The Australian Women's Register

Merle Jackomos, of Yorta Yorta descent, grew up at Cummeragunja, New South Wales. During the famous walk-off of the Cummeragunja people who crossed into Victoria in 1939, Merle and her family were amongst those who stayed to make sure that the station was not closed and sold off by the government. She married Alick Jackomos in 1951, and became involved with the Aborigines Advancement League of Victoria. She helped found the National Aboriginal and Islander Women’s Council of which she became Victorian vice-president, and the Northcote Aboriginal women’s refuge. In 1972 she was elected to the Aboriginal Affairs Advisory Council. She was later appointed director of Aboriginal Hostels Ltd, and in 1981 was elected to the National Aboriginal Conference, of which she remained a member until its abolition in 1985.

Bronwyn Bancroft completed a Diploma in Visual Arts at the Canberra School of Arts in 1980, and then moved to Sydney where she became involved with the Aboriginal Medical Service’s Fashion Show in 1985. Following the success of the fashion parade, she opened the shop ‘Designer Aboriginals’ in Rozelle, as an outlet for her own designs and the designs of other Aboriginal artists. In 1990 she moved from retail to wholesale production of fabrics in order to concentrate on painting and design. Her work was exhibited in Paris at the Printemps Fashion Parade in 1987, and also in London at the 1989 Australian Fashion: The Contemporary Art exhibition. In 1989 her paintings were included in nine exhibitions. Her first solo exhibition of paintings was held in Sydney in 1989, and in 1991 she collaborated with Sally Morgan to produce an exhibition of prints at the Warrnambool Art Gallery, Victoria.

Queensland Rural Women’s Network Inc (QRWN) was formed in 1993 to meet the needs of women in rural communities throughout the state. Since then it has grown considerably and runs a series of programs in regional centre’s as well as being involved at a national and international level.
The membership of QRWN is not restricted to women in primary industries. Members include those who work in related roles in the rural and regional communities, such as Department of Primary Industries and Queensland Health Department. We actively seek, and have, a large number of members who undertake a huge variety of activities in their communities.
“Our focus is on all rural women and their families”
QRWN aims to provide opportunities for the self-development of rural women as well as being a lobby group that undertakes action in all areas affecting rural women and families, when the necessity arises
Vision
“To bring together women to support and enhance rural families and communities by building networks of information, friendship and resources.”
Mission
Is to help all rural Queensland women, whether living on the land or in the towns, to contribute more effectively to their communities.
Aims
• provide a stimulating and interesting forum for discussions and debate on all issues affecting women
• provide a support system through networking in all areas of our state network with other groups throughout Australia and the world to improve country-city relationships
• encourage provision of services by government agencies and private organisations
• praise the status of all rural women
• promote the value and diversity of rural industries and communities
• encourage personal development and education in rural communities
Structure
QRWN extends over six regions under the management of Regional Directors – Northern, Western, Central, Wide Bay Burnett, South East and Border. The Management Committee, with representatives from all over Queensland, meets. There are a number of local branches operating.

Australian Women in Agriculture (AWiA) was founded on St Valentines Day, February 14, 1993, and by 2004 was a national body of around 500 members. Members come from a large cross section of industries and include farmers, scientists, educators, communicators and others. All members bring a wealth of talents to the organisation and to agriculture. The group is represented on government boards as well as at local levels where industry and rural issues are addressed.
Australian Women in Agriculture is committed to promoting the advancement of women in agriculture by:
• uniting and raising the profile of women in agriculture;
• addressing rural and agricultural inequalities;
• working to ensure the survival of agriculture for future generations;
• securing local, regional, national and international recognition; and,
• achieving the status of a political and economic force.

The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) of Tasmania is primarily dedicated to promoting total abstinence from alcohol and other harmful drugs and all members sign a pledge to this effect. Under its broader agenda of ‘home protection’ and the promotion of a healthy lifestyle, however, it has been involved in wide range of social and political reform activities mostly relating to the welfare of women and children. Importantly, influenced by its sister organisation in the United States, the WCTU became a major supporter of the campaign for women’s suffrage in Tasmania as it was believed that power at the ballot box was the only way to achieve their goals. While at its most influential in the years up to WWI, the movement continues today.

The Australian Comforts Fund was established in August 1916 to co-ordinate the activities of the state based patriotic funds, which were established earlier in World War I. Mainly run by women, they provided and distributed free comforts to the Australian ‘fit’ fighting men in all the battle zones. They became divisions of the Australian Comforts Fund. The Council of the Fund comprised two delegates from New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland and one from the states of Western Australia, South Australia and Tasmania. The Executive headquarters was located in Sydney. It ceased operation on 10 April 1920 and was reconstituted in World War II in June 1940 and ceased operation again on 27 June 1946.

Sarah Powell was State President of the Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen’s Mothers’ Association for 25 years and was made Life President. She was decorated with the OBE in June 1943 for her services in this organisation. She founded the Croydon Branch and attended their annual meeting on her 92nd birthday five days before she died.

Barbara Hanrahan was an artist, printmaker and writer. She was born in Adelaide in 1939 and lived there until her death in December 1991. Hanrahan spent three years at the South Australian School of Art before leaving for London in 1966 to continue her art studies. In England she taught at the Falmouth College of Art, Cornwall, (1966-67) and Portsmouth College of Art (1967-70). From 1964 Hanrahan held a number of exhibitions principally in Adelaide and Sydney, but also in Brisbane, Canberra, Perth, London and Florence. Hanrahan’s novels include The Scent of Eucalyptus (1973), The Peach Groves (1980), The Frangipani Gardens (1988) and Flawless Jade (1989).

Ene-Mai Reinpuu left Estonia with her parents as refugees fleeing the threat of Soviet invasion, arriving in South Australia in 1949. Ene-Mai married Villi Reinpuu, also from Estonia and they had two children.

Reinpuu has had a life long involvement in ethnic community and multicultural organisations. She has served as secretary (1967-1986) and president (1987 – ) of the Estonia Society of Adelaide. She was honorary secretary of the Council of Estonian Societies in Australia 1976-1978, 1985-1987 and 1994-1996. Reinpuu was chosen as an Australian representative at the “Kongress of Estonia” held in Estonia in 1990. She has been vice-chairperson of the Estonian Cultural Festival of Australia and a member of the organising committee since 1958. She served as a member of the Council of Baltic Women (affiliated with National Council of Women), was the Estonian community representative on Multicultural Communities Council of South Australia, and founding member of the Friends of the Estonian Museum.

Shirley Shennen, born Wilson, was educated at Moree Intermediate High School. During World War ll she enlisted in the Women’s Auxiliary Australian Air Force. In 1949 she married Graham Barnes. The marriage ended in divorce in 1972. Later she married Frank Shennen.

Originally formed in 1909 as the Women’s Political Association, its name was quickly changed to the Women’s Non-Party Political Association and then the Women’s Non-Party Association. Catherine Helen Spence spoke at the inaugural meeting and introduced the major planks of the Association which were ‘Equal Federal Marriage and Divorce Laws’, and ‘Equal Pay for Equal Work’. In 1939 the Association changed its name to the League of Women Voters. This was an Australian-wide title that enabled its aims to be more widely known. The League remained politically active in these areas and was instrumental in the development of a Parliamentary Bill to enact the principle of equality for female and male parents which was passed in 1940. In later years the League developed a close relationship with the Women’s Electoral Lobby, acting as a mentor. In 1979 the League was voluntarily wound up as it was felt that the Women’s Electoral Lobby could carry on its work. Ellinor Walker gave the valedictory address.

The South Australian branch was founded in1889, following a visit from American spokesperson, Jessie Ackermann. Its purpose was to promote temperance and Christianity in order to improve people’s lives and so also involved tackling questions such as raising the age of marriage consent for girls and women’s suffrage. By 1899 membership of the various branches numbered over 1100. Elizabeth Webb Nicholls was its first president and served two terms; 1889-1997 and 1906-1927 and in 1891 Mary George became its first paid secretary. Under Nicholls’ leadership the Union took an active role in the campaign for women’s suffrage in South Australia, having a suffrage department convened by Serena Thorne Lake in 1890-1891, and became involved with the Women’s Suffrage League.

The South Australian Cheer-Up Society was founded by Alexandrina Seager. Its object was to support the soldiers in the First and Second World Wars as well as to bring them into contact with the ‘highest type of womanhood’. During world war one they visited the soldiers at camp before they embarked for the trenches and provided them with supper, concerts and conversation. In the Second World War, they started a Cheer Up Hut near the Adelaide Railway Station that had a hostel and a canteen for every day use and social functions. The hut was financed by donations from several charitable organizations including the Country Women’s Association. The society was publicly acknowledged as indicative of women’s capacity, support and patriotism.

Formed in 1895 by Lucy Morice, supported by her aunt, Catherine Helen Spence. It aimed to build on the recent enfranchisement of women by educating women politically and socially to be able to take an intelligent part in the political life of the country. It also aimed to forge an alliance of women regardless of class and party to address issues concerning women and children. The first President was Annie Montgomerie Martin. Some members were also members of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union. The League ended in 1897.

The Housewives Association (Australia) South Australian Division was formed in 1926 Its foundation president was Agnes Goode. The Association’s aims were to ‘support, protect and raise the status and interests of the home, women and children; to promote and establish co-operation among housewives; to oppose profiteering in every practical manner; to encourage the greater use of Australian-made goods’. (Housewife, April 1929) The nature of their aims meant that they were politically active. For instance in 1929 then President, Leonora Polkinghorne, protested against increases to the price of gas by warning them that members would vote against them in the next election. She also stood as an Independent for Sturt in the 1930 election backed by the Women’s Non-Party Political Association but was unsuccessful. The Association also had a monthly publication called the Housewife, and spoke regularly on the ABC radio station

Katie Langloh Parker grew up on her father’s property, Marra Station, northern New South Wales. Married at the age of 18, she led an exciting social life in Australian colonial capitals until 1875, when she moved to her husband’s property, Bangate Station, near Angledool, New South Wales. There, she started collecting stories and vocabularies from the local branch of Yularoi people, which she subsequently published in several collections between 1896 and 1930. In 1905, she published her only purely ethnographic work The Euahlayi Tribe, an account of her life at Bangate. Her second marriage to Percy Randolph Stow marked the end of her outback life.

Isabel Flick grew up in a camp in northern New South Wales, and worked on health, education and other social issues across the state. She helped establish Aboriginal housing in Collarenebri, New South Wales. She was a recipient of the Order of the British Empire for services to the community. Together with her sister Rose, she fought a long battle for the protection of the carved trees at the Collymongle Bora (male initiation) ground, northern New South Wales. The last four years before her death she lived in Gunnedah, New South Wales. She regularly travelled to Sydney to teach Aboriginal history at the Tranby Aboriginal College where she was on the Board of Directors.

The Sydney Female Refuge Society was established in 1848 and had premises in Pitt St and at Glebe. It aimed to assist prostitutes abandon their work by cutting them off from the world and by requiring them to conform to the aims and practices of the institution. The middle-class Ladies’ Committee enforced strict moral codes coupled with religious instruction to rehabilitate the Refuge inmates. By providing them with laundering and needlework skills they were enabling them to find alternative work once they left, but at the same time required them to work at those tasks while at the Refuge. The minimum period of stay was eighteen months, although the actual time inmates stayed varied.

Elizabeth Hoffman grew up at the Cummeragunja Reserve in New South Wales. She moved to Melbourne in 1971, and started to work with the Aborigines Advancement League (AAL) as Matron of the Gladys Mitchell Youth Hostel. She was elected President of the AAL Management Committee three times, and at different times was Vice President and Treasurer, until taking up employment with the League as Director in 1976. She was the Chairperson of the Aboriginal Legal Service for three years, and the Chairperson of the Aboriginal Housing Co-operative. She also worked with the National Aboriginal and Island Women’s Council and the Women’s Council at Echuca, and was a member of the Steering Committee of the Aboriginal Housing Board and of the local Aboriginal Land Council. She also worked as a Commissioner with the Aboriginal Development Commission. In the early 1970s, she co-founded the Elizabeth Hoffman House, Aboriginal women’s refuge in Melbourne which in 1984 became Incorporated and independent of the AAL. She was one of the 250 women included in the Victorian Honour Roll of Women which was read out in Victoria’s Parliament House on 7 May 2001. She was awarded a National NAIDOC Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2006 and her collection of poetry To Our Koori Sons was published in 2009.

The Koorie Heritage Trust emerged in 1985 from a need for a greater awareness, understanding and appreciation of Koori culture in south-east Australia and for Koori people to manage their own cultural heritage. The Trust has a range of cultural, education and oral history resources, and is a valuable resource for both the Koori and the wider community. The Koorie Cultural Centre showcases the continuous living culture, heritage and history of Koori people of south-east Australia. The Library contains over 6,000 books, papers, videos and government documents spanning from the 1850s to the present day. The Oral History Unit preserves the history of Koori individuals, families and communities from across Victoria. The one permanent and two temporary exhibition galleries showcase emerging Koori artists, touring exhibitions and exhibitions from the Trust’s collections. The retail shop, Koori Pty. Ltd., promotes Koori culture by stocking a range of products from local Koori artists and cooperatives as well as Aboriginal designed material from other states across Australia.

The Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) was founded in 1961 as the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies. The Institute is Australia’s premier institution for information about the cultures and lifestyles of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. AIATSIS research staff conduct high-quality research and administer research grants. The Institute’s award-winning in-house publisher, Aboriginal Studies Press, publishes an extensive array of books, cassettes and CDs, films and videos, reports, and the Institute’s journal, Australian Aboriginal Studies. The Library holds the world’s most extensive collections of printed, audio, and visual material on Australian Indigenous topics, including the writing of, and oral interviews with, indigenous women.

Originally established as the Sydney Foundling Hospital in 1874, it became the Infants’ Home in 1877. It assumed responsibility for the care of infants of single mothers and destitute parents and provided a temporary home for the mothers. Its management comprised an all female Board until 1973, when the first male joined. It was the first organisation to move from residential care to long day care in the early 1970s and the third family day care scheme to commence operations in New South Wales. The Family Centre of Early Intervention commenced in 1978.

Sarah Crisp Booth (1844-1928) was instrumental in making a success of the first Melbourne Young Women’s Christian Organisation, which was officially recognised by the Young Women’s Christian Organisation of Great Britain on the 21st May 1883.

Initially a reluctant recruit, Booth (together with her sister E.W. Booth), became the first General Secretary of the Melbourne Young Women’s Christian Organisation of Melbourne. She is listed as Honorary Secretary 1882- 1910.

As part of the ‘midnight missions’, library development, ‘gospel temperance union’ and factory visit programs, Booth – keenly aware of space restrictions – set up a building fund in 1886. This resulted in the purchase of the “Christian Home for Girls” in Jolimont in 1888.