The Australian Women's Register

Former primary school teacher Barbara MacLeod joined the Women’s Royal Australian Naval Service in 1954. During her service she served in every Australian state except Western Australia. In 1976 MacLeod became the first woman officer of any service to attend the Australian Administrative Staff College (AASC). Three years later she was the first woman naval officer of Captain’s rank to be posted to a male Captain’s position. In 1982 MacLeod became an Honorary Aide-de-Camp (ADC) to Queen Elizabeth. She was the first Australian woman to be appointed as an ADC, a post which had to be relinquished on her retirement. On 9 June 1975 Naval Officer Barbara MacLeod became a Member of the Order of Australia. She was also awarded the Queen’s Silver Jubilee Medal (1977) and the National Medal (1977) and Bar (1979).

Senior Lecturer and Convener of the Classics Program at the Australian National University (ANU), Dr Ann Moffatt was one of the first women wardens of a mixed hall of residence when acting warden of Bruce Hall at the ANU in 1973.

Moffatt attended Unley High School in Adelaide and University High School, Melbourne, before graduating with a Bachelor of Arts (Hons) from the University of Melbourne. She obtained her Master of Arts from the Australian National University and her Doctor of Philosophy from the University of London.

Joyce Nicholson was born in Melbourne, the daughter of publisher D.W. Thorpe. She was educated at Methodist Ladies College before completing a Bachelor of Arts at the University of Melbourne, where she was vice-president of the Student Representative Council. She has been active in the women’s movement, involved in early years with the Women’s Electoral Lobby (W.E.L.) and Sisters Publishing Ltd. She was Managing Director, and later sole owner, of D.W. Thorpe Pty Ltd from 1968 until 1987, when the firm was sold. She is the author of over 25 books, many of them written for children, others dealing with women’s issues.

Since 1961 the National Council of Women of Victoria Inc (NCWV) and the Australia Day Council (Victoria) have come together to conduct a ceremony to honour the Pioneer Women of Australia and in particular, Victoria.

The Ceremony has been held in the Pioneer Women’s Memorial Garden in King’s Domain each January. Guides Victoria have generously provided a Colour Party for the raising and lowering of the Australian Flag. The Australia Day Council has undertaken to see to the music, microphone and flowers for the Guest Speaker. NCWV has undertaken to arrange for chairs to be placed in the garden, the sheaf of flowers for the Memorial Plaque as well as in discussion with the Australia Day Council (Victoria) to invite a Guest Speaker. The City of Melbourne through its Parks and Garden Department has assisted in many ways over the years as without their invaluable assistance it would not be possible to hold the Ceremony in these Pioneer Women’s Gardens. The Minute’s Silence was introduced to honour all pioneer women at the request of the Australian Church Women.

Daughter of Arthur Walker and his wife Frances (née Sinclair), Ellinor Walker was born in Melbourne, Victoria and moved to Adelaide, South Australia when she was nine years old. She attended the Wilderness School, and was awarded the Tennyson Medal for English at the age of fifteen. Walker graduated as a kindergarten teacher, and spent two years as Director of the Halifax St Free Kindergarten. She then opened the Greenways School at her family home in Fullarton, and directed this for 24 years. At the age of eighteen she and a friend formed a Girls’ Club to study political matters, and this led to her joining, at the age of 21, the Non-Party Association. She was an active member of this for 65 years, and when (as the League of Women Voters, which it had become) it voluntarily ended in 1979, she gave the valedictory speech. She was a passionate supporter of the League of Nations and the movement to maintain world peace. In 1940, with the help of Roma Mitchell (later Governor of South Australia) she drew up the Bill which became the Guardianship of Infants Act, No. 55 (1940), giving mothers equal rights with fathers over their children. In 1962 and 1963 she organised an Australia-wide campaign which resulted in recognition of the needs of civilian widows with dependent children. She was a member of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU). In 1964 she helped form the Local Government Women’s Association, and in 1971 was president of the Women’s Christian Temperance League, of which she had been a member since 1935. Walker wrote several historical pageants and she also wrote a monologue, ‘The Story of the Franchise: How Women Won the Vote in SA’ (1944) for the Golden Jubilee of Women’s Suffrage. Her poem ‘Lullaby’ was set to music by Ruby R McCulloch, and is held in the Mortlock Library. Ellinor Walker was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire on 12 June 1971 for her service to the community.

Octavia Wilson, daughter of Thomas Samson of Berwick upon Tweed, married a congregational minister the Reverend William Wilson (1827-1895) in 1855. They both emigrated to Australia in 1857 and founded Point Pearce Aboriginal mission.

Marlienne Thomson was born at Ceduna, South Australia. After two years as a dental nurse she began training at the Royal Adelaide Hospital (RAH) in 1951. When training was completed she had appointments as staff nurse and charge nurse at the RAH. Marlienne attended the College of Nursing, Australia in 1958 and gained a diploma in ward management and teaching. On her return to Adelaide she was active in introducing new procedures at the RAH. She resigned in 1961 to attend the Adelaide Bible Institute and in 1964 went to South India to serve as a missionary at the Christian Medical College and Hospital at Vellore.

Joan Durdin, author of They Became Nurses: A History of Nursing in South Australia, 1836-1980 (1991) and Eleven Thousand Nurses: A History of Nursing Education at the Royal Adelaide Hospital 1889-1993 (1999) is a nursing historian and as a nurse educator has contributed much to the advancement of nursing through the development of advanced education in the higher education sector. In addition to her ten year’s teaching at Royal Adelaide Hospital she spent six years as a nurse educator in Papua New Guinea. She conducted extensive oral history interviews for the Royal Adelaide Hospital Heritage and History Committee, 1991-1998. Durdin is commemorated by the Joan Durdin Oration, an annual event initiated and sponsored by the Department of Clinical Nursing at the University of Adelaide.

Founded in 1916, the Catholic Women’s Social Guild of Victoria/Wagga Wagga was renamed the Catholic Women’s League in 1970. The League is formed on a plan of parochial, diocesan, and general government. It is part of the Catholic Women’s League (CWL) of Australia, and has an international affiliation with the World Union of Catholic Women’s Organisations. It also has an international affiliation with the World Union of Catholic Women’s Organisations financed by the Diocesan Councils.

The Charity Organisation Society of Melbourne was established in 1887 to help co-ordinate Melbourne’s charitable organisations and to foster the ideal of ‘self-help’ in the poor. The Society’s 21st Annual Report expressed the view that ‘to strengthen a man’s backbone rather than provide him with crutches, should be the aim of charity’. It has been claimed that it contributed to the development of social work as a profession, based on suitable training in appropriate disciplines. In 1947, the organisation became known as the Citizens Welfare Service of Victoria, reflecting a change in its approach towards casework counselling. It is now known as the Drummond St Relationship Centre.

Anna Brennan, member of a talented Victorian family, was a devout Catholic who actively pursued the cause of women’s equality throughout her life. She was one of the earliest woman to graduate in law at the University of Melbourne in 1909 and practised as a solicitor in her brother’s legal firm for fifty years. She was a foundation member of the Lyceum Club in 1912 and president from 1940-41.

The Victorian Legal Women’s Association was established in 1931 with Brennan serving as president. A founding committee member of the Catholic Women’s Social Guild in 1916, later the Catholic Women’s League, she served as president from 1918-1920. She joined the Victorian branch of St Joan’s International Alliance, holding the office of president from 1938-1945 and again in 1948 until her death in 1962.

The Tailoresses’ Association of Melbourne, Australia’s first female trade union, was established at a meeting held in Trades Hall on 15 December 1882. At this meeting women met in response to attempts by the Melbourne clothing manufacturer Beith Shiess & Co to reduce piece-rate wages. A strike was called on 15 February 1883 when clothing manufacturers had not responded to the log of claims. As each manufacturer accepted the log, employees resumed work. The strike is generally regarded as instrumental in the establishment of the Shops Commission and the eventual passage of the Factory Act. When the new Factory Act was passed in 1885, the recommendations of the March 1884 Royal Commission regarding outwork were not incorporated and working conditions in the industry were not substantially affected by its operation. In 1906, the Tailoresses’ Union amalgamated with the Tailors’ Society.

On 15 December 1982 the Honourable Pauline Toner, Victoria’s first woman Cabinet Minister, unveiled a plaque to commemorate the centenary of the Tailoresses’ Union. The plaque was placed at the entrance to the offices of the Textile Clothing & Footwear Union of Australia (formerly Clothing & Allied Trades Union of Australia) in Leicester Street, Carlton.

The Anglican Mission to the Streets and Lanes of Melbourne was established in 1886 by the Bishop of Melbourne as the Diocesan Mission to the Streets and Lanes of Melbourne. The Council, the governing body of the Mission comprised mainly women with the exception of the Bishop of Melbourne and the Chaplain. The Council’s aim was to employ deaconesses commissioned by the Bishop to ‘visit in the lanes and courts and bring the message of the Gospel to the poor and fallen and by the force of their sisterly sympathy, compel the outcast to come in’. It wanted to include people who were not reached already by the ordinary parochial organisations, especially the category described as ‘fallen women’. Miss Emma Silcock ( known as Sister Esther) assumed responsibility for the Mission in 1888. She was also the founder of the Community of the Holy Name in Victoria. By 1900 the Mission had a staff of six deaconesses and one probationer. Its first address was 171 Little Lonsdale St. It moved to a new building in Spring St in 1913 and in 1958 to Fitzroy St Fitzroy. In 1997 it merged with the Mission of St James and St John and the St John’s Homes for Boys and Girls to form Anglicare.

On 29 November 1924 a ceremony of the Perpetual Profession of Dr Mary Glowrey, now Sister Mary of the Sacred Heart took place in the Church of St Agnes at Guntur (India). Mary Glowrey, who completed her medical training at the University of Melbourne, (MBBS 1910, MD 1919), was the first president of the Catholic Women’s Social Guild (now Catholic Women’s League). After receiving assurance from the Pope that she would be allowed to continue in her profession, Glowrey left Melbourne for India in 1920. At this time nuns were still prevented from practising medicine, She entered the Society of Jesus, Mary and Joseph, a Dutch order of nuns and spent the next 37 years involved with medical work in Guntur, India. Glowrey House, the Catholic Women’s League headquarters in Nicholson Street, Fitzroy, is named in her honour.

The daughter of merchant Robert Lindsay and Jane Stocks (née Macfarlane) Jenny Greig graduated in medicine from the University of Melbourne in 1895. She devoted her life to the service of women, especially in the field of medicine. One of the founders of the Queen Victoria Hospital when Greig retired in 1948 she had been an active member of the honorary medical staff for over 50 years. When the hospital added a new pathology block in 1937 it was named after her. Greig is recognized as the first woman anaesthetist in Victoria: she was honorary anaesthetist at the Women’s Hospital in Melbourne from 1900 to 1917, honorary assistant anaesthetist at the Melbourne Hospital in 1903 and was admitted as a member of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians in 1940. Greig died will visiting London in 1950.

On 26 January 1998 Nina Buscombe was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia for service to the community through the Motor Neurone Disease Association of Victoria, the Victorian School for Deaf Children, the Victorian Council of Social Service, and Zonta. In 1987 she was honoured with an Anzac of the Year Award for her contribution to the community and the Motor Neurone Disease Association of Victoria awarded her a Life Governorship and instituted The Nina Buscombe Award in her honour.

Cecilia John, who sang ‘I Didn’t Raise My Son to Be a Soldier’ until banned by the government under the War Precautions Act of 1915, founded the Women’s Peace Army with Vida Goldstein. Interested in social questions, John was a member of the Collins Street Independent Church, the Women’s Political Association and wrote for the Woman Voter. She established the Children’s Peace Army and ran a women’s co-operative farm, the Women’s Rural Industries Co. Ltd, at Mordialloc, providing employment to women in financial need.

The Wonthaggi Miners’ Women’s Auxiliary, the first Women’s auxiliary of a mining union, was established at Wonthaggi, Victoria during the Wonthaggi Coal Strike. The strike, which commenced on 6 March 1934, lasted for five months. Miners’ wives established a Board Committee and the President, Mrs Agnes Chambers issued an official statement on behalf of the Committee:

the women of Wonthaggi are firmly behind their husbands in this struggle. We women have for the past two years seen our husbands’ pay reduced by more than a third…If our men quietly accept these reductions without further protest where will they end?…Our men have stood solidly in this great struggle, and the Government, realising that it cannot break the spirit of the men, now turns and threatens to take our homes from us. The Government threatens to close the mine permanently….The dispute has now been in progress 17 weeks, and it would appear that we have a long and dreary winter in front of us, but with the help of the women of Australia we can hold out. [1]

By the second week of July the Hon. R G Menzies, Deputy Premier and Minister for Railways, the State Government Department that held responsibility for the mine, agreed to negotiate. He agreed to the immediate recognition of pit-top committees and the reinstatement of the five wheelers whose dismissal provoked the strike. He also proposed that the reinstatement of two men who had been dismissed for insubordination be negotiated once the miners were back at work – a palatable concession for most miners. [2]

The women’s independent organisation and their willingness to persist further throughout the winter was a factor in resisting efforts to call off the strike before their demands had been met.

[1] Cochrane, P, ‘The Wonthaggi Coal Strike, 1934’, Labour History, no. 27, 1974, p. 28
[2] ibid p. 29

The first Jobs for Women Campaign in Wollongong, New South Wales commenced during the early 1970s. At the time mining companies of the area traditionally employed men. The women of Wollongong campaigned for the right to be employed in the steelworker positions at Australian Iron and Steel, a subsidiary of BHP. During the campaign women chained themselves to the fences of the steelworks, distributed leaflets and dressed as men to complete a shift. The campaign set a precedent for the employment of women in all non-traditional areas of work, when BHP commenced employing women in the industry.

The economic circumstances of the 1980s made the women launch the Jobs for Women Action Campaign. Once again they circulated leaflets – in six languages, established a “Tent Embassy,” appealed to the NSW Counsellor for Equal Opportunity and won a court case under the NSW Anti-Discrimination Act.

Sally Bowen, who lived most of her adult life in Wollongong, was a prominent union, political and community activist. During her life Bowen was involved with Miners’ Women’s Auxiliaries, the Women’s Centre in Wollongong, the Union of Australian Women, the Save Our Sons movement, the Jobs for Women Campaigns and the Environmental Movement.

In 1888 Louisa Lawson, who had previously edited the Republican with son Henry, launched The Dawn; a journal for women. The publication’s purpose was to be a “phonograph to wind out audibly the whispers, pleadings and demands of the sisterhood”. It advised on women’s issues, including divorce, the age of consent, and women’s right to vote. As well as operating as an important vehicle for the communication of feminist politics the paper also contained short stories, fashion notes, sewing patterns and reports on women’s activities around the country and overseas. By October 1889, the Dawn office employed ten women as typesetters, printers, binders, and unskilled workers. They were harassed by male workers, and by their male union, The New South Wales Typographical Association. In 1905, after seventeen years, the publication ceased production.

The male-only New South Wales Typographical Association opposed the employment of women at the publication The Dawn, a journal for women, which was launched by Louisa Lawson in 1888. It aimed to be a “phonograph to wind out audibly the whispers, pleadings and demands of the sisterhood.” By October 1889, The Dawn office employed ten women as typesetters, printers, binders, and unskilled workers. The staff who were paid less than union rates and were harassed by male workers in the printing trade were not eligible to join the all male Typographical Association. On 26 July a motion was put to the general meeting of 26 July 1890 that the rules be altered to allow

the admission of female compositors, who may be duly qualified, and may agree to claim equal rates of pay for equal hours of labour with men [1]

With only four votes in favour the motion was lost. Women were not admitted into the Union until 1916, and then not as compositors, but in a special Women and Girls’ section. [2]

[1] Hagan, Jim, 1929-, Printers and politics : a history of the Australian printing unions, 1850-1950, Australian National University Press [in association with the Printing and Kindred Industries Union], Canberra, 1966, p. 82
[2] Hagan, J, ‘An Incident at the Dawn’, Labour History, vol. 8, May 1965 p. 21

The Airline Hostesses’ Association was formed in 1957 when the Victorian Branch was established. Members of the Union were hostesses working for TAA, Ansett and Qantas, plus Ansett subsidiaries Con Air and East West. The name was changed in 1984 to the Australian Flight Attendants’ Association when the association combined with the Flight Stewards’ Association of Australia (1958 – 1984) to acknowledge the employment of male flight attendants by domestic airlines. In 1992 there was a merger with the Australian International Cabin Crew Association (1984 – 1992). The new organisation became the Flight Attendants Association.

The Victorian Branch of the Australian Railways Union (ARU), in contrast to many other male unions, did not encourage female rail workers to set up a separate section. In 1920 the Victorian Railways commenced employing women in sizeable numbers mainly as waitresses, barmaids, laundresses and cooks at various city and country railway stations. At this time, the Refreshment Services Branch was established with the introduction of new machinery into railway administrative offices, however females began to perform clerical work traditionally done by better-paid men. During World War II women began working in positions traditionally reserved for men. The Union participated in the Council of Action for Equal Pay, a body formed in 1937 to further the interests of female workers, as well as contributing to the Australian Council of Trade Union organized conferences on equal pay held in April and September 1942. Women paid junior rates for their union fees until equal pay was achieved.

Aged fifteen, Eileen Powell joined the Australian Labor Party (ALP) and remained a member for over 45 years. She trained at the Party speakers’ classes in Balmain and became Assistant Secretary of the Stanmore Branch in 1929. After working for Grace Brothers (Broadway) Powell commenced work with the Labor Daily. From 1937 until 1944 she worked with the Australian Railways Union, New South Wales Branch. During this period Powell became an organiser for the Railway Refreshment Rooms (RRR) staff and achieved an Industrial Relations award for them. The mostly women workers were not employed directly by the Railways Department, were not covered by other awards and were dispersed throughout railway towns in New South Wales. On their behalf she appeared before the full bench of the NSW Industrial Commission and when the judgement was handed down there was a cut in the spread of hours, provisions for overtime, increased wages and the abolition of the compulsory board and lodging payments. Powell was also a member of the Council of Action for Equal Pay, the ALP Women’s Central Organising Committee and the United Associations of Women.

On Friday, 11 September 1925 in response to the statement made about them by retired naval officer Captain Oswald Carter, the waitresses of the Refreshment Services Branch of the Victorian Railways went on strike. Carter held a senior post in the railways and reported to the chief of the Refreshment Services Branch that he found [the staff] ‘lazy, dirty and unmanageable’. He further added: ‘I propose to get in touch with the Immigration Authorities with a view to ascertaining the possibilities of getting suitable servants. I do not think that girls from Melbourne are likely to give satisfaction.’

The waitresses demanded an apology and went on strike until they received one. The male leaders of the Australian Railways Union – Victorian Branch commenced negotiations on behalf of their members and after two days a satisfactory settlement with management was arranged when an apology was obtained.

Louisa Dunkley co-founded the Victorian Women’s Post and Telegraph Association in 1900. A campaigner for equal pay for women, she joined the Postmaster-General’s Department in 1882. By 1890 Dunkley had passed the proficiency tests and transferred to the Chief Telegraph Office as a telegraphist. In the 1890s she helped to establish a committee of women telegraphists and postmistresses to present a case for equal pay, with their male colleagues in the Post and Telegraph Department of Victoria. They received increases in salary, though not equality with men telegraphists. Because the male union discourages female members the Victorian Women’s Post and Telegraph Association was established in 1900 with Dunkley as vice-president. She represented the association at the telegraphists’ conference in October 1900 at Sydney, where she met her future husband, Edward Charles Kraegen, secretary of the New South Wales and Commonwealth Post and Telegraph associations from 1885 to 1904.