/6 Australian General Hospital in the Middle East and Greece. After the war Abbott won the 1946 Florence Nightingale International Foundation scholarship, and studied at the Royal College of Nursing, London for 18 months. In 1948 she returned to her pre-war position on the tutorial staff at the Brisbane Hospital.

Abbott was appointed principal matron of the Citizen Military Forces and served with the 1st Camp Hospital, Brisbane, for a short time during the Korean War. From 1954 until 1956 she was president of the Australasian Trained Nurses’ Association (Queensland Branch) and a member of the Queensland State Nurses and Masseurs Registration Board. Nearing the end of her career, she worked as a staff nurse with the Commonwealth Savings Bank for five years and then in a doctors’ surgery before retiring in 1970.

Judy Abbott fractured her spine in 1975 and suffered quadriplegia. After her death on 27th November her body was given to the school of anatomy, University of Queensland.

Marjory Taylor became a Member of the Order of Australia on 9 June 1980 for her service to nursing.

During World War II she served with the Royal Australian Airforce Nursing Service (1944-1946) and worked voluntarily as senior nursing officer with the Girl Guide International Service in the British Zone, Germany, for three years.

From 1950 until 1981 Marjory worked with the Geelong Hospital, first as supervisor of the Maternity Wing and then Director of nursing. For 17 years – two as president – Marjory was a board member of the Intellectually Handicapped (Karingal) and was a founder and Board Member of the Geelong Hospice Care Association.

Beryl Evans was a Liberal Member of the Legislative Council in the New South Wales parliament from 1984-1995. She later ran unsuccessfully for the Senate as an independent, and for the New South Wales Legislative Council as a member of the Seniors Party. She was an official candidate for the 1998 Constitutional Convention, representing the One Australian Monarchist League, but was not elected.

During World War Two, Evans served in the Royal Auxiliary Australian Air Force with distinction. She became president of the WAAAF Branch of the RAAF Association New South Wales Division on 25 March 1997.

Dr Rhonda Sharp is a leader in the field of feminist economics, nationally and internationally, in both academia and applied policy work.

Dur-e Dara was awarded the Medal of The Order of Australia (OAM) in 1997 for services to the community and promotional and fundraising activities for women’s groups.