The Australian Women's Register

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.”

A member of the Australian Labor Party, Bronwyn Pike entered the Victorian Parliament in 1999 as the Member for Melbourne in the Legislative Assembly. Her ministerial portfolios included Community Services and Housing. After the 2002 election she became Minister for Health. She was re-elected in 2006 at the state election, held on 25 November, and in August 2007 was appointed Minister for Education in the Brumby Government on the retirement of Steve Bracks as Premier.
She was re-elected in 2010, but the Labor Government was defeated. She resigned from parliament on 7 May 2012.

Prior to entering Parliament, she worked as a secondary school teacher, Director of Justice and Social Responsibility, Executive Officer and Union Official.

A council member of the Invergowrie Foundation, Ruth Tideman was Headmistress of Lauriston Girls’ School, Armadale (Victoria) from 1983 to 2000.

On 26 January 2001 Ruth Tideman was made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for service to education as the Headmistress of Lauriston Girls’ School and for providing advancement opportunities for teachers and pupils through the Invergowrie Foundation.

In 1999 Marsha Thomson was elected Member of the Legislative Council (ALP) for Melbourne North Province at the Victorian state election. She served as the Minister for Information and Communication Technology and Small Business from 2002 until 2006. In 2006 she moved from the Legislative Council to be elected Member of the Legislative Assembly for Footscray. She held the position of Parliamentary Secretary, Industry and Trade from August 2007 until December 2010. She was re-elected in 2010 but the Labor Government was voted out of office. She was again re-elected in November 2014, when the Labor Party returned to power.

She is married to Federal Parliamentarian, the Hon. Kelvin Thomson MP, and is the mother of two children, Ben and Naomi.

Ward, Headmistress of Presbyterian Ladies’ College, Burwood (Victoria) since 1998, is a member of the Invergowrie Foundation.

Vivian Bullwinkel was the sole survivor of the 1942 Banka Island massacre. Post-war, she was Matron of Melbourne’s Fairfield Hospital.

Catherine Martin won two Oscars for costume design and art direction (Moulin Rouge) at the 2002 Academy Awards. At the 2001 Australian Film Institute (AFI) Awards she was the winner of the ‘GMD AFI Award for Best Production Design’ and joint winner of ‘The Kirketon AFI Award for Best Costume Design.’

Nancy Wake, whom the Gestapo code-named “the White Mouse” was the Allies’ most decorated servicewoman of World War II. The youngest of six children, Nancy Wake came to Australia with her parents when she was 20 months old. In the early 1930s she went first to England and then Paris as a freelance journalist and there met and married Henri Fiocca, a wealthy French industrialist. When the French government surrendered, after the German Army invaded in May 1940, Nancy Wake joined the French Resistance working as a courier and saboteur. For these ‘special operations in France’ Wake was awarded the George Medal (17 July 1945). Wake worked for the Intelligence Department at the British Air Ministry, after the war. She married John Forward, in 1957, before returning to Australia to live. In December 2001, Nancy Wake left Port Macquarie, New South Wales to live in Europe.

On 22 February 2004 Nancy Wake was appointed a Companion of the Order of Australia. The award recognises the significant contribution and commitment of Nancy Wake, stemming from her outstanding actions in wartime, in encouraging community appreciation and understanding of the past sacrifices made by Australian men and women in times of conflict, and to a lasting legacy of peace.

Nancy Wake moved to London to live in 2001. She died there, in Kingston Hospital on 7 August 2011.

Chloe Hooper attended Lauriston Girls’ School before commencing a Bachelor of Arts at the University of Melbourne. She studied creative writing at New York’s Columbia University under a Fulbright Scholarship.

Hooper’s first novel A Child’s Book of True Crime was launched at the 2002 Adelaide Writers’ Week.

In 1895 Augusta Zadow was appointed the first female Factory Inspector in South Australia.

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.

The Melbourne Society of Women Painters and Sculptors was founded in 1902 by women who had been students at the Art School of the National Gallery of Victoria, to provide a forum for artistic discussion and an opportunity to view and comment on each other’s work.

Originally named the Students’ Art Club, it became “Woomballana” (meaning either ‘everlasting beauty’ or ‘search for beauty’) Art Club, The Women’s Art Club, the Melbourne Society of Women Painters and finally, in 1954, the present title was adopted.

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.

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.