The Australian Women's Register

Fundraising was initially the main function of the Victorian branch, with appeals launched by the President and undertaken through Committees and branches. Initially, funds were administered by the Australian Branch. Their Central Depot became the first collection and distribution point, although Victoria was also empowered to appoint a depot for contributions. Fundraising has gradually become more specialised, with Committees focused on the hallmark Red Cross Calling, the Murray Marathon since 1969, and a Desperate & Dateless ball for over ten years. Retail has expanded from Card & Gift Shops, to ‘Been Around Before’ stores and merchandise campaigns, while corporate sponsors, are emphasised and bequests, foundations and trusts have expanded.

The Tracing and Refugee Services Department endeavour to locate, reunite and support families separated by war, conflict and disaster. In Australia, it is related to the Wounded and Missing Enquiry Bureau of 1915, focused largely on war service personnel until it was found useful in post-World War II migration. In 1994, Tracing and Refugees became a core service for expansion, including a Volunteer Settlement Support Group and the Young Refugees Project. The service now includes family Tracing and Red Cross Messages, Health and welfare Reports from family overseas, Family Re-union, the Maribyrnong Immigration Detention Program and urgent Disaster inquiries.

Joanne Willmot was born at Cherbourg, Queensland. Living at the mission and later attending a state high school at Ipswich raised her political consciousness. A mother at the age of 17, Joanne moved to Adelaide in 1971, bringing her baby with her. She began work as a secretary with the Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement (ALRM) where she experienced both the excitement of being at the hub of Aboriginal activism and her growing awareness of sexism. Joanne left ALRM in 1976 to care for her family but maintained involvement in many Aboriginal organisations before taking up full time employment again with the Women’s Information Switchboard in 1983.

Elizabeth Furner (formerly Laurenson and Guy) was born in London, England. Her parents separated when she was a child. Elizabeth married a soldier in 1941 and they emigrated to Australia in 1952 with their four year old son. They came to Adelaide, via Tasmania and Sydney, in 1961. It was at this time that Elizabeth began taking an interest in both writing and local government, stimulated by her disgust with discriminatory franchise laws. She joined the Australian Local Government Women’s Association, rising quickly to President of the South Australian Branch, and did much public speaking as well as standing for council in North Brighton. In the early 1970s Elizabeth founded the Brighton Writers’ Workshop from which the South Australian Branch of the Society of Women Writers was formed.

Jessie Goodes, née Tate, was born in Salisbury, South Australia. She attended St Peters Girls’ College and married in 1939. Experience working in her husband’s St Morris delicatessen meant that she was able to gain employment in a Salisbury grocery shop when she was widowed with three children. Jessie attended a local meeting arranged by the Apex Club in 1958 to form a South Australian branch of the Civilian Widows Association, and was elected President – first of the local sub-branch, and in 1959 of the state branch. Two weeks later she was in Sydney for the formation of the national body.

Christobel Oldfield, née McInnes, was born at Millicent, South Australia and grew up on a farm west of Lucindale. She began her education by correspondence and then attended local schools before finishing at Scotch College in Adelaide. She married in 1977 and had two daughters. Chris did further studies part-time and in 1985 breached the male bastion of the Greenways branch of the United Farmers and Stockowners to gain insight into issues she was studying in Psychology. She became politically conscious as a child when her parents were involved in a legal dispute over drainage rates, but assisting in her mother’s Lucindale shop gave Chris a wider understanding of the impact on families of the rural crisis. In July 1993 Chris and five other women formed Rural Women for Justice to educate outsiders and set up legal aid and mediation services.

Christobel was a 1994 nominee from South Australia for ABC Rural Woman of the Year

Diana Penniment, née Thomas, was born in Adelaide, South Australia. She attended Methodist Ladies College for her secondary education. Her family could not support further studies, so she worked in a bank until her marriage in 1956, when she moved with her husband into a two room cottage on his father’s property at Wirrega, near Bordertown. They had four children as the children grew up Diana became involved in public affairs, from school activities and craft groups to helping form a local branch of the Women’s Agricultural Bureau (WAB). Diana rose to State President of WAB in 1986. Highlights of her term included organising two international conferences. Diana also sat on the South Australian Rural Advisory Council. In 1991 she decided to focus on local issues and stood for the Tatiara District Council.

Kathleen Russell was born at Mount Gambier, South Australia. She came to Adelaide to live in 1936. Following the death of her husband in the late 1960s she became active in the Housewives Association and was Vice-President for a time. She died in Adelaide in 2005 at the age of 94.

Miriam Tonkin, née Brunning, was born in Melbourne, Victoria. She left school at 13 years of age to begin work. She was very active in the Eureka Youth League as a teenager and worked on the Communist Party’s Guardian newspaper. Married in 1950 she and her husband moved to Adelaide with their five young children in 1958. In the late 1960s Tonkin became involved in the peace movement and Women’s Liberation. Her belief in women’s right to control their fertility led to her involvement in organisations including the Humanist Society, the Abortion Law Reform Association and the Friends of the Pregnancy Advisory Centre. Tonkin qualified as a kindergarten teacher in the mid 1970s and became active in her union and in education reform as well.

Maria Luisa Sheehan, nee Drescher, was born in Italy. Her mother was widowed two years later. In 1945, when the region was occupied by Yugoslavia, the family moved to Trieste. Luisa’s mother married an English officer and in 1952 the family joined him in Khartoum. From there they emigrated to South Australia in 1955 where two of Luisa’s uncles had already settled. Luisa found work immediately and within two years married a fellow employee at Philips Electrical Industries. She left the workforce for 21 years while raising her family. In 1978 she returned to paid work as one of the six original staff members of the Women’s Information Switchboard. Luisa worked there as an information officer until her retirement in 1993.

Irene Jeffreys was born in London, England. She migrated to Australia in 1922 with her parents. Determined from the age of 12 to be an accountant, Irene attended Adelaide Technical High school. She went to work at the age of 16 but studied for the Federal Institute of Accountants diploma at night at the School of Mines. In 1942 she was the first South Australian woman to qualify by examination for the Institute of Chartered Accountants. Irene’s accountancy practice and personal interests included much involvement in the Church of England, particularly the Church Missionary Society and the General Synod, where she pioneered the involvement of South Australian women. Irene supported the movement for the ordination of women and is herself licensed as a lay preacher. For many years she was involved with the National Council of Women. On 3 June 1978 Irene Jeffreys was appointed an Officer to the Order of the British Empire for service to the church, women, children and the aged.

Margaret Forte, née Johnston, was born in London, England. Her widowed mother emigrated to Wellington, New Zealand when Margaret was seven and supported her three children working as a teacher. Margaret’s education included three years boarding at a Friends’ School. Margaret worked as a journalist in Sydney and Vancouver before settling and marrying in Adelaide. She gave up working with the News in 1950 after the birth of her second child. Margaret quickly became involved in many voluntary activities, including the South Australian Peace Council. She became Secretary of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom in the early 1960s.

Andi Sebastian has a diverse work background including having established the Women’s Information Service, been General Manager of the AIDS Council of South Australia, Manager of the Disability Complaints Service and Equity and Diversity Consultant at the University of Adelaide.

She now runs an independent business specialising in the management of diverse workgroups and interpersonal complaints in the workplace. She has two degrees from Flinders University, a Masters degree in Primary Health Care and a Bachelor of Arts (Hons).

She can be contacted via her business email address: andi.sebastian@d-q.biz

Marina Berton was born at Mildura, Victoria in 1948 to Italian-born parents who had emigrated in 1937. Berton moved to Adelaide to attend Wattle Park Teachers College in 1965. Early in her teaching career she became involved in English language adult education for migrants, and more recently in developing Italian language education for second generation Italo-Australians. Throughout, Berton has been much involved with the Italian Federation of Emigrant Workers and their Families (FILEF), including six years as its President.

The Female Middle Class Emigration Society, founded by Maria Rye and Jane Lewin in 1862, was one of a number of organisations that emerged in the late nineteenth century and sought to tackle the perceived ‘surplus women’ problem in the United Kingdom. Like the Colonial Intelligence League, and the South African Colonisation Society, its aim was to assist unemployed, educated British women with emigration by finding them employment, usually as governesses or clerks, in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Canada. These three organisations amalgamated in 1919 to form the Society for the Overseas Settlement of British Women.

The Female Orphan School was set up in George Street, Sydney, by Governor King in 1801 to house destitute young girls. When it was officially opened on 17 August, 1801, 31 girls aged between the ages of 7 and 14 were in residence. By 1829 the population had grown to 152 and included some Aboriginal children. On 30 April, 1850 the Male Orphan School, which had been relocated at Liverpool in 1823 was closed. The remaining residents moved to the Female Orphan School site at Parramatta and the two establishments amalgamated to form the Protestant Orphan School, which operated until 1886.

The Institute of Sisters of Mercy of Australia evolved from the seventeen individual congregations operating in Australia before 1981. It forms part of the world-wide network of Mercy Sisters. Catherine McAuley founded the Sisters of Mercy in Dublin, Ireland in 1841. In 1846 the Sisters of Mercy came to Australia. Ursula Frayne, a friend of Catherine McAuley, arrived with six Sisters and settled in Perth , Western Australia, later moving to Melbourne. By 1954 the seventeen distinct autonomous groups had emerged through the processes of amalgamation and division. In 1953 eight of the autonomous groups formed the Australian Union of Sisters of Mercy, and in 1957 the remaining nine groups joined to form the Australian Federation of the Sisters of Mercy, which by 1981 became the Institute of Sisters of Mercy of Australia. The Mercy Sisters describe this structure as ‘a unique mode of governance continuing to express the traditional Mercy thrust towards decentralisation and unity but giving a clearer sign of the equally strong concern for a deep unity of spirit.’ The Sisters of Mercy are committed to those most vulnerable in our society and wish to share God’s loving kindness with others.

The Women’s Liberation Movement submission on equal pay was delivered in 1969 to the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Commission in Melbourne, by Sylvia Shaw.

The Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement Inc (ALRM) is a not for profit organisation that provides legal service to Aboriginal people and their communities. Established in 1971, and incorporated in 1973, it exists to get social justice for Aboriginal people and their communities.

The Grail is an international women’s movement , which describes itself as ‘a spiritual, cultural and social movement of women grounded in Christian faith and committed to the vision of a world transformed into a global community of justice and peace’. It was established in Sydney in 1937 after the arrival in 1936 of members of the Women of Nazareth, an international lay Catholic women’s organisation with its headquarters in The Netherlands. It sought a new and significant role for lay women Catholics in the church. In the view of Sally Kennedy, author of Faith and Feminism, ( Sydney 1985), ‘it combined a strong sense of women’s potential in the Catholic Church with a realistic appraisal of women’s powerlessness in it, and a high level of pragmatism to overcome this’. Its original focus was on the concept of specialised long-term training of youth leaders. Its focus is now ‘upon women’s education and personal development, on social and cultural critical analysis and organised action grounded in conviction’. It has centres in Sydney and Melbourne.

The South Australian International Women’s Day Committee was founded in 1938. Mrs Elizabeth M. (Betty) Fisher compiled the Women’s Roll of Honour for the 20th Century in 2001.

Beryl Miller was born in Geelong, Victoria. The daughter of British migrants she came to Adelaide after her marriage in 1945. She joined the Eureka Youth League at 15 and joined joining the Communist Party of Australia in 1952. She was involved with the Union of Australian Women, the Women’s International Democratic Federation and the Australian Peace Committee. She left the Communist Party and became a foundation member of the Socialist Party of Australia. Miller represented South Australia in 1964 when the Communist Party of Australia organised the first women’s delegation to Russia.

Anna Victoria Ey (née Oster) was born in Metz, Germany. The daughter of a Lutheran Pastor, she migrated to Australia in 1847. She married a paster Johannes M R Ey in 1861 and bore 13 children of which 7 survived. She lived in and around Lobethal, located 33 km from Adelaide, for the rest of her life.

Luise Homann was born on 21 August 1837 in Hanover Germany. She married Wilhelm Wendtlandt, a Lutheran missionary on 13 July 1855 and had 4 children. They travelled widely, first to Madras then to South Africa, South America, England and then back to Germany. Wendtlandt died in 1861. After his death, Luise became a missionary in Germany. She remarried Ernst Homann 3 October 1867 and followed her husband to South Australia, where they worked at Hermannsburg Mission station.

Berthe Mathilde Fritsch (née Simpfendor) was born in 1896 in the Baranduda – Leneva District in Victoria, Australia. Her father was a Lutheran Pastor. She took over the housekeeping duties after her mother died in 1920. She married Walter Fritsch in 1922, moved to New South Wales then back to Victoria, before settling in Adelaide in 1938 at St Stephen’s. There she joined the Lutheran Women’s Guild, and the Lutheran Women’s Association of South Australia. Fritsch served on the Ladies’ Committee of Emmanuel College from 1942-1971 and represented the Lutheran Women’s Association at the Women’s Jubilee Convention in Canberra in 1951. In 1954 she went to Minneapolis, USA, to the LWF (Lutheran Womens’ Federation?) assembly. She had 5 daughters who all graduated from the University of Adelaide.