The Australian Women's Register

Joyce Goodes was a well-known Canberra personality who made a substantial contribution to the cultural and community life of the capital between the mid-1940s until her death in 1990. In the late war years she instigated meetings for the establishment of the city’s first kindergarten at Acton in 1944, and her teaching at Canberra Girls’ Grammar School over thirty years culminated in her single-handedly setting up the new library of 10,000 books at the Junior School, built in 1973. But Joyce Goodes is best remembered for the quality of her body of work as a local theatre producer, director and actor, first at Canberra Repertory Society in its early days and, from 1960, with her own group The Theatre Players. The legacy of this work resides in an award, The Theatre Players Scholarship, granted yearly to assist a promising young person from the ACT undertaking their tertiary education in any aspect of theatre craft.

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.

Alice Mayo was a third generation Australian, the daughter of William Mayo and Mary Ann Warwick. Her grandfather, Albert Mayo, had arrived as a convict in 1839 and lived and worked in the Duntroon area. Alice Mayo married Harold Vere Chumleigh in 1913. They were divorced in 1934 and she married Ferdinand Lomax in 1935. She worked as a schoolteacher as well as running a florist shop in Double Bay and a lingerie shop in Penfold’s Buildings in Sydney. She played the piano as well as tennis. She grew up in Majura and lived between there and Sydney until the time of her second marriage. She and Ferdinand Lomax ran hotels at Boree Creek and Brown Mountain before retiring to Batehaven. Ferdinand Lomax died in 1969. Alice Lomax lived to the age of 101, only moving to a Nursing Home at the age of 99.

Ruth Arndt was a qualified social worker who, while unable to practise her profession because her British qualifications were not recognised in Australia, was a tireless advocate and community worker in Canberra, particularly for migrants and foreign students. She taught English to many new arrivals, taught German and Economics at both Canberra Boys’ and Girls’ Grammar Schools and worked as a research officer in the Department of External Affairs. She also served on the Australian National University Council, the Governing Body of Bruce Hall and was president of the Ladies Drawing Room at University House.

Jan Brown is a distinguished Canberra artist whose work has been exhibited in Canberra since the 1960s and whose public art installations include Kangaroos in Commonwealth Park and the Icarus group of sculptures in Petrie Plaza in Canberra. She taught sculpture and drawing for over forty years at the Canberra Technical College and the Canberra School of Art.

Born to Belgian and Scandinavian parents, Hilma Dymphna Lodewyckx grew up surrounded by languages which, combined with a natural talent, saw her master over eight languages and become a successful linguist. Her most ambitious and important work was a translation from German to English of Baron Carl von Hügel’s New Holland Journal. After meeting her future husband Manning Clark at Melbourne University, the couple journeyed to Germany and England, respectively, to continue their studies. They married at Oxford in 1939. Returning to Australia to escape the war in Europe, the couple and their growing family eventually settled in Canberra where Manning took up a position at what would become the Australian National University. Dymphna worked to raise her young family and establish their home as a warm welcoming space for friends and colleagues, as well as assisting Manning with translations and editing for his historical works. By 1959 Dymphna returned to teaching, eventually taking up a position at the ANU German Department. She was also an activist for Aboriginal rights and the environment. After Manning’s death in 1991 Dymphna worked tirelessly to turn the home they shared into Manning Clark House – a cultural hub for scholars, artists and writers. Today, Manning Clark House still plays a vital role in the Canberra community.

Ethel Tory was a teacher of French and Latin and an advocate for drama and language studies, particularly French. She taught French and Latin in Western Australian schools and at the University of Western Australia before undertaking further study in French literature in Paris. She was appointed a lecturer in French at the Australian National University in 1961 and promoted to Senior Lecturer in 1965. In 1970, she published an edition of Giraudoux’s play Intermezzo for use in schools and universities. She retired in 1977 but continued to teach French and to support drama studies at the Australian National University through donations and a bequest on her death in 2003.

A member of the Liberal Party of Australia, Cindy McLeish was elected as the Member for Seymour in the Legislative Assembly of the Parliament of Victoria in November 2010. As a result of the electoral redivision of 2012-13, she was elected to the new Legislative Assembly seat of Eildon at the November 2014 election.

Celie Moar was the Victorian winner of the ABC Rural Woman of the Year Award in 1995.

A mother of six, Celie is a teacher and counsellor by training, sometimes working off farm in both these areas. In 1990, she established a business partnership with her husband and now runs a successful grain merchant business from their home in Victoria’s Mallee District.

She was also a foundation member of Australian Women in Agriculture and often speaks to groups about issues relating to women in rural communities.

Celie has also served on the board of Telstra.

Jackie Brown was the Tasmanian Winner of the ABC Rural Woman of the Year Award for 1995.

Jackie, a teacher at Bridgewater High School in southern Tasmania, was given the task of taking over the Agricultural studies program at the school farm. An under-utilized resource, she developed the farm and the program is supports from being one of the least popular enrolment options to the most popular option subject, with 127 students currently enrolled. She also established a Landcare Centre at the farm to ensure the sustainability of the project.

Her passion for the project has seen it grown and develop over twenty years. In 2010, she won the RIRDC version of the Rural Woman if the year award. Jackie used the opportunity and the $10,000 bursary from the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation’s to study international best practice agricultural education.

A passionate advocate of primary industry courses in schools, Jackie Brown says there’s a well known shortage of young people going into careers in and around agriculture and she hopes her project will help find ways to motivate and encourage young people to think again about the primary industries.

A member of the National Party of Australia, Bridget McKenzie was elected to the Parliament of Australia as a Senator for Victoria at the federal election, which was held on 21 August 2010. Her term began on 1 July 2011 and she served as Nationals Whip in the Senate from September 2013 until June 2014.

Bridget previously stood as a candidate for the seat of McMillan in the House of Representatives at the 2004 federal election.

Catherine Cochrane was a regional winner of the ABC Rural Woman of the Year award in 1997. She represented the Illawarra region in New South Wales. She is the business and administrative brains behind the family run cattle property and company, Reg Cochrane Pty. Ltd.

Catherine entered the farm in the NSW Small Business Awards in 1990 and was runner-up in the Primary Production section. She was trained as a high school teacher was a community representative at the Nowra East School Finance Committee, and President of the Parents and Citizens Association. She worked very hard for her regional community.

Christina Smith worked with Aboriginal people, the Booandik (Buandig) in the Rivoli Bay area of South East Australia and in Mount Gambier. She recorded their customs, legends and social relationships for future generations. In 1854 the family moved to Mount Gambier where they established a night school, cared for Aboriginal orphans and taught adults of mixed race until the death of her husband, James Smith in 1860. In 1865, Christina eventually established a school and home for local Aboriginal children with funding she obtained from Lady Burdett-Coutts. The school however closed in 1868 due to loss of support and an epidemic and became a home for Aborigines.

Nat Davies began her teaching career in the primary sector in South Australia in 1926, but moved into girls’ technical schools in 1939, remaining there until her death in 1951. She was an active unionist, serving as treasurer of the Women’s Assistants’ Association from 1934-37. On the formation of the Women Teachers’ Guild in 1938, Davies served as its liaison officer from 1938-42 and its vice-president from 1945-49. During World War Two she was active in the Defence Society as its president and was the only female civil-defence officer in Adelaide.

Patricia (Pattie) Leighton was a Western Australian nominee for the ABC Rural Woman of the Year Award in 1994. She and her husband established a property in the Cape Rich area, north-east of Albany, W.A., in 1966.

Deborah Thiele was the inaugural national winner of the Australian Rural Woman of the Year Award in 1994. A graduate of the prestigious Roseworthy Agricultural College (now a campus of the University of Adelaide) not long after it opened its doors to women, she was the first woman to be appointed as an Agricultural Science Senior in the South Australian Education Department. A teacher with a rapidly advancing career in the Department of Education, she returned to farming when she married her husband, Anton. She is joint owner of their farm at Loxton in eastern South Australia. Since 2000 she has worked as an Agricultural Consultant and Lecturer, specialising in Farm Business Management.

In 2007, she stood for the federal electorate of Barker as the National Party Candidate. Prior to that, she stood for election to the South Australian Legislative Council. She stood again at the S.A election in 2010.

Thiele had an impressive record of community engagement at the time she won the award, and continues to maintain that record.

Clara Weeks was born in England in 1852 and came to Victoria with her family at the age of six. Described as a ‘born teacher’, she began her career at sixteen, working in many rural and urban schools. She retired in 1913 as the Infant Mistress at Carlton Primary School, one of the highest positions then attainable for women, at one of Melbourne’s largest government schools.

Weeks’ professional experience radicalised her, particularly when it came to fighting for equal pay for women. Salaray and superannuation scheme for men assumed they needed to care for dependents whereas no such assumption was made for women. However, as Weeks observed, ‘hardly any women she knew … not one … did not have a dependant’.

Weeks was active in was active in many women’s organizations and worked alongside Vida Goldstein on the Victorian Women’s Suffrage Executive Committee.

Weeks died in 1937 having influenced hundreds of teachers, thousands of pupils and thousands more women with her advocacy for their rights.

Ailsa O’Connor was a radical artist who was a member of the Social Realist Group and the Contemporary Art Society in Melbourne. She joined the Communist party in 1944 and was a founding member of the Union of Australian Women in 1953. She participated in the feminist movement during the 1970s.

Florence Buchanan spent much of her life working in Anglican missions on Thursday and Moa Islands, north of Australia, despite a number of health problems. In 1887 she migrated to Australia, landing in Bundaberg, Queensland with her two brothers. She later assumed responsibility for the fundamentalist non-denominational South Seas Evangelical Mission, also know as the Queensland Kanaka Mission. During the 1890s she worked on Thursday Island and was ordained there as a deaconess in 1908. In the same year she went to Moa Island to conduct the Anglican mission and teach school. In 1911 she resigned from her position, due to ill-health, but continued to teach until her return to Brisbane in 1913.

A member of the Australian Labor Party, Lynne Walker was elected to the Northern Territory Assembly as the Member for Nhulunbuy in 2008. She holds the position of Deputy Speaker and Chairman of Committees in the current Assembly.

A member of the Australian Labor Party, Marion Reilly was elected to the Legislative Assembly for the Australian Capital Territory on the resignation of Mr Terry Connolly, representing the electorate of Molonglo. She remained in the Parliament until 1998, when she was defeated at the election held in that year.