The Australian Women's Register

Thea Exley was the first woman to head a regional office of the Commonwealth Archives Office (now the National Archives of Australia), its first national Senior Archivist Reference and Access and the first Director Preservation at the Australian Archives (another predecessor of the National Archives). She was an inaugural member of the Australian Society of Archivists and served as a Councillor from 1977 to 1979. After her retirement she completed a PhD in art history.

Beatrice Holt was a leading figure in the development of mothercraft and child welfare services in Canberra, and was active in community organisations in Canberra from the 1920s.

Salme Koobakene was born in rural Estonia and undertook tertiary studies at the University of Tartu. It is likely that the second Soviet invasion of her homeland ended the possibility of her graduating, when she joined tens of thousands fleeing. She reached what became the American zone of Germany and was selected by the Australia Government to be in the first party of refugees to be resettled from Germany. The bulk of her working life was spent at the Menzies Library of the Australian National University. In her estate, she left an endowment to the National Gallery of Australia and another to the Country Women’s Association for annual grants to high school students and young carers in the Canberra-Monaro region.

Yetty Landau was an actor and comedian who worked in Melbourne and with travelling companies. She was a popular broadcaster in Melbourne and Canberra and with her actor husband set up schools which taught drama, elocution and public speaking. After her husband’s death Yetty continued teaching verse speaking, training choirs and successfully preparing students for the examinations of Trinity College, London.

Adele (Jill) Mildenhall arrived in Canberra during the settlement’s infancy. She quickly became involved in several charitable and religious organisations including St John the Baptist Church, the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) and the Mothercraft Society. She was also a valued member of Canberra’s social scene as a tennis player and an entertainer.

Gladys Pendred was considered in the mid-twentieth century ‘the main Australian authority in the field of early childhood education’. In 1944, after lobbying by Canberra kindergarten and mothercraft groups, Gladys was asked by the Minister of the Interior to draw up a plan for the extension of pre-school care in the Australian Capital Territory, known as the ‘Pendred Plan’. Pendred Street in the Canberra suburb of Pearce recognises her contribution to the Canberra community.

After an upbringing in the bush Lucy Frances Harvey (Lu) Rees worked as a shearers’ cook on a family property during the Depression; she moved to Canberra with her three sons in the late 1930s. In 1950 she became inaugural secretary of the Canberra Branch of the Fellowship of Australian Writers remaining a central figure in the organisation for many years. In 1955 she opened Cheshire’s Canberra bookshop which she managed for ten years. Always passionate about children’s literature she amassed a personal collection that became the nucleus of the ACT Children’s Book Council collection. It was donated to the University of Canberra where it is named the Lu Rees Archives of Australian Children’s Literature in her honour. She was created a Member of the Order of Australia and awarded the inaugural Dromkeen Medal for services to Australian children’s literature, both awards being announced posthumously.

As a young migrant who arrived in Australia from the Netherlands in 1953, Petronella Wensing became concerned about the welfare of other migrants, particularly women, and how they could be successfully integrated into the community. As a consequence of her growing awareness of the problems that existed for them, she became a delegate of the St. Patrick’s branch of the Catholic Women’s League and on 22 June 1961, a member of the Good Neighbour Council of the ACT. Her work with migrants was recognised in the ACT International Women’s Day Awards 2011.

As a skilled artisan her specialities were lace making and embroidery. She was foundation President and a Life Member of the Canberra Lace Makers Association, a past President of the Embroiders’ Guild of the A.C.T. and as well, a member of the Australian Lace Makers Guild. She continued to volunteer and consult with the National Gallery of Australia and the Canberra Museum and Gallery, Canberra on lace and textiles for many years.

Dr Gwen Woodroofe undertook research at the John Curtin School of Medical Research at the Australian National University, working on myxomatosis and arboviruses. She also organised the sale of UNICEF Christmas cards in Canberra for many years.

Jean Mulvaney was an active and committed community worker in Canberra from the mid-1960s until her death in 2004. She was a founding member of Canberra Lifeline, the ACT Girl Guides Commissioner, and president of the Canberra Mothercraft Society, the Queen Elizabeth II Family Centre Committee, and the University House Ladies Drawing Room. She was also an active member of the Civil Rehabilitation Committee (Prisoners’ Aid) and served on the National Council of Women.

Anne Godfrey-Smith was a poet, theatre director and producer, broadcaster, political activist, and scientist. After studying biochemistry at university, she moved into a career in the theatre starting at the Launceston Players in Tasmania. In 1954 she moved to Canberra and became the manager-producer of the Canberra Repertory Society. It was in Canberra that she made her name as a poet (under the nom de plume Anne Edgeworth), publishing the popular collections, Poems for Off-Duty Hours (2007), Turtles All the Way Down (2000), and Poems of Canberra (1997), among others. She was passionate about community work and was active in the environmental conservation movement, the women’s movement, anti-war campaigns and Indigenous rights’ advocacy. Later in life, she devoted a lot of time to community radio.

Sue Salthouse worked in the area of social justice from 1996, playing an active role in the systemic advocacy for women with disabilities. In Canberra she ran her own consultancy company that specialised in work in the disability sector and conducted social research, policy analysis and advice in a number of areas beyond disability advocacy, including project development and management, conference facilitation and TAFE teaching. She worked extensively with Women in Adult and Vocational Education (WAVE) to develop leadership training projects for women, including women in Aboriginal communities. She worked in a voluntary capacity for Women with Disabilities ACT and Rights International (Australia).

In 2015, Sue was Canberra Citizen of the Year, in recognition of her outstanding commitment and contribution as a disability advocate. In late 2019, Sue was further acknowledged for her enormous contribution to the public good when she was awarded the honour of 2020 ACT Senior Australian of the Year. Sue Salthouse died in a motor vehicle accident in Canberra on 20 July 2020.

Read an interview with Sue Salthouse in the online exhibition Redefining Leadership.

Wendy Craik has been described as ‘a woman of many firsts’ (Wisdom Interviews). In 1992, she became head of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA) a position she relinquished in 1995 when she created another precedent by becoming the first woman to lead the National Farmers Federation. She was the first female Chief Executive of the Murray Darling Basin Commission (2004 -2008) and has held numerous positions on boards and advisory councils, including President of the National Competition Council (2002), Chair of the Australian Fisheries Management Authority (2000) , Chair of the National Rural Advisory Council, member of the Productivity Commission (2009 -) and chair of the Board of the Australian Rural Leadership Foundation (2010 – ). In 2000 she worked in private industry as Chief Executive of Earth Sanctuaries Limited – a listed company pioneering a private approach to wildlife conservation. Currently (2013) she is also on the boards of the WorldFish Center and Dairy Australia and is on the Council of the University of South Australia.

Air Vice-Marshal Margaret Staib was the Australian Defence Forces’ (ADF) most senior female officer when she took over as Airservices Australia CEO on October 15, 2012. As the ADF’s senior logistician, AVM Staib served as Commander Joint Logistics and played a key role in implementing a $2.4 billion logistics reform program under the 2009 Australian Defence White Paper.

New Zealand-born Australian artist Rosalie Gascoigne, is acclaimed as one of Australasia’s most significant artists. She moved to the Australian Capital Territory in 1943 and remained there for the rest of her life. With no formal art training apart from studying sogetsu ikebana, Gascoigne held her first solo exhibition in Canberra in 1974 aged 57 and four years later was the first Australian woman to be invited to the Venice Biennale. By the time of her death in 1999 she boasted work in the collections of all Australian and New Zealand major galleries, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York; she has been shown in public exhibitions in Europe and Asia. Gascoigne’s work, made with found objects, was inspired by her feelings for the Monaro region in which she lived.

Ngingali Cullen, who was formerly known as Audrey Kinnear, was a co-chair of the National Sorry Day Committee that worked to achieve wide recognition of the wrongs suffered by Aboriginal people across Australia. Although scarred by the policies of forced removal of Aboriginal children from their families, it was healing those wounds that was her constant preoccupation. A proposal initiated by her led to the Journey of Healing campaign launched by the National Sorry Day Committee in 1999.

Violet Josephine Bulger (née Freeman) was among the first Aboriginal children forcibly removed from their families under New South Wales’ Aborigines Protection Act, 1909. She raised eight children on her own near Yass after being widowed in 1939 and went on to raise many of her grandchildren. She was respected as an Elder in the Canberra Aboriginal community until her death in 1993.

Mary Stevenson was the first woman elected to the ACT Advisory Council and the President and founding member of the ACT Liberal Party Women’s Branch. She was a lifelong advocate for women’s involvement in politics and community affairs. As well as having a full and impressive political career, she devoted a great deal of time to community organisations such as the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA), the National Council of Women, the Business and Professional Women’s Association and the United Nations’ Association. She was awarded an MBE in 1954.

A student of Newnham College, Cambridge, and a suffragist, Pattie Craske completed a natural sciences degree in botany with second-class honours at a time when the university did not grant degrees to women. After teaching in England, she married Australian entomologist, Robin Tillyard, in Sydney. In 1928, by then the mother of four daughters, she moved to the small, isolated community of Canberra where she became a leader in community, sporting and university organisations and was elected to the Canberra Community Hospital Board in 1935. She was the social face of the growing city, renowned for her welcome to newcomers, in later years being regarded as the ‘grande dame’ of Canberra.

Sylvia Parsons was a dressmaker and women’s fashion retailer who owned a popular dress shop in Kingston during the second half of the twentieth century. Parsons was active in the Canberra community and hosted regular fundraising fashion shows for local charities.

A former World War II refugee from Latvia, Zenta was asked to work at the CSIRO to assist communication between a Ukrainian refugee entomologist and his work colleagues. Working in CSIRO Entomology, specialising in assisting those working with Diptera (flies), became the rest of her life’s work. Her assistance was so valued that there are now at least two genera and 19 species named in her honour.

In 1948 Hazel Dobson was commissioned by the first Minister for Immigration, Arthur Calwell to investigate the living conditions and social problems of newly arrived refugees. Her report successfully recommended the employment by the Department of Immigration of professionally qualified social workers to assist migrants and refugees experiencing settlement difficulties. It also successfully recommended the enlistment of community organizations in helping new arrivals settle through what became the Good Neighbour Movement. She became the first Director of The Department of Immigration’s Assimilation and Social Welfare Section and continued in that role until her death.

Read more about Jan Anderson in our sister publication The Encyclopedia of Women and Leadership in Twentieth-Century Australia.

Read more about Pauline Fanning in our sister publication The Encyclopedia of Women and Leadership in Twentieth-Century Australia.

Read more about Pat Jalland in our sister publication The Encyclopedia of Women and Leadership in Twentieth-Century Australia.

Read more about Caroline Jones in our sister publication The Encyclopedia of Women and Leadership in Twentieth-Century Australia.

Read more about Ann Moyal in our sister publication The Encyclopedia of Women and Leadership in Twentieth-Century Australia.