The Australian Women's Register

Gay Bilson was the chef and co-owner of Berowra Waters Inn, a restaurant located on an estuary of the Hawkesbury River, New South Wales. After the Berowra Waters Inn close in 2005, Gay opened the restaurant Bennelong, at the Sydney Opera House.

Gay’s book Plenty: digressions on food was named 2005 Age Book of the Year.

Romola studied at the Slade School of Fine Art in London from 1953 to 1955, followed by a year of study at the University of Western Australia where she became a medical artist. Romola held her first solo exhibition at the age of twenty-one, at Perth’s Skinner Galleries, in 1959.

Romola has won the Claude Hotchin Prize and also the Helen Rubinstein Portrait Prize (1960). She is the former director and art consultant of Molongolo Press.

Sylvia Winters was a barrister at the New South Wales Bar. Winters worked as a barrister for the Women’s Electoral Lobby (WEL) in 1992-1993 in the National Wage Case engaged on their campaign over the implications of enterprise bargaining on women.

Rosalie McCutcheon was Head of the Junior School of the Frensham School in New South Wales from 1941 to 1947 and 1953 to 1955. She was also Australian Secretary for the World Students Relief (1949-1953) and the Resident Secretary of the Australian Student Christian Movement, Universities of Sydney and New South Wales (1958-1964).

Rosalie was the first Deputy Director of International House, University of Sydney, from 1966 to 1972. Affectionately known as Mrs Mac, she devoted herself to the well-being of all residents.

The International House at the University of Sydney awards the Rosalie McCutcheon Scholarship to assist a resident either with academic or professional development, or to attend a conference, seminar or workshop in their area of study or on international issues.

The Scholarship was set up after the International House Alumni Association (SUIHAA) received a bequest from her estate, which subsequently became the Rosalie McCutcheon Scholarship Fund.

Susan Alberti became a board member of the Western Bulldogs AFL team in 2004 and in 2013 she was elected to the position of Vice President. She resigned from the Vice Presidency at the end of 2016. Susan was instrumental to the establishment of a women’s AFL for the Western Bulldogs.

Susan provided substantial financial support to ensure the staging of the first AFL-sanctioned women’s match at the MCG in 2013. She has also been a long-time supporter of the Victorian Women’s Football League (VWFL).

After her daughter, Danielle, was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes in the 1980s, Susan has been a generous financial supporter of medical research into Type 1 diabetes.

Susan is a former President of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and Chairman of the St Vincent’s Institute of Medical Research Foundation. She holds many other honorary philanthropic positions.

Susan has been awarded three Australian Honours: Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in 1997; Office of the Order of Australia (AO) in 2007; and Companion of the Order of Australia (AC) in 2016. She was also a finalist in the Australian of the Year Awards in 1997 and 2009.

As a ballet dancer, Joan Gadsdon toured with the Kirsova Ballet and, from 1944, with Edouard Borovansky’s company in Australia.

Joan emigrated to London in 1947 and danced with the Metropolitan Ballet. She also performed in The Boy Friend on the West End for a number of years.

After her retirement from dancing, Joan worked as a portrait artist and art teacher.

Ruth Pearce-Jones was a Sydney Soprano singer. She studied in both Austria and London before returning to Australia in 1939 with a signed contract with the Australian Broadcasting Commission. She went on an inter-state tour lasting eight weeks.

Dawn Ryan was an anthropologist who undertook extensive fieldwork in Papua New Guinea.

Millicent Bryant was the first woman in the in Australia to gain a pilot’s license.

Diane Fahey has published twelve collections of poetry, in addition to numerous anthologies published in both Australian and international publications.

Juliet Schlunke grew up on a sheep and wheat farm in Temora, New South Wales, until she was 16. Schlunke went to Sydney in 1967 and studied art at various technical colleges and John Olsen’s Bakery Art School.

In 1976, having travelled in the United States and Europe, she settled in Madrid. Schlunke began painting fabrics in 1981 and has worked with decorators in Madrid, Studio Bach in Geneva, Paris and Provence.

As the wife of state and federal parliamentarian Frank Crean, Australian politics was a major part of Mary Crean’s life.

Mary volunteered at kindergartens, helped organise annual collections for the Red Cross, the Salvation Army and Freedom from Hunger. At one stage she was the Victorian Commissioner of the Girl Guides, and was a keen patron of the arts through involvement with the National Gallery of Victoria. Mary was also a long-standing volunteer and patron of the Melbourne High School Library, where her children had attended school.

Peta Searle was the first female Australian Football League (AFL) coach, appointed development coach for the St Kilda Football Club in 2004. She was also the first Victorian Women’s Football League (VWFL) coach to lead a team to five consecutive premiership wins.

Erin Phillips was awarded the Australian Football League Women’s (AFLW) Best and Fairest medal at the W Awards in both 2017 and 2019.

Bec Goddard was the coach of the 2017 Australian Football League Women’s (AFLW) premiership team, the Adelaide Crows. She was also the recipient of the 2017 Football Woman of the Year Award.

Marian Margaret Clarke was a journalist and “ABC weekly” staff writer.

Patricia Slater began her nursing training at the Royal Children’s Hospital, Melbourne, in 1937. She subsequently undertook additional training in adult nursing at the Alfred Hospital, followed by a midwifery certificate at the Royal Women’s Hospital (1942) and an infant welfare certificate at the Karitane Home, Sydney (1947).

Patricia served as a lieutenant in the Australian Army Nursing Service (AANS) from 1943 until 1947. She worked in hospitals in Victoria and Queensland and from 1945 to 46 she worked at the 2/4th Australian General Hospital and 2/1st Casualty Clearing Station on Morotai and Labuan islands, Netherlands East Indies.

After the war Patricia worked and travelled, before returning to Melbourne to teach nursing at the Royal Melbourne Hospital.

In 1956 Patricia completed a diploma in nurse education from the Melbourne-based College of Nursing and in 1959 she was awarded a Centaur war nurses’ memorial scholarship to study in Seattle, United States of America, at the University of Washington (B.Sc. Nursing, MA, 1961). While overseas, she also won a Rockefeller fellowship (1961) to visit university nursing schools in North America and Europe.

Patricia became a fellow (1960) and a part-time lecturer (1963) at the College of Nursing in Melbourne, before taking over as director in 1965. In 1974 the college established Australia’s first undergraduate nurse-education course. Patricia was instrumental in transforming nurse education from a hospital-based system to instead include undergraduate courses within tertiary institutions.

With the amalgamation of the College of Nursing and the Lincoln Institute of Health Sciences in 1977, Patricia became the inaugural head of the school of nursing; a position which she held from 1977 to 1983.

Patricia was appointed OBE in 1975 and a fellow of the Australian College of Education in 1977.

Myrtle Rose White was an author who published a small number of works, including No Roads Go By, which was an account of life at Lake Elder, South Australia.

Myrtle produced two sequels to her debut publication; Beyond the Western Rivers in 1955 and From That Day To This in 1961.

Although she also wrote three novels, only For Those That Love It (1933) was published.