The Australian Women's Register

The Australian Girls Choir (AGC) was established in 1984 in Melbourne by music teacher Judith Curphey.

Whilst there were several boys’ choirs in Australia, there was no opportunity available for girls (outside of school choirs). The accepted convention at the time was that boys sing ‘better’ than girls (hence cathedral choirs are made up only of male voices). Judith wanted to challenge this belief and create a choir that appropriately trained and developed girls’ voices, particularly as their voices matured (as opposed to ‘breaking’ like boys voices) and conduct a choir that sang in Soprano and Alto registers only.

Her goal was to create a choir with a uniquely Australian sound and high artistic standards, a group which could dance as well as sing, and was renowned for its quality of presentation.

The Australian Girls Choir now has over 3,500 girls in training in Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney.

The first Rural Women’s Network was established in Victoria in 1986, under the auspices of the Office of Rural Affairs in the Department of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, in response to activism by Victorian rural women, including Mary Salce. The aim was to link rural women’s groups and individuals into a loose network supported by government infrastructure, to enable the sharing of ideas, issues, information and support, and to encourage women to develop a more active voice in government decision-making.

WRAACReunited is an online social network established in 2009 with the aim of providing a dedicated on-line community for Australian ex-servicewomen. Motivation for establishing the site, a private forum for ex-servicewomen only, came in response to concerns for the needs of a generation of women, especially members of the Women’s Royal Australian Army Corps (WRAAC) who were approaching an age and a time when they are searching for old friends, an opportunity to reflect on their lives and a space to experience the camaraderie they shared as servicewomen together

SingleMum.com.au was created in February 2009 by Barbara Bryan, an Australian single mother of two small children. Upon searching the internet for information specific to Australian single mothers, she discovered that although there were several general parent and single father’s support web sites, there were no Australian single mother web sites with a forum. Barbara Bryan realised that there were probably many other single mothers also seeking the same resources, and so she decided to create SingleMum.com.au as an on-line resource to support other single mothers.

The SingleMum.com.au website gathers together information, news and resources specifically for Australian single mothers. In addition to being an information service, it provides an online meeting place for single mothers to share information and support each other in the single mother forums. The website has grown and evolved according to the suggestions and requests of its ever-increasing network of single mothers. To date, the SingleMum.com.au website offers breaking single mother news – such as Family Court, custody and child support issues – a dedicated single mother forum and chat room, single parenting articles, a support links page, access to single mother studies and surveys, a single mother book index, and much more.

SingleMum.com.au constantly strives to improve and expand to provide Australian single mothers with the information, friendship and support they need at one of the most challenging and fulfilling times of their lives.

The Women’s Group was formed by wives of University of Sydney staff and women academics in 1949.

It is still active today and meets at the Women’s College. It organises a range of social events and excursions

On 7 May 1984 the University of Sydney Senate appointed a Committee to organise functions to mark the Centenary of the First Women Graduates.

One of the functions organised by the Committee was the Women’s Studies Conference, held from 20 September to 22 September 1985 at the Women’s College. A separate Steering Committee was appointed for this purpose.

The Conference was attended by almost 500 people and around 60 papers were presented.

At the Plenary Session of the Conference, a motion was passed asking the Senate to formalise their recognition of the importance of this area of study by the creation of a Chair in Women’s Studies.

Established in 1892, The Women’s College within the University of Sydney was the first residential university college for women in Australia and has been in continuous use as a university college for women for well over a century. From modest and financially challenging beginnings, it developed into (and remains) a flourishing institution, particularly after 1916 when it finally received equivalent financial endowment to that of the male colleges.

The College’s first home was a rented house in Glebe. It moved to its own building within the University grounds in May 1894. Designed by the architectural firm of Sulman & Power, the College’s first permanent home still forms the heart of the present building complex and is heritage listed. In 2009 the College accommodates 250 women undergraduates and 30 postgraduates. It is a progressive organisation that is proud of its tradition of being at the forefront of education and social theory and championing women’s rights, academic thought and leadership.

The Sydney University Women Evening Students’ Association was established in April 1911 to cater for the needs of evening students, many of whom were teachers.

The Sydney University Women’s Society was established in 1891 with the object of assisting “anyone requiring and deserving help”.

Among other activities, members of the Society worked at Lewisham Hospital, Newington asylum for aged women, the Woolloomooloo girls’ club and the Harrington Street night school for girls at Millers Point.

Today the re-named Sydney University Settlement Neighbourhood Centre works primarily with the Aboriginal community and other disadvantaged groups in Chippendale, Redfern, Darlington and Waterloo.

Abbotsleigh was founded by an English woman, Marian Clarke, in 1885. An Anglican school for girls, it was first located in a terrace in North Sydney. The school then moved to Parramatta in 1888, and finally to its current premises in Wahroonga.

Abbotsleigh was one of the first girls’ school to have a sports field, which was opened in October 1901.

Located in the eastern suburbs of Sydney, Ascham School is one of the oldest private girls’ schools in Australia.

The school was founded by Marie Wallis in 1886 with nine pupils in a Darling Point terrace. She named the school after Roger Ascham, tutor to England’s Queen Elizabeth I.

Ascham’s teaching is influenced by the Dalton Plan, a philosophy of learning which emphasises self-responsibility and independence. Developed in the United States of America, the Dalton Plan was introduced to Ascham by its longest serving headmistress, Margaret Bailey, in 1922.
Former pupils of Ascham include Linda Littlejohn and Virginia Clare Walker.

The Association of Women Employees of the University of Sydney (AWEUS) was formed in July 1980 to represent the interests of women on campus. It was open to all women on the university staff. An annually elected executive met to discuss matters concerning the improvement of the status of women on campus, e.g. Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) policies and childcare facilities. It also gathered information on cases of discrimination and sexual harassment.

The Sydney University Boat Club was founded in 1897. The following year a boat was purchased with the assistance of the registrar, professors and Louisa Macdonald, Principal of the Women’s College.

The Women’s Collective raised awareness of issues concerning women on campus at the University of New South Wales and it also organised activities for women. It was one of the clubs and societies affiliated with the Students Union at the University of New South Wales.

The University of new South Wales Wives Group was stablished at the New South Wales University of Technology (renamed the University of New South Wales in 1958) in 1950 as the Technical Education Women’s’ Group. The Group acted primarily as a social organisation in welcoming the wives of new staff members and students to the University.

The U Committee exists to raise funds for the University of New South Wales through activities such as the Book Fair and the sale of memorabilia. It has supported numerous scholarly and community activities including the University of New South Wales Art Prize and Travelling Scholarship, the Literary Fellowship and the Kensington Lectures for High School Students. Women played a leading role in the group.

The last book fair was held in May 2012 and the U Committee officially disbanded in 2013.

Ravenswood School for Girls was founded by Mabel Maude Fidler in 1901. Classes took place in a schoolroom erected on the block adjacent to her home, ‘Ravenswood’, in Gordon, Sydney. While it was a non-sectarian private day school for girls, boys were enrolled in 1901 but the older ones departed by July the same year. They continued to be enrolled until 1913 in the Infants area and again during the war years but only in Kindergarten.

Fidler sold the school to the Methodist Church in 1924, by which point it had 180 pupils. The school became a Uniting Church school in 1977.

Ravenswood continues to operate today and has an enrolment of 1 130. It has always remained and grown on the original site at Gordon and is a member of the Alliance of Girls’ Schools (Australasia).

The Sydney University Women Undergraduates’ Association was formed in 1899. It ran a variety of social activities for women students.

The Presbyterian Deaconess Training Institute was opened in Powlett Street, East Melbourne 1898, in large measure because of the committed work of The Rev William Rolland. Of the five initial students in residence, three went on to complete the two year course of training. By the end of the first year, the institute moved to a larger house in George Street, Fitzroy to accommodate the growing number of enrolments. Although the location, in the centre of the city mission district and close to the medical mission, was perfect for training purposes, its location here was not permanent. Two more moves to South Melbourne and Albert Park took place before the institute found permanent residence in Rathdowne Street, Carlton, in 1915.

In 1936 the institute was officially renamed ‘Rolland House, Deaconess and Missionary Training College’, in honour of the founder. It formed both a residential college for Deacon students and missionary workers and also a home for the Deaconess Association of the Presbyterian Church.

Following a re-organisation of studies in 1947 the training of Deaconess students became more and more closely integrated with that of other Presbyterian theological students and at the time of Church Union (into the Uniting Church) virtually all such training took place at Ormond College.

When the responsibility for training deaconesses was transferred to the Board of Theological Education, the roll of Rolland House needed to be redefined. Its facilities continued to be used as a hostel for women tertiary students. After Church Union, the house remained with the Presbyterian Church of Victoria. A few years later it was sold into private hands.

Work by Presbyterian Deaconesses was established in Victoria in 1898 when six women were ‘set apart’ by the Commission of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, ‘in a special way for Christian service as the chief object of their life.

From the beginning, two important principles were clearly stated:

• that the ministry of the deaconess was to be seen as a ministry to the less privileged and persons in need
• that adequate training for such ministry was necessary.

After a peripatetic existence for the first 15 or so years, training was provided at Rolland House in Carlton, from 1915, for almost sixty years.

As for the special ministry of deaconesses – the following lists some of the activities they engaged in. They:

• ministered to the body as well as the soul. Some of the first nurses ever seen in the Australian outback were deaconesses. Trained as they were, they could conduct services where there was no minister. As nurses, they were important leaders in the establishment of the Dr John Flynn’s Australian Inland Mission.
• Personal work and contact in the inner suburbs have proven a friends to those in material, moral, social and spiritual need.
• Assistants to ministers in large parishes.
• In 3 states, been very important in organising youth work – including camps, Sunday schools, bible classes etc.
• Important to teaching scripture in government schools, thereby getting the word across to children in homes where religion in unknown. ‘the greatest open door in front of the church today, and the main hope of preserving Christian ideals in this land’.
• In change of hostels for country girls, visited gaols, attend children’s courts and ‘as probation officers have been able to keep girls from entering a life of crime.
• Missionary trainees to Korea, China, Pacific Islands.
• that adequate training for such ministry was necessary.

The Catholic Diocese of Maitland was established in 1886 with the Right Rev Dr James Murray serving as Bishop. Presiding over the spiritual well-being of Catholics residing in a geographic area that spread north all the way to the Queensland border and west as far as far as could be reached, Bishop Murray knew the task was enormous, much too big for the Sisters of the Good Samaritan, who arrived in the area two years earlier, to deal with on their own.

Recognising the tradition of the Dominicans as educators, and acknowledging Catholic education in the diocese as a priority, he called upon their Irish leaders to support a long term plan. Dominican Sisters provided a unique possibility. Not only could they continue the work of the schools for the less fortunate, as did the Josephites and Good Samaritan Sisters, but they could also educate young women who would have the financial backing and social standing to become the first of generations of Catholic teachers for the people of the Maitland Diocese.

The Methodist Order of Deaconesses was established in 1942 as a result of the inability of the Methodist Church in Australia to implement the principle affirmed at the General Conference in 1929 that women who believed that they were called by God to a wider (professional) ministry in the Church than was available to them at that time, could offer as candidates for the ministry under the same regulations as men.

Its establishment led to marked changes in the opportunities available to women in the life of the church. Significantly, it offered structure, support and status for women’s ministry by providing a professional pathway. It created opportunities for women’s ministry at home, not just in international mission fields. By helping to create a context whereby men and women worked together, it enabled the Methodist Church to come to the view that women had a place in the ordained ministry.

In the early twentieth century, white Australians began to push settlement into remote regions in Northern Australia. Concerns about the type of society that such a harsh environment might produce were a real concern to Europeans. How could a balanced and healthy society develop in such an isolated, masculine environment? The Australian Inland Mission (AIM) was established in 1912 to help alleviate these concerns.

On the advice of some women who lived, or had lived, in the ‘outback’, a Presbyterian minister, Reverend John Flynn, travelled widely in the Northern Territory, surveying conditions in 1912 and speaking to residents who appeared to be in it for the long haul. As he visited people where he found them, nearly all men, he was concerned that community couldn’t develop unless people were prepared to bring their wives and raise their families in those remote regions.

His vision, therefore was to provide pastoral care to a range of people with a variety of needs that were significantly different to those of the metropolitan centres. Alongside that he saw the need for nursing services so that women particularly would feel safe in outback Australia. Arguably, the main reason for th establishment of the Australian Inland Mission was to provide for the well-being of women and children in remote Australia.

He facilitated this vision through the use of modern technology. He pioneered the development of radio communications in the bush, at the same time as he started to develop the outback nursing clinics, and created a network of patrol padres on the road to be there for people wherever they were found.

From 1912 the Australian Inland Mission established 15 nursing homes/bush hospitals in remote Australian locations.

Following the establishment of the Uniting Church in Australia in 1977, the work of the AIM continued in the Presbyterian Church as the Presbyterian Inland Mission and in the Uniting Church as Frontier Services.

The order of the Faithful Companions of Jesus Sisters (FCJ Sisters) was founded in Amiens in France in 1820 by Marie Madeleine de Bonnault d’Hoüet.

They arrived in Australia in response to requests from local priests for assistance in establishing a viable Catholic School system. The Education Act of 1872 spelt the end of government financial support for all religious and independent schools which meant that if the Catholic Church wanted to maintain existing schools and establish new schools, it had to find all necessary finance. The priests and bishops sought help from religious communities overseas.

In June 1882, 12 FCJ sisters arrived in Melbourne, Victoria where they soon founded a school in the inner city suburb of Richmond. Vaucluse College FCJ was soon at capacity, so land was purchased in Kew, to the east. They built a new convent and boarding school which marked the establishment of Genazzano FCJ College. In 1900 the Sisters set up a school in Benalla called FCJ College and in 1968 founded Stella Maris Convent and boarding school in Frankston, Victoria. The Stella Maris Convent and Vaucluse College FCJ have since closed.

In recent years, FCJ sisters have engaged in ministry abroad, in such places as Sierra Leone, Bolivia, the Philippines, Indonesia and Romania, as well as in remote communities in Australia, such as the Kimberley.

In 1868 Bishop Sheil of Adelaide requested the assistance of the Dominican Sisters of Cabra to set up a secondary school for the daughters of the early white settlers of Adelaide, South Australia. A school, with provision for boarders, opened at Franklin Street Adelaide in 1869. The school continues to exist today at different premises and under the name of Cabra Dominican College.

Sophia is an ecumenical women’s spirituality centre, which opened at Cumberland Park, in Adelaide, South Australia in 1991. Although founded by the Dominican nuns of the Holy Cross parish, Sophia embraces spirituality in its broadest sense. Teaching, activities and counselling are arranged by the centre, which describes itself as ‘a circle of women, not an institution’. The members are committed to nurturing the spirituality of those who come to the centre, in celebrating together, and in working constructively for justice.

Known as the Josephites or the ‘Brown Joeys’ (on account of the brown habits they wore), the Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart were founded in Penola, South Australia in 1866 by a teacher, Mary MacKillop, and an English priest, Reverend Julian E Tenison Woods. Both were concerned about the needs of children in remote areas growing up without Catholic education or religious training.

Unique to their ministry was their view that, to do their best work, members of their flock needed to move out of the convents and into the community. This belief, in effect, saw the Sisters adopt an administrative structure which eventually saw Mary McKillop excommunicated in 1871. The order was removed in February of 1872, and a full Episcopal investigation of the order cleared her of any wrong-doing. It did, however, impress upon her the need to obtain higher authority to conduct her ministry in the way she saw fit.

In 1873-74, Mary MacKillop went to Rome to seek approval for what was, essentially, a cloisterless organisation of women religious. She returned victorious, with Constitutions for this new and different kind of religious institute in hand, a document that defined an administrative structure specifically suited to Australian conditions. It allowed for the sisters to leave their convent and serve the poor in the districts where they lived.

Even today, Josephites live among ordinary people in houses of two or three providing education and support for the children and families living in rural areas as well as the cities.