The Australian Women's Register

In February 1993 a public meeting was called in Alice Springs to gauge the extent of community interest in establishing a project that commemorated the lives of the ‘pioneer’ women of Australia. There proved to be immense interest and a committee was formed to determine how best this aim could be achieved, and how funds might be raised in order to do so. Mrs Molly Clark, of Old Andado Station in Central Australia, contributed much of the early organisational drive as well as an important geographic focus for fundraising efforts. One of the key aims of the organising committee was to raise money to create a purpose-built museum, including an art gallery and research area in Alice Springs. ‘Molly’s Bash’, the main annual fundraising event, has been held on Mrs Clark’s property every year since the project was launched in 1993.

The purpose built centre has not been constructed yet, but the museum and hall of fame have managed to establish a presence in temporary physical quarters and in cyberspace. In March 1994 the Northern Territory government, on behalf of the organisation, leased the Old Courthouse, a 1928 heritage-listed former government building located in Alice Springs’ CBD. Furthermore, the organising committee have successfully applied for funding to establish important on-line exhibitions. ‘Women at the Heart’, ‘First in their Field’ and ‘Women’s Work’ are pioneering efforts in themselves, demonstrating the power of the World Wide Web as it connects the stories of women in remote locations to the international community.

Although the concept was originally promoted as one that would, importantly, preserve and protect the stories of local women, the project quickly became national in scope. As the mission statement suggests, it isn’t only rural and regional women who belong in the centre.

‘The National Pioneer Women’s Hall of Fame is dedicated to preserving the place of women in history and their special contribution to Australia’s heritage.’

The Australian Local Government Women’s Association – New South Wales Branch was formed in Sydney in 1952 with Ald. Marjorie Proposting of Lane Cove Council as first president. Its formation was precipitated by the formation of a national Australian Local Government Women’s Association in Canberra the previous year. A non-party organisation, it was inspired particularly inspired by the belief that more women should be involved in local government partly because this arm of government was especially relevant to housewives and mothers.

Its aims are:
-to assist in furthering women’s knowledge and understanding of the function of local government; to watch over and protect the interests and rights of women in local government; to take action in relation to any subject or activity of particular interest to women affecting local governing bodies or local government legislation; to encourage women to make a career in local government and to act in an advisory capacity to suitable women candidates for local government election.

Nancye Enid Kent Perry was born in Killara on 16 December 1918. She graduated in science from Sydney University and did postgraduate entomological research work in England. Perry later concentrated on her painting, working with the Heidelberg Art Group and others.

Studied Sydney University 1939-42; worked National Standards Laboratory, Sydney, 1943-4; postgrad. In agricultural economic entomology 1945; DSIR England 1947-50; CSIRO Melb. 1950-51; Walter and Eliza Hall Institute 1951-2; Fisheries and Game 1953-5; C’wealth Dept. of Health, Canberra and Tasmania 1955-7; married Warren Perry 16 November 1957; demonstrator in zoology for medical students at the University of Melbourne, 1958.

Lorelei Emmeline Booker (1906-1994) was born in Brisbane, daughter of Sidney North Innes and Caroline Matilda Noble. She was President of the League of Women Voters of New South Wales, 1964-1976, and founder and honorary editor of the League’s newsletter, Equality. The League was a state affiliate of the Australian Federation of Women Voters, formed in 1922 and dissolved in 1983. She was N.S.W. Board member of the A.F.W.V., 1945-1983, and both Honorary Secretary, 1963-1966, and President, 1976-1983, of the A.F.W.V. She was also honorary editor of the Federation’s journal, The Dawn.

Addie Viola Smith, lawyer and feminist, held various offices with the Australian Federation of Women Voters and the League of Women Voters (New South Wales) from the late 1950s until her death in 1975. She was Liaison Representative for the International Federation of Women Lawyers to the United Nations, 1952-1966. She was a member of the Australian delegation that attended the International Alliance of Women Congresses in Dublin, 1961, and Trieste, 1964. She served as Vice-President, 1968-1970, and was made an honorary life member in 1972, of the Australian Local Government Women’s Association.

Caroline Chisholm was famous for her work with new immigrants to New South Wales during the 1840s and 1850s, and later in the goldfields region of Victoria. She lobbied to ensure these people were provided with adequate accommodation and personally organised the often destitute young women to journey to rural areas in order to secure employment. Her benevolent crusade to better the lives of immigrants earned her the title ‘The Immigrants’ Friend’.

Charlotte Groom was a member of the Red Cross Women’s Service Corps in Western Australia for approximately 52 years.
She was also a short-term member of the Voluntary Aid Detachment and one of Adelaide’s first female stenographers.

In 1950, at the age of 83, Charlotte received a concussion in a bus accident, which saw a fellow Red Cross worker killed.

Ivy Lavinia Weber was the first woman to be elected to the Victorian parliament in a general election in 1937. She stood as an endorsed candidate for the Women Electors’ League of Victoria for the seat of Nunawading. As an active member of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, she was encouraged to stand for parliament as an independent candidate to represent women. She was re-elected on two occasions, but resigned her state seat in 1943 to contest the federal seat of Henty as part of the League of Women Voters Women for Canberra Movement. She was unsuccessful on that occasion and in 1945 when she again stood for state parliament. She retired from politics after the second defeat.

Anne Fraser Bon had just turned twenty and was newly married when she arrived in Victoria, from Scotland, in 1858. Her husband, John, who was twenty-eight years her senior, was already well-established in pastoralism at Wappan Station in the Bonnie Doon area of south-eastern Victoria. Anne accompanied him to what was then a remote area and bore five children in quick succession. She was widowed at the age of thirty, in 1868, when John Bon died of a heart attack.

Unusually for a women, after her husband’s death, Anne Bon assumed management of the station. She was also unusual amongst her peers for her attempts to act on the behalf of the indigenous people of the region. A devout Presbyterian and humanitarian, Anne Bon supported Aborigines’ resistance to increasing state regimes of control and surveillance. While some of her ideas and goals for the ‘improvement’ of Aboriginal people now seem paternalistic and outdated, many members of indigenous communities nevertheless expressed gratitude for her assistance in thwarting if not defeating the diminution of Aboriginal entitlements and civil rights. It was a cause she remained actively committed to until her death in 1936.

First Ladies: Finding Women in Public Record Office Victoria is an online guide to archival resources relating to women held at Public Record Office Victoria. Designed to assist researchers interested in women’s history and gender studies by suggesting strategies for ‘finding women in PROV’, First Ladies also provides information about other important resources relating to women in Victoria’s history. By linking these strategies to published material, and the Australian Women’s Archives Project’s online register, First Ladies provides a central access point that links together historical detail, archival resources, published resources and current information about women in Victoria.

The Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commissions is an independent statutory authority, accountable to the Victorian Parliament, that promotes equal opportunity and works to eliminate unlawful discrimination in Victoria. It helps people to resolve complaints of discrimination, sexual harassment and racial and religious vilification through a process of conciliation.

In addition to its complaint resolution service, the Commission offers information, education and consultancy services, conducts research and provides legal and policy advice.

The Commission has the power to refer unresolved complaints to the Anti-Discrimination List, which is in the Civil Division of the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT).

Alice Marshall Moyle was an ethno-musicologist of high renown whose work is always referred to whenever Aboriginal music is studied in schools and tertiary institutions. A talented musician, she was prompted by a talk by A.P. Elkin, then Professor of Anthropology at the University of Sydney, to undertake a study of some recordings of Aboriginal music he had made. She was awarded the Master of Arts (Hons) for this work in 1957. She then undertook her own field trips to complete the first systematic attempt to identify and musically characterise the many different styles and genres of Aboriginal music found in northern and central Australia. Her doctoral thesis, awarded in 1975, was one outcome of this work.

Moyle was a founding member of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies (AIAS) and became a Research Officer there from 1964 to 1965. From 1966-73 Moyle was AIAS Research Fellow in Ethnomusicology, based at Monash University and later a Research Fellow and Research Officer at the Institute in 1973 and 1974 respectively. Her work included the documentation of Aboriginal sound instruments, the history of Aboriginal music and dance through film, field recordings, archaeo-musicology, analysis, taxonomy, and the cataloguing and indexing of ethno-musicological material held in the Institute. She took a great interest in the preservation of recorded sound material and was the guiding force behind the establishment of the ‘Sound Archive’ at the (then) AIAS.

Moyle also played a key role in the establishment of the Musicological Society of Australia and in 1982-83 served as the Society’s National President. She was later instrumental in forming a branch of the International Council for Traditional Music in Australia. She became a Member of the Order of Australia – General Division on Australia Day 1977, was elected as an Honorary Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities on 4 November 1994, and received a degree of Doctor of Music (honoris causa) from the University of Sydney in 1989 and another from the University of Melbourne in 1995.

Elspeth Young was a geographer who spent many years studying Indigenous communities in Australia and Papua New Guinea. After completing her PhD in human geography at the Australian National University in 1977, she was appointed to the position of Research Fellow in the ‘Aboriginal component in the Australian economy project’ led by Fred Fisk in the Development Studies Centre, ANU. In 1978, while working with Fisk, Young began a study of the newly established Aboriginal-owned pastoral enterprise at Willowra station, north of Alice Springs. Thus began her interest in Aboriginal land management from which she became one of the most influential champions of the Aboriginal English term ‘Caring for Country’.

Subsequently, she became the first geographer to have worked on Northern Territory land claims, contributing to the successful claims to Ti Tree and Mt Allen (1980-85). Her professional expertise was also usefully employed while she was a Senior Research Fellow (1982-1985) in the North Australia Research Unit of the ANU in Darwin. At this time, Young contributed to the East Kimberley Impact Assessment Project led by Nugget Coombs and a study on Aboriginal mobility.

Young made a significant contribution to a variety of professional organisations. She was a Council Member of the Institute of Australian Geographers (1987-1992); editor of Australian Geographical Studies (1989-1992); holder of the IAG Professional Services Award for 1998; Member and then Chair of the National Committee for Geography; Treasurer and member of the Executive Committee of the Federation of Australian Social Science Organisations; and Chair of the Australian Antarctic Naming and Medals Committee.

Carol Mills was appointed librarian at the newly-formed Canberra College of Advanced Education in 1969. Her publications include a bibliography of Northern Territory literature and numerous articles on early Australian writers, book illustrators and book history. She worked subsequently as librarian of the Charles Sturt University at Wagga, and the University of the South Pacific in Suva, where she published articles on library management and literacy in the South Pacific.

The New Housewives’ Association (NHA) was formed in Sydney, New South Wales, in 1946. A number of suburban branches, including Chatswood, were established. The NHA’s Central Committee adopted the Australian Women’s Charter seeking equal status for women, launched at the Australian Women’s Conference for Victory in War and Victory in Peace, 1943. The NHA’s progressive platform attracted Communist women to this working-class body. It campaigned for the reduction and strict control of prices, mainly of household commodities; equal pay for women and increased Child Endowment; and the establishment of municipal markets in order to bring cheaper goods to housewives. In 1949 the NHA supported trade-union demand for a 30 shilling increase in the Basic Wage. It published a journal, The New Housewife, and a magazine, The Housewives’ Guide. In 1950 the NHA National Committee moved to change the Association’s name to reflect a broader constituency beyond women in the home; this gave rise to a new organisation, the Union of Australian Women.

Gay Davidson was the first female political correspondent for a major newspaper in Australia, the first woman President of the Australian Commonwealth Parliamentary Press Gallery, and a great mentor and friend to a vast array of journalists, not least women taking advantage of the openings to them in that profession during the 1970s and 80s.

The Queen Victoria Club was established in 1901 as the Women’s Liberal League of New South Wales. In 1907 it changed its name to the Queen Victoria Club. It aimed to foster friendship between women, assist musical artists and promote the love of good music. As a way of achieving its aims, the Club held monthly ‘musicales’ under the patronage of the Governor’s wife and established two scholarships at the Sydney Eisteddfod, one for piano and the other for violin. It sponsored also, scholarships for violin and cello at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. From 1970 until 1994 the Club met in the rooms of the Girls Secondary Schools’ Club in the Gowings Building, Market Street, Sydney. The Club was dissolved in 1995, with the remaining funds used for the establishment of a piano scholarship at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.

Wendy McCarthy is an experienced businesswoman who has assumed many major leadership roles in both the public and private sectors for nearly forty years. Her first experience as a political lobbyist came about when, newly pregnant, she and her husband joined the Childbirth Education Association (CEA) in Sydney, campaigning for (amongst other things) the rights of fathers to be present at the births of their babies. Since then, she has had three children, and been an active change agent in women’s health, education, broadcasting, conservation and heritage and Australian business.

Her senior executive and non-executive positions have included: CEO – Family Planning Association of Australia (1979-84); Member – National Women’s Advisory Council (1978-81); Member – Sydney Symphony Orchestra Council; Director – Australian Multicultural Foundation. She has held executive and non-executive director roles in many of Australia’s leading private and public institutions including Executive Director, Australian Federation of Family Planning Associations; Deputy Chair of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) for eight years; General Manager of Marketing and Communications, the Australian Bicentennial Authority; Chair of the National Better Health Program; Executive Director of the National Trust; Director Star City; Chair of the Australian Heritage Commission; and Chair of Symphony Australia. In 2005 she compiled ten years as Chancellor of the University of Canberra.

In 2013 she is Chair of Circus Oz, McGrath National Youth Mental Health Foundation and Pacific Friends of the Global Foundation. In 2010 Wendy became a Non-Executive Director to GoodStart Childcare Limited. In 2009 after 13 years of service to Plan International, she retired from her most recent role as Global Vice Chair. She is Patron of the Australian Reproductive Health Alliance.

Wendy’s contribution to Australian life has been recognised in various ways. In 1989 she became an Officer of the Order of Australia for her contribution to community affairs, women’s affairs and the Bicentennial celebrations and in 1996 she received an Honorary Doctorate from the University of South Australia. In April 2003 she was awarded a Centenary of Federation Medal.

A lobby group that promotes women’s sexual and reproductive health choices in relation to unplanned pregnancy, Children by Choice (CbyC) was established in 1972 as an offshoot of the Queensland branch of the Abortion Law Reform Association (ALRA), to offer family planning advice and counselling to women confronted by the reality of an unplanned pregnancy. At this time, legislation dating back to 1899 criminalised abortion and most Queensland women had to travel interstate to obtain one. This legal reality led to staff at CbyC expanding their range of activities to include offering counselling and medical referral services to doctors at St Anne’s Hospital in Sydney. By 1975 CbyC had developed a package deal with Ansett Airlines and Population Services International (PSI) to help women to travel to Sydney for abortions. It was not the original intention for CbyC to become an abortion referral service, but this became the Association’s best known activity at that early point in its history.

Despite having bricks thrown through the windows of their premises and their funding slashed periodically throughout the last three decades, CbyC have continued to provide essential counselling services to the women of Queensland. ‘The survival of Children by Choice has been a story of struggle and sacrifice.’

SDN Children’s Services Inc. was the first organisation in Australia to provide all day care for children. The Sydney Day Nursery was established in 1905 in Woolloomooloo on the initiative of a group of young women with an interest in young children’s care and education as a result of their involvement in the Sydney Kindergarten Union. The organization aimed to ‘preserve family life, to educate mothers in child health and to save babies from death and from becoming State wards’. The Day Nursery catered for infants and toddlers ranging in age from a few weeks to three years. By 1927 the Association had established five centres. It changed its name in 1931 to become the Sydney Day Nursery and Nursery Schools Association Inc. and in 1934 it established the Nursery School Teachers Training College. It changed its name again in 1999 to become SDN Children’s Services Inc. This new name reflected an expansion of services for children other than centre based long day care.

The Federated Associations (later Association) of Australian Housewives was formed in 1923 and held its first national conference in 1926. Its purpose was to provide a link between the various state-based Housewives Associations. The first of these was established in Victoria in 1915. New South Wales followed suit in early 1918, South Australian and Western Australia in the 1920s and, after a couple of false starts, Canberra, Tasmania and Queensland in the 1930s. Each of these associations was broadly dedicated to representing the interests of housewives, through political lobbying as well as various efforts to help members keep their household costs down, including domestic advice and member discounts. Although their primary function was always to reduce the cost of living and to control ‘profiteering’, they very quickly proclaimed themselves to be political organisations, though always ‘non-party’. With the wider objective of gaining representation of women at all levels of government and public administration, and influencing public policy in the areas dealing with the home, women and children, their domain of interest rapidly came to include every sphere of public life, national and international.

With a combined membership of 115,000 by 1940-41, it was for a short time the largest women’s organisation in the country.

Travellers Aid Australia (previously the Travellers’ Aid Society of Victoria) is a non-profit, independent organisation, providing a range of services and assistance for travellers, including those with special requirements or in emergency situation. Founded in 1916, it initially offered support and protection for women and girls arriving in Melbourne from overseas, interstate and country Victoria. It was not until the late 1960s that they expanded their work to include men. The Society now assists travellers of either sex.

The National Travellers Aid Society of Australia was also founded in 1944, with Cecilia Downing, a long serving member of the Victorian Society, as its first president. Its purpose was to provide a link between the various state-based Societies. These are/were non-profit, independent organisations, providing a range of services and assistance for travellers, including those with special requirements or in emergency situation.

The first Travellers’ Aid organisation was formed in England in 1885 initially under the auspices of the London Young Women’s Christian Association. It aimed to assist girls arriving alone in London or other towns. The first Australian society was formed in Adelaide in 1887, again under the auspices of the YWCA (while this soon fell into abeyance a new society was formed in 1911). The Travellers Aid Society of Victoria was formed in 1916, the Travellers’ Aid Benevolent Society of Queensland in 1928, the Travellers Aid Society of New South Wales in 1938 and the Travellers Aid Society of Western Australia in 1944.

All of these Societies were initially dedicated to assisting women and girls who were travelling or migrating. It was not until the late 1960s that they expanded their work to include men.

The Travellers’ Aid Society of New South Wales was officially founded in 1938. Its origins, however, reach back to the late 1880s when the Young Women’s Christian Association of New South Wales and the Salvation Army jointly formed a Travellers’ Aid Committee. It is a non-profit, independent organisation, providing a range of services and assistance for travellers, including those with special requirements or in emergency situation. Initially offering support and protection for women and girls arriving in the city from overseas, interstate or the country by the late 1960s they expanded their work to include men. The Society now assists travellers of either sex.

The Housewives Association of New South Wales was founded in 1918 largely due to the efforts of the artist Portia Geach. Influenced by a meeting of a housewives’ association she had attended in New York in 1917, on her return to Sydney she formed and was first president of a similar organisation in her own state. The Association initially aimed to educate women in the principles of proper nutrition and to combat profiteering and rising food prices. It soon broadened its interests, becoming a considerable lobbying force on issues affecting women and children generally.

The Progressive Housewives Association, New South Wales, was formed in 1947 by Portia Geach and other women who had been expelled from the Housewives Progressive Association of New South Wales in 1941. Their expulsion resulted from clashes with the then chairwoman of directors, Eleanor Glencross, and accusations that the association had been working with Meadow-Lea Margarine Company. Geach became foundation president, remaining in this position until 1957. Its main purpose is to act as a lobbying force representing the interests of the homemaker, and women and children more broadly, to government.

Artist and feminist, Portia Geach was born on 24 December 1873 in Melbourne, Victoria. She studied design in 1890-92 and painting from 1893 to 1896 at the Melbourne National Gallery schools. Late in 1896 she won a scholarship to the schools of the Royal Academy of Arts in London, where she studied for four years. She also worked in Paris and exhibited in England, Paris and New York. On her return to Australia she held numerous exhibitions first in Melbourne and then in Sydney when she moved there with her family in 1904.

On her return to Sydney from a visit to the United States of America in 1917 Portia, influenced by a meeting of a housewives’ association she had attended in New York, founded and was president of the New South Wales Housewives’ Association. It aimed to educate women in the principles of proper nutrition and to aid them in their struggles against profiteering and rising food prices. In 1928 she reorganised the association as the Housewives’ Progressive Association. For many years she was also president of the Federated Association of Australian Housewives.