The Australian Women's Register

Paula Wreidt was elected to the Tasmanian House of Assembly in February, 1996. She was appointed to the portfolio of Minister for Education in September 1998, which made her Tasmania’s youngest ever female member of Cabinet. After her re-election in July 2002, Paula retained her position as Minister for Education. She also gained new responsibilities as Minister for Women Tasmania and Leader of Government Business in the House of Assembly. Following the 2006 election Paula assumed the role of Minister for Tourism, Arts and the Environment.

The Australian Federation of Medical Women (AFMW) is a non-profit, non-government society with member bodies in each state. The Federation was formed in 1927, from existing associations of medical women in Victoria, New South Wales and South Australia, to promote and develop the formal practice of medicine among women. The first medical women’s association was formed in Victoria in 1895. Historically it has worked to remove barriers to women’s participation in the profession. Currently, the Federation sponsors numerous networking and mentoring programs for women doctors. It has branches in all states and the Australian Capital Territory.

The Medical Women’s Society of NSW was founded in 1921 to advance the interests of medically qualified women in professional practice. It was active in establishing the Australian Federation of Medical Women and continues to work for medical women in New South Wales.

Miles Franklin’s place in Australian literary history was assured when on her death in 1954, she made provision for an award for Australian literature. The Miles Franklin Award is the most prestigious for an Australian author to receive. Although she spent almost twenty-four years away from Australia, working mainly in Chicago and London, she was committed to pursuing the notion of the unique Australian perspective in literature. Despite her early success with the publication of ‘My Brilliant Career’ in 1901, she struggled to gain the recognition she believed she was capable of achieving. Nevertheless on her return to Australia in 1932 she entered the Sydney literary scene enthusiastically and had many of her works published.

The Council of Jewish Women was founded in Sydney in 1923, due largely to the efforts of Dr Fanny Reading. Its initial purpose was to gather Jewish women together to undertake religious and community service, in addition to educational and philanthropic work. Membership of the Council also included membership of the Australian Zionist Organisation. Its first activities revolved around community service to alleviate poverty and unemployment. By the end of its first year the Council had 377 members, and was growing steadily across the country. The first National Conference of the Council was held in Sydney in May 1929, when its present name was adopted: The National Council of Jewish Women of Australia. The Council continues today as a non-profit, voluntary organisation acting for the advancement of Jewish women, and for social justice generally.

On July 22nd, 1941, a number of prominent Brisbane women called a public meeting of women to discuss the possibility of forming a club for women who were interested in learning public speaking skills. The idea was received enthusiastically by the assembled group, and the first Queensland Women’s Forum Club was established on July 30th, 1941. The first ordinary meeting of the new forum club was held on August 20th, 1941 in the blue room at the hotel Canberra. The Chermside Forum was established in the 1960s.

The Women’s Equal Franchise Association (WEFA) of Queensland was formed in February 1894, marking a timely revitalisation of the woman suffrage movement in that state. Its first president was Mrs Eleanor Trundle, and it represented women who were Labor in their politics. From the outset, the association linked its struggle for votes for women with the campaign against plural voting in Queensland. Once both these aims were achieved, in January 1905, the association held a ‘celebration social’ and disbanded itself.

Louisa Dunn was Treasurer of the Melbourne Ladies Benevolent Society for twenty-two years, from 1869 until 1891.

The Women’s Literary Society was formed in Sydney in 1889 with the object of ‘mutual help in the study of general literature’. Later its activities were defined as ‘searching out and bringing before the meetings such matters as shall be of interest and improvement to members. Discussion upon important topics of the day. Papers upon various matters of interest, criticism upon literary or artistic work or theories upon practical matters.’ It is believed to be the first Australian women’s group to meet at night.

Prominent members included Rose Scott, Maybanke Anderson and Dora Montefiore. In 1891 members of this group were instrumental in forming the Womanhood Suffrage League of New South Wales.

The Australian Federation of Business and Professional Women (now BPW Australia) was formed in 1947 as an umbrella body for the then six existing Business and Professional Women’s Clubs across the country. The first Club had been formed in Melbourne in 1925. Membership was initially open to women holding responsible positions in a professional, business, industrial or educational organisation, and to women giving distinguished service to the community. It thus largely represented the interests of middle-class women. It is now open to women in the workforce more broadly.

The Federation was very involved in campaigning for equal pay and equal opportunities for women in employment. By 1980 the number of clubs in the Federation rose to almost 100, representing over 3500 members, although it has since declined. Since its inception the Federation has been affiliated with the International Federation of Business and Professional Women (now BPW International). The Federation continues to work to elevate the status of women generally, remove discrimination and to present the views of business and professional women to government.

It still also operates to provide a space for women’s networking.

The social activism of quite young women is graphically captured in the activities of the Girls Social and Political Union, which flourished between 1914 and 1917. It was a discussion group formed by Ellinor Walker in 1914, when she was just 18, with a friend, and around 20 other young women. The aims of the group were to promote mutual awareness of matters South Australian, Australian, Imperial and international to make the most effective use of their voting rights.

They discussed a wide range of social, political and economic topics, some of which bear currency today—’large pensions being granted to Government servants at the present time of so-called economy’; sweated labour; the wheat scheme, land values taxation.

The Civic League was inaugurated in Sydney on 25 October 1907 by members of the Women’s Club with the objects to inform and organize public sentiment in civic matters and to promote the study, careful framing and systematic agitation of measures of social improvement. It was resolved in 1909 to reconstruct the Civic League on a wider basis outside the Club.

The Association of Women’s Forum Club of Australia was established in 1941 with the aim fostering public speaking abilities in women. By 1988, some eighty clubs had been established although only thirty seven were currently active. In 1997 the Association, by now limited entirely to the Association of Queensland Women’s Forum Clubs, was renamed the Forum Communicators Association and was no longer exclusively a women’s association. The Association produces constitutions, syllabuses, newsletters and holds biennial conferences.

Millicent Preston-Stanley was a politician and first female member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly, 1925-1927. She was involved in a wide array of women’s groups and issues and was President of the Feminist Club from 1919-1934 and 1952-1955. She was also Australian delegate for the British-American Co-operation Movement, 1936-1938. She married Crawford Vaughan in Sydney in 1934.

The Australian Women’s Conference for Victory in War and Victory in Peace was held in November 1943, organised around the theme ‘A War to Win, a World to Gain’. In a feat of organisational excellence, given the restrictions placed on interstate travel during war time, ninety-one women’s organisations from around Australia met in Sydney, Australia, to discuss post war reconstruction and the ‘problems that will effect women and children in the post war period.’ The Australian Women’s Charter, which documents the resolutions brought forward during the conference and is considered a landmark feminist manifesto, was an important outcome of the conference.

The United Associations of Women (U.A.) was one of the most radical feminist groups of the mid twentieth century. It was formed in Sydney, New South Wales, in 1929 by women who perceived a need for a more politically forceful alternative to the range of Australian women’s organisations already in existence. Concerned that groups like the National Council of Women and the Feminist Club had become, by the late 1920s, social clubs rather than political lobby groups, Jessie Street, who had been an office-bearer of both the aforementioned organisations, but had become increasingly frustrated by their conservativism, took action. A series of meetings late in 1929 involving Street and other like-minded women such as Linda Littlejohn, Ruby Rich and Adela Pankhurst Walsh culminated in the establishment of the United Associations on 18 December 1929. The UA was extremely active throughout the 1930s and 40s, and played a major role in organising the Australian Women’s Charter Conference in 1943.

Ray Alberta Cross worked for the New South Wales Bush Nursing Association from 1937 until 1944.

Enrica Vanzella migrated to Australia in 1929 to join her father who was already in the country. In 1936 she married Bill Vanzella and moved to the family orchard, ‘Alta Villa’ in Batlow, New South Wales. Enrica was president of the Batlow Women’s Bowling Club, the Southern Highlands District Women’s Bowling Association and the Batlow and District Garden Club.

Barbara Curthoys was an important figure in the history of Communism, feminism, the peace movement and the campaign for indigenous rights in Australia. An activist in the middle of the twentieth century, she was ‘one of that small band of women who fearlessly campaigned for racial and social equality and world peace at a time when it was politically risky to do so’.

Marie Kohn was an active member and office bearer of the Victorian Federation of Catholic Mothers’ Clubs, later known as the Victorian Federation of Catholic Parents’ Clubs. She served as president in 1969, secretary from 1972 until 1976 and again during the 1980s. During the 1990s she served as the regional representative for Essendon. She was active also in the Catholic Women’s League.

The Community of the Holy Name was founded within the Diocese of Melbourne and was the first Anglican Order in Australia. Emma Caroline Silcock ( Sister Esther) established the community, which was one of only four such communities in Australia. The Melbourne Diocese did not recognise it until 1912 when it was given its charter. The Sisters continue to work in parishes, as Chaplains in hospitals and nursing homes, as well as in spiritual direction and leading retreats.

Elizabeth Reid became a member of the Grail in 1938 after it was established in Sydney in 1937. As a member of this Catholic lay organisation, she worked to ensure that Catholic laywomen did play a greater role in the world.

The Save Our Sons Movement was formed in 1965 to seek the reappeal of the National Service act and disbanded in 1975. In an effort to bring back servicemen stationed in Vietnam, the Save Our Sons movement made public protests against the conduct of the war in Vietnam, aided those who had been jailed after refusing to be conscripted, spoke on behalf of conscientious objectors at rallies, passed out leaflets, attended vigils and supported in court those who were charged with resisting conscription.
The Save Our Sons movement was just one of the many groups opposed to Australia’s involvement in the Vietnam war. Although there were male members, women held all office-holder positions.

The Women’s Electoral Lobby (WEL.) first formed in Victoria, 1972. Conducted on a voluntary, non-profit basis, the W.E.L is a political pressure group that seeks to remove the economic and social disadvantages of women in Australia, to end discrimination against women and to promote equal opportunity. The W.E.L was constituted with a double purpose – to carry to the elected representatives of the community the views and requirements of female electors and to inform those female electors about their representatives’ standard of consciousness of women’s issues.

One of a series, the Third Women and Labour Conference intended to encourage research and experience sharing which furthered women’s understanding of their participation in the workforce and Australian society. More than 100 sessions were conducted with papers and workshops covering topics such as women and work, technological change and its impact upon women’s employment, women and the family, the programs to assist women to take up “non-traditional” employment, migrant women, women’s studies, feminist theory and practice, lesbianism, women and ageing, women and the media, women and art, work and unions, feminist literary criticisms and the strategies for women in the 80s (discussed by guest speakers Deborah McCulloch and Bettina Cass). The conference aimed to ensure the participation of a wide range of women and to promote contributions on important topics.

Barbara Fawkes was chief education officer and examiner for the General Nursing Council for England and Wales; principal tutor sister at the Middlesex Hospital, London; and president of the International Council of Nurses. Granted a fellowship by the Red Cross to study in America, Fawkes obtained a BSc in Nursing at Columbia University. Sponsored by the Florence Nightingale Foundation she toured Australia and New Zealand in 1953 studying Australia’s hospitals and nurse training methods. She was made a Fellow of the New South Wales College of Nursing and a Life Governor of the Royal Melbourne Hospital in 1984. She received an OBE for her services to nursing. Fawkes visited Australia on many occasions and lived in Melbourne in her retirement in the 1980s, while continuing to serve on medical boards and participate in conferences.