The Australian Women's Register

Doris Mary Robb was born in 1890 at Armadale Victoria, the daughter of Arthur Thomas and Ethel Gertrude (née Richardson) Robb. On 20 November 1913 she married Rupert Major Downes (later Major-General and director of Medical Services, 2nd Australian Army Melbourne) at St John’s Church Toorak. They had three children. As Doris Downes she was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (Civil) on 4 October 1918 for work among soldiers’ families through the Friendly Union of Soldier’s Wives. She died in 1981 aged 91 years.

Vivienne MacKay, née Plews, was a prominent member of both the Victorian and National Divisions of the Australian Red Cross Society from 1940-1978. She graduated from superintendent of the Red Cross Transport Company in 1940 to divisional commandant in 1945, and served as deputy chairman of the Victorian Division from 1952-1978. She was a member of the National Council from 1948-1978. She became a life member in 1955 and also served as Red Cross member of the National Florence Nightingale Committee from 1949. She was appointed as Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1958 for her services to the Red Cross Society.

During World War I Grace Wilson was Principal Matron of No 3 Australian General Hospital serving in Egypt, Lemnos and France. She was appointed a Commander (Military) of the Order of the British Empire on 1 January 1919 for army nursing service in France. Grace Wilson was mentioned in dispatches five times as well as being awarded the Royal Red Cross Medal (2 May 1916) and the Florence Nightingale Medal.

Appointed Lady Superintendent of the Royal Melbourne Hospital in 1934, Helene Grey remained in the position for 38 years. One of seven children born to Charles (a police magistrate) and Mabel Grey, Helene Grey helped raise her siblings after her father died. In 1919 she commenced nursing training at the Melbourne (later Royal) Hospital and graduated in 1924 receiving the Forest Gold Medal. Following her appointment as Sister Tutor of the Preliminary Training School in 1927, Helene Grey became matron of the Caulfield Convalescent Hospital. Grey was a president of the Australian Nursing Federation and Royal Victorian College of Nursing, and also a member of the Nurses Board of Victoria. She was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire on 10 June 1948.

Delia Russell, née Law, was active across a range of charitable organisations throughout her life. Educated at the Oberwyl School in Melbourne, she married Percy Joseph Russell, solicitor and municipal councillor in October 1893. Delia Russell’s major interests were the Red Cross Society; she remained a member of the Victorian Council until her death in 1938. She founded and ran the St Kilda Red Cross kitchen during World War I, and worked on special diets for influenza patients. She was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire for her work in 1920. Her subsequent commitments included Victorian president of the Housewives’ Association (1929-1930 – although she was expelled from this group in 1930 due to her anti-prohibition stance), vice-president of the Victorian Institute of Almoners, councillor of the Talbot Epileptic Colony, Clayton, an executive member of the National Council of Women, president of the Australian Temperance Association (which fought against prohibition), a justice of the peace and special magistrate of the Children’s Court, Melbourne. She was president of the Women’s Hospital committee from 1932-1934.

Eva Hughes was a prominent figure in women’s groups as well as charitable and patriotic organisations in Melbourne from the early 1900s. She became second president of the influential, politically conservative, anti-socialist group the Australian Women’s National League (1909-1922), after the death of her sister Janet Lady Clarke.

During the First World War she encouraged war-work and became a member of the Australian League of Honour, the Lady Mayoress’s Patriotic Fund and the Friendly Union of Soldiers’ Wives and Mothers. She supported the government’s conscription campaign, and garner support through her presidency of the Australian Women’s National League. On 4 October 1918 Eva Hughes was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (Civil) (OBE) for services as president of the League. Following her retirement as president, Hughes continued to act as an adviser, and was made a life patroness and a life member of the League’s council.

Violet Herring, née MacGregor, gave forty years of service to the Red Cross Society and was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire for her services to that organisation in 1954. Although educated in Melbourne, she spent most of her life in Queensland, and was a life member of the Creche and Kindergarten Association, vice-president of the District Nursing Association of Queensland for thirty years and a driver for the Lady Goodwin District Nursing Transport Corps for twenty years. She also served on the committees of the 2nd Australian Imperial Forces Nurses’ Fund and for the building of St Martin’s hospital.

Opera singer Marjorie Lawrence contracted poliomyelitis in 1941 and was almost crippled in both legs, but continued to perform using a wheel chair placed on stage. During World War II she entertained the troops and was awarded the cross of the Legion d’ Honneur (1946) by the French government. On 31 December 1976 Marjorie Lawrence was appointed Commander of the British Empire (CBE) for her services to the performing arts.

Mary Chomley, daughter of Judge Chomley of ‘Dromkeen’ at Riddell’s Creek, worked for the Red Cross Society and contributed to the struggle for the equality of women both in Victoria and in England. She was secretary of the Australian Exhibition of Women’s Work in 1907. She assumed the position of foundation state secretary of the Victoria League from 1909-1914, and maintained her membership until her death in July 1960. In London during, she worked at the Princess Christian’s Hospital for Officers from 1915-1916 and was secretary of the Prisoners of War branch of the Australian Red Cross, London, from 1916-1919. She was appointed as Officer of the Order of the British Empire (Civil) on 15 March 1918 for her contribution to the Red Cross Society. Whilst in London after World War I, she was a member of the delegation appointed by the British Government to report on working conditions for women and the opportunities for female migrants to Australia in 1919-1920, and Australian representative on the Society for the Overseas Settlement of British Women. From 1925 until 1933 she was president of the women’s section of the British Legion, Virginia Water, Surrey, England. Violet Teague, one of Australia’s internationally recognised artists at the turn of the nineteenth century, painted Mary Chomley’s portrait in 1909.

Eleanor MacKinnon, a foundation honorary secretary to the New South Wales Division of the Australian branch of the British Red Cross Society in August 1914, remained a member of the state executive and finance committees and a delegate to the central council until her death in 1936. After her marriage to physician Roger MacKinnon in 1896, and the birth of their two sons at Warialda, they moved to North Sydney in 1903. Eleanor MacKinnon was involved in a range of activities, which included learning to paint and membership of a number of benevolent and political societies. Her major contribution was to the Red Cross Society and she founded the world’s first Junior Red Cross division, with its motto, ‘the child for the child’ and remained its honorary director until 1935. In addition she created the Red Cross Record in 1914, editing it for twenty-one years, the Junior Red Cross Record in 1918 and compiled the Red Cross Knitting and Cookery books. She was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (Civil), in 1918, for her contribution to the Red Cross Society. Subsequently she visited the headquarters of the League of Red Cross Societies in Paris in 1925, and from 1925-1926 worked to reconstruct the Red Cross in Australia for a peace time role. She was awarded the King George V Silver Jubilee Medal in 1935 in recognition of her contribution to hospitals and health care in Australia.

Frances Mary Burke was appointed as a Member of the British Empire on the 1 January 1970 for her contribution to art and design. In 1937 she established with fellow graduate Morris Holloway Australia’s first registered textile printery – Burway Prints. The Frances Burke Textile Resource Centre at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology was named in her honour. The centre now forms part of the RMIT Design Archives.

On 9 June 1938, Isabella Younger Ross was awarded the Order of the British Empire for her services as secretary to the Baby Health Centre Association of Victoria.

Muriel Knox Doherty began nursing in 1921 at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, New South Wales, and set up the first preliminary training school at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, 1933-1937. In her capacity as matron-in-charge she was the first nurse appointed to the rank of squadron leader in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), where she inaugurated the Royal Australian Air Force Nursing Service. After World War II she worked with displaced persons at Bergen Belsen concentration camp, as a member of United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration. One of four founders of the New South Wales College of Nursing in 1949, she was also instrumental in the establishment of the Civilian Nursing Services Bureau, and co-authored the first Australian text book for nurses, Modern Practical Nursing Procedures, 1944. She was awarded the Royal Red Cross Medal (1st Class) in 1945 for her work in the RAAF Nursing Service.

Lucy Kerley was a research scientist in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the University of Melbourne 1953-1969. She was appointed MBE – Member of The Order of the British Empire (Civil) – 1 January 1974 for her work with the National Gallery Art School.

Nancy Millis was Professor of Microbiology at the University of Melbourne 1982-1991. She received a Bachelor of Agricultural Science in 1945, a Master of Agricultural Science in 1948 and a Doctorate in Science (Hon) in 1993, all from the University of Melbourne. She was awarded a Boots Research Scholarship in the UK and used it to study at the University of Bristol where she received a PhD in 1952.

She returned to work as a demonstrator in the Department of Microbiology at the University of Melbourne in 1952 and was originally appointed as a lecturer in that department in 1956 following the award of a Fulbright travel grant in 1954.

Nancy Millis was one of the pioneers of the study of fermentation technology in Australia. When she returned from Bristol in 1951 she had hoped to put her expertise to good effect; she had hoped to work for Carlton United Brewery, but at that time they did not employ women in their laboratories.

Millis was appointed MBE – Member of The Order of the British Empire (Civil) – 31 December 1976 for her work in biological sciences and education. She was also appointed AC – Companion of the Order of Australia – 11 June 1990.

During Annie Sage’s distinguished military nursing career in World War II she introduced the Australian Army Medical Women’s Service Training Scheme and was closely involved in the planning and establishment of the Royal Australian Army Nursing Corps as an integral part of the Australian Regular Army and the Citizen Military Forces.

After the war she took an active and leading role in the establishment of the War Nurses Memorial Centre and the Centaur War Nurses Fund. Through her work with the (Royal) College of Nursing she made a very important contribution to postgraduate nursing education. She was also active in the negotiations that brought about the 1958 Nurses’ Act which gave wider power to the registering authority, the Victorian Nursing Council. She was awarded the Royal Red Cross for her war work with the Australian Army Nursing Service in the Middle East in 1942 (for ‘exceptional tact and administrative ability’) and she was awarded the CBE (Military Division) in 1951.

Georgina Sweet was Australia’s first female Acting Professor (Biology, University of Melbourne, 1916-1917). She was Associate Professor of Zoology at the University of Melbourne from 1920 to 1924. Sweet’s research included the zoology of Australian native animals and the parasites infesting Australian stock and native fauna. She was appointed OBE – Officer of The Order of the British Empire (Civil) – 3 June 1935, for services to women’s movements.

Lady Joyce Ethel Price’s outstanding contribution to the Girl Guides both in Australia and worldwide was first recognised at a commonwealth level in 1968 when she was appointed as an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE). In 1977 she also received the Girl Guide Fish Award; and in 1978 her efforts were further recognised when she was appointed to the Order of St Michael and St George – Commanders (CMG).

Edith Barrett ran a small general practice in Melbourne but devoted her energies to voluntary work concerning the health and welfare of women and children. She founded the Bush Nursing Association in 1910 with her brother James and was associated with the Red Cross from 1914-1937. She was appointed OBE – Officer of The Order of the British Empire (Civil) – 15 March 1918 for her work with the Red Cross Society. She was also appointed CBE – Commander of The Order of the British Empire (Civil) – 24 May 1918 for her work with the Red Cross Society.

Jane Bell was lady superintendent of Melbourne Hospital 1910-1934. She was responsible for many innovations, including replacement of male orderlies by sisters in the operating theatres; the appointment of tutor-sisters to instruct trainees and of a house-sister to supervise the nurses’ quarters; the introduction of a six-week preliminary course; and pay for trainee-nurses. She was appointed OBE – Officer of The Order of the British Empire (Civil) – 1 January 1944 for her work as president of the Royal Victoria College of Nursing.

Mary Archer was CSIRO’s first woman scientist, and chief librarian from 1923-1954. She was appointed MBE – The Order of the British Empire – Member (Civil) – 2 January 1956 for her work as the CSIRO’s chief librarian.

Anna Bage was a talented scientist who worked her way through the junior ranks of the Department of Biology at the University of Melbourne to became a forerunner of women in public life in Queensland to where she moved in 1914 to take up the position of lecturer in charge of biology in 1913. In 1914 she became principal of the Women’s College, a position she held for the next 32 years. She was committed to the cause of encouraging women to become tertiary educated and travelled widely throughout Queensland to promote her college to rural communities. She was a member of many women’s interest groups, and played a lead rolein the formation of the Queensland Women Graduates’ Association (later the Queensland Association of University Women). She was president of the Australian Federation of University Women in 1928-29.

Anna Bage’s interests were many and varied. A nature lover, patron of the arts and motoring enthusiast, Bage was also a member of several women’s sporting associations. She managed the first hockey team in Australia to travel interstate, from Melbourne to Adelaide in 1908, and was president of the Queensland Women’s Hockey Association in 1925-31.

She was appointed OBE – Officer of The Order of the British Empire (Civil) – 12 June 1941 for public service.

Kathleen Best, as nurse and army officer, was an inspiring leader in both a war and peace time environment. As an army officer in the Middle East, she distinguished herself through her courage and efficiency in her treatment and care of the wounded. After her wartime service, she assumed a number of peacetime appointments, which included becoming the founding director, Australian Women’s Army Corps (Women’s Royal Australian Army Corps (WRAAC)) in 1951. Kathleen Best’s war effort was acknowledged by the award of the Royal Red Cross medal ‘for gallantry, conduct and devotion in Greece 14/27 April 1941’ and her subsequent role as Director of the WRAAC was honoured with her appointment as Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1956.

In 1972, Phillipa Hallenstein was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to the community and to women’s organisations.

Vera Scantlebury Brown, commonly known as Dr Vera, was appointed the first Director of Infant Welfare for the Victorian Department of Health in 1926. She remained dedicated to this position until her death. The position was only part-time due to her marriage, a custom of the time when it was considered that married women did not need to work outside the home. Vera Santlebury Brown was honoured with her appointment as an Officer of the Order of the British Empire on 9 June 1938 for her work in the fields of infant and maternal welfare.

At the 1978 Edmonton (Canada) Commonwealth Games, Tracey Wickham broke the world record winning gold in the 800m and won a second gold in the 400m. Also that year she broke the world record in the 1500m and 400m freestyle.

Tracey Wickham was named the ABC Sportsman of the Year. She competed at the 1982 Brisbane Commonwealth Games winning gold in the 400m freestyle, 800m freestyle and silver in the 200m freestyle. Wickham was selected for the 1980 Olympic team but decided to withdraw when the Australian government asked for a boycott.

When Wickham was appointed an Order of the British Empire – Member (Civil) for her contribution to swimming, she was the youngest Australian to be awarded the MBE.

Diane Alley has worked in a range of organisations to ensure that women gained equal opportunity in society and for the achievement of social justice for all members of the community, both in Australia and internationally. She was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1981 for her community 1923-24 work.