The Australian Women's Register

Lillias Skene was a prominent member of numerous women’s groups and social welfare organisations in Melbourne from the early 1900s into the 1940s. She initially focussed on philanthropic work, but from the 1920s she devoted most of her energies to the Red Cross and the National Council of Women of Victoria. She was present at the inaugural meeting of the British (Australian) Red Cross on 25 August 1914 and was a member of the Victorian council from about 1920 until 1941. She became assistant-secretary of the National Council of Women in 1914, honorary secretary in 1916, vice-president in 1921 and president in 1924. In this year she also became foundation president of the federal council of the various State-based National Councils of Women.

Lady Millie Peacock was the first woman member elected to the Victorian Parliament and the third woman elected to Parliament in Australia. On 1 January 1901 she married Victorian Parliamentarian Alexander Peacock (knighted 1902). Lady Peacock was the first President of the Creswick branch of the Australian Red Cross Society. She was a member of the Provisional Committee of the Victorian Division of the Australian branch of the British Red Cross Society (1914-1915). She then became a member of the Victorian Divisional Committee until 1934 and was a member of the Victorian General Committee until 1938. Following the death of her husband in 1933 Lady Peacock stood for and won her late husband’s Legislative Assembly seat of Allandale. During her time in Parliament she made only one speech. She retired from Parliament in 1935.

The Australian Board of Missions formed in 1850 with the aim of converting the indigenous peoples of the islands around Australia to the Anglican faith. In 1910 it was decided to employ women in a fund-raising capacity by forming the Women’s Auxiliary to the Australian Board of Missions. Beginning in New South Wales, Auxiliaries were attached to a particular diocese and by the 1980s were established in nineteen of the twenty four Australian dioceses. Initially, the funds raised went toward missionary training. More recently, they have been dedicated to specific projects such as the establishment of a training centre for lay, Indigenous evangelists

The plaque commemorating the service of the women of New South Wales who enlisted in Australia’s Defence Forces during World War II is located in the Jessie Street Gardens in Sydney. It was unveiled by His Excellency Rear Admiral Sir David Martin, KCMG, AO on 16 February 1990.

The Itinerants Literary Society began as a result of a dispute with the Hamilton Literary Society in 1894 when a group of members broke away to form a separate society. They are ‘itinerants’ in that they meet at each member’s home in turn. The Society’s rules set out the number of members, hours of meeting and terms of membership. At each meeting, members present papers which range widely. The minutes show how themes and topics are chosen and reveal a close adherence to the rules. Early subjects discussed included famous writers and political topics (including women’s suffrage), ‘women who have made history’ (including Jane Franklin, Sarah Bernhardt and Sonia Kovaleski).

The Hamilton Literary Society is the oldest continuing literary society in Australia. It was founded by Lady Teresa Hamilton, wife of the Governor of Tasmania, Australia, in 1889. Originally known as the Nil Desperandum Society, the group met twice a month at Government House in Hobart, Tasmania, to hear papers read by members. From 1892, members of the Society were also members of the Australasian Home Reading Association – which was formed under the auspices of the Literature Section of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science, for the purpose of developing a taste for recreative and instructive reading among all classes, and directing home study to definite ends.

The first meeting of the Girl Guides Association of Australia Incorporated was held in Melbourne in 1926. The formation of this national body came over a decade after the first guides group was formed in Tasmania, the Girl Peace Scouts. Other states quickly followed and by the time a national body was established, all states in Australia had guides groups.

The Association celebrated their seventy-fifth birthday in 1985 and at that time had approximately 100,000 members.

The Catholic Women’s League Tasmania was established in 1941 in Launceston to bring together Catholic women, to help them meet socially, to engage in charitable work and to assist them to play their part in public life. Gwen Mullins, the catalyst for its formation, expressed concern about the isolation of Catholics from the general community in Launceston and particularly the non participation of Catholic women in any civic sphere at all. It has been involved in a range of issues including the family, immigration, media programs and educational opportunities for girls. By the 1980s it had developed a greater international awareness with the creation of the office of International Secretary. It is affiliated with the Catholic Women’s League Australia Inc.

Judy Finlay has been treasurer of the Australian Women’s Land Army Association New South Wales since 1996.

The inaugural meeting of the Catholic Women’s League in Australia took place in Adelaide, South Australia on 25 October 1914. Based on the British model, the aim was to centralise the activities of various Catholic women’s societies and give public expression to Catholic thought on vital questions. Its founder, Miss Betty Leworthy became the first secretary, with Mrs Abigail McMahon Glynn president. Whilst in London in 1916 Glynn received permission to use the British Catholic Women’s League badge. Australian members devised their motto as ‘Charity, Work, Loyalty’ and expressed the intention ‘to unite Catholic women in a bond of common fellowship for the promotion of religious and intellectual interests and social work’. One of its major projects was to establish the St Mary’s Hostel in 1916, which continued until 1972. From 1975 the Catholic Women’s League Child Care Centre operated from the Hostel site at 178 East Terrace.

Trained as a pharmacist in Brisbane, Kate Carnell came to Canberra in 1977, becoming one of the first woman pharmacy owners there in 1981. From 1982 she held positions in a number of professional organisations, including inaugural and first female president of the Australian Capital Territory Branch of the Pharmacy Guild of Australia 1988–94. Elected to the Legislative Assembly for the Australian Capital Territory in 1992 she became Liberal Leader in 1993 and Chief Minister from 1995 to 2000. Her subsequent positions include director of the NRMA and chief executive officer of the Australian Divisions of General Practice, the Australian Food and Grocery Council, Beyond Blue and the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry. She was the inaugural Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman from 2016 to 2021.

Sylvia Curley qualified as a nurse in 1926 and spent her early years of nursing in country New South Wales. She worked for the Canberra Community Hospital (later known as the Royal Canberra Hospital) from 1938 until her retirement in 1966 as deputy matron. In her ‘retirement’ years she ran a nursing employment agency in Canberra and was a strong advocate for changes to nurses’ education. In 1994 she donated her family home, Mugga Mugga, to the people of Canberra and oversaw its development into an environmental education centre. Sylvia Curley was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia on 8 June 1992 for her services to nursing, to local history and to the National Trust.

Stasia Dabrowski has voluntarily run a mobile soup kitchen since 1979, providing hot soup, bread, drinks, clothes and blankets to the homeless and needy of Canberra, and is dedicated to the welfare of young people. For nine years she raised the funds herself to purchase ingredients for the soup kitchen.

She was the 1996 Canberra Citizen of the Year, and the 1999 inaugural Australian Capital Territory (ACT) Senior Australian of the Year.

Stasia Dabrowski passed away at the age of 94 in August 2020.

Rosemary Follett was born in Sydney in 1948 but is Canberra in her heart, describing herself as ‘in lock step’ with the city. (Interview) ‘It’s a peaceful, tolerant place’ with a ‘sense of spaciousness and community’ she says. (Interview)

It is also the place where she, as the Australian Capital Territory’s (ACT’s) first chief minister, in 1989 became the first woman to lead an Australian state or territory government. As ALP leader, she presided over 3 ministries and remained in parliament until 1996 as the member of Molonglo. Her portfolio responsibilities included Social Justice, Treasury and Public Service, Attorney-General, Law Reform, Consumer Affairs, Police and Emergency Services.

Follett described herself as belonging to the Left faction of the ALP and came to power with a platform of open accountable government, social justice and a policy that half of all positions on government advisory boards and committees should be filled by women.

After leaving politics she served as the ACT Discrimination Commissioner from 1996 until 2004.

Annabelle Pegrum held the position of Chief Executive of the National Capital Authority from 1998 to 2008. Prior to this she held a number of senior executive management positions with the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) Government.

Pegrum has been involved in several architecture organisations, and has served as President of the ACT Chapter of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects.

She was the 1998 Telstra ACT Business Woman of the Year and received a Centenary Medal in 2003.

In 2008 she took up an appointment as a professorial Fellow at the University of Canberra and is the University Architect.

The Victorian Junior Red Cross began under a Central Committee in 1921-1922, following the New South Wales Division in 1918. Between the two world wars, the Junior Red Cross was a major part of the peacetime programme of the Victorian Red Cross. In World War II, the Victorian Division’s Junior Red Cross restructured, sponsored by local Red Cross branches, companies and Links of Service. From the 1950s, Junior Circles again formed in schools. In the 1970s, its overall name became Red Cross Youth. In the 1990s, it expanded programs as Youth and Education Services (YES), becoming Youth and Multicultural Affairs in 2003.

Initially, major cities were represented on Victoria’s Provisional Committee for the Red Cross, and branches sprung up across the State. Branches reported to the Victorian Division, and Annual Reports. As many began to disband in peacetime, branches were reviewed in the mid-1920s. In World War II, they were boosted when Philadelphia Robertson became Director of Branches, with other prominent appointments following, and a greater regional focus in the 1960s. By the late 1990s, branches, and six administration zones, came under Services and Membership. In 2003, development of Membership and Volunteers warranted a separate section. Branches have been particularly active in local fundraising and community services.

The Victorian Women’s Suffrage Society, the first women’s suffrage society in Australia, was founded in 1884 largely due to the efforts of Henrietta Dugdale and Annie Lowe. Dugdale, very much a ‘freethinker’, claimed to been Victoria’s first activist for women’s suffrage-having publicly advocated women’s suffrage since 1868, along with married women’s property rights and the admission of women to the universities. In 1883 she published a utopian novel, A Few Hours in a Far Off Age, which she used as a vehicle for her then radical ideas about education, marriage, Christianity and rational dress for women. The Society’s platform was ‘To obtain the same political privileges for women as now possessed by male voters’. It had both male and female members.

The Australian Women’s Suffrage Society was founded in 1888 by Brettena Smyth. Smyth had previously been a member of the Victorian Women’s Suffrage Society but some members apparently objected to her outspoken opinions on birth control precipitating her decision to form a breakaway suffrage group. The new Society was very much linked with Smyth’s advocacy of every woman’s right to information about and access to contraceptives and she distributed advertisements for contraceptives, which she sold from her drapery and druggist shop in North Melbourne, at the Society’s meetings. Smyth had become convinced that the major problem facing most women was not the lack of political rights so much as frequent and involuntary childbearing. The Society had both male and female members. Particularly, Dr William Maloney, a member of the Victorian Legislative Assembly who introduced several (unsuccessful) women’s suffrage bills into parliament between 1889 and 1894. The Society apparently disbanded with Brettena Smyth’s death in 1898.

The United Council for Woman Suffrage was originally formed in Melbourne in 1894 largely due to the efforts of Annette Bear Crawford who became its foundation president and secretary. Its aims were: to coordinate and amalgamate suffrage societies and to lobby members of parliament and municipal councillors about women’s suffrage; to educate the public about women’s suffrage; to educate the public about women’s suffrage; to educate the public about women’s suffrage and to train women speakers to address meetings. Those involved included representatives from suffrage societies, the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, the Victorian Trades Hall Council and the Vigilance Society. The Council conducted extensive lobbying during the Victorian municipal elections in 1896 and the Commonwealth Constitutional Conventional in Melbourne in 1898. The Council floundered with Bear Crawford’s illness and then death in 1898. The following year, however, Vida Goldstein became its organising secretary-which in 1900 became a full-time, paid position. Goldstein allowed a broader spectrum of organisations to affiliate with the Council, considerably expanding its support base-by 1900 it had 32 member organisations. While Goldstein resigned in 1901, the Council continued as an effective co-ordinating body for the suffrage campaign, often working with Goldstein’s new group, the Women’s Political Association, until Victorian women’s gained the vote in 1908.

The Victorian Woman’s Suffrage League was founded in 1894 at a meeting organised by Annette Bear Crawford in the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union headquarters in Melbourne. Its platform was votes for women on the same terms as men. Its formation was prompted by the belief that the three existing groups working for women’s suffrage in Victoria (the Australian Women’s Suffrage Society, the Victorian Women’s Suffrage Society and the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union) were all associated with extremist views. Although initiated by the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, the League had an entirely separate existence, supposedly not linked to the prohibitionist agenda of the Union. The new League was formulated on a Christian, non-party basis. As such, it was an organisation that moderate women could comfortably join and was immediately popular. It ceased in 1908 with the granting of the vote to women in Victoria.

M U Australia (known for most of its history as the Mothers’ Union) is part of the worldwide Mothers’ Union which is an organisation within the Anglican Church. First established in England in 1876, its early objectives were:
1. To awaken in all mothers a sense of their great responsibility in the training of their boys and girls-the fathers and mothers of the future.
2. To organise in every place a band of mothers who will unite and prayer and seek by their example to lead their families in purity and holiness in life.
The first Australian Mothers’ Union was formed in Cullenswood, Tasmania, in 1892. The movement spread quickly across the country, becoming a major organisation both for Anglican women and within the broader women’s movement in the years up to 1960. Apart from Christian outreach, the Union has been involved in wide range of social and political reform activities, mostly relating to the welfare of women and children, as well as charitable work.

Endeavour Forum was established in Melbourne in 1979 as Women Who Want to Be Women, largely through the efforts of Babette Francis. It is a Christian, pro-life, pro-family lobby group with members in all Australian states. According to its website, the group was set up to ‘counter feminism, defend the unborn and the traditional family.’ Although outlawing abortion is high on their agenda, the group’s broader aim is to prevent economic forces such as high taxation ‘destroying families’. In particular it lobbies for the right of women to choose to be full time homemakers without suffering what they see as economic discrimination. While. it supports equality of opportunity for men and women in employment and education, it opposes affirmative action or positive discrimination.

The Girl’s Realm of Service and Good Fellowship was an Australian branch of a Guild founded in London in 1900. Its main aim was to encourage girls to help other girls. In 1934 their stated aim was to assist girls who show promise and ability to undertake an approved course of training when lack of means from any other source would prevent them from so equipping themselves. The Guild ceased to exist in 1976 and donated its assets to the University of New South Wales for a scholarship.

What eventually came to be known as the Royal Australian Nursing Federation was formed in 1924 as an unincorporated association of the various Australasian Trained Nurses’ Association state ‘branches’ and the Royal Victorian Trained Nurses’ Association. Originally it was known as the Australian Nursing Federation. While concerned with protecting the interests of nurses, its initial focus was maintaining professional standards. It was not until 1949 that it began to function as a trade union.

In 1955 the federation was granted use of the royal prefix. In 1970 the Royal Australian Nursing Federation, as it was then known, was dissolved and its professional objectives were assumed by the other federally registered nurses organisation- the Australian Nursing Federation Employees’ Section.

The Australian Nursing Federation Employees’ Section formed in 1953 out of an amalgamation of the Australian United Nurses Association [formed in 1949] and the Royal Victorian College of Nurses Employees’ Association. From 1971, this new body was commonly known as the Australian Nursing Federation and in 1975 it amalgamated with the Royal Victorian College of Nurses to become the new Royal Australian Nursing Federation. The ‘Royal’ prefix was dropped again in the 1980s.