The Australian Women's Register

Catherine Cochrane was a regional winner of the ABC Rural Woman of the Year award in 1997. She represented the Illawarra region in New South Wales. She is the business and administrative brains behind the family run cattle property and company, Reg Cochrane Pty. Ltd.

Catherine entered the farm in the NSW Small Business Awards in 1990 and was runner-up in the Primary Production section. She was trained as a high school teacher was a community representative at the Nowra East School Finance Committee, and President of the Parents and Citizens Association. She worked very hard for her regional community.

A member of the National Party of Australia, Bridget McKenzie was elected to the Parliament of Australia as a Senator for Victoria at the federal election, which was held on 21 August 2010. Her term began on 1 July 2011 and she served as Nationals Whip in the Senate from September 2013 until June 2014.

Bridget previously stood as a candidate for the seat of McMillan in the House of Representatives at the 2004 federal election.

Celie Moar was the Victorian winner of the ABC Rural Woman of the Year Award in 1995.

A mother of six, Celie is a teacher and counsellor by training, sometimes working off farm in both these areas. In 1990, she established a business partnership with her husband and now runs a successful grain merchant business from their home in Victoria’s Mallee District.

She was also a foundation member of Australian Women in Agriculture and often speaks to groups about issues relating to women in rural communities.

Celie has also served on the board of Telstra.

Jackie Brown was the Tasmanian Winner of the ABC Rural Woman of the Year Award for 1995.

Jackie, a teacher at Bridgewater High School in southern Tasmania, was given the task of taking over the Agricultural studies program at the school farm. An under-utilized resource, she developed the farm and the program is supports from being one of the least popular enrolment options to the most popular option subject, with 127 students currently enrolled. She also established a Landcare Centre at the farm to ensure the sustainability of the project.

Her passion for the project has seen it grown and develop over twenty years. In 2010, she won the RIRDC version of the Rural Woman if the year award. Jackie used the opportunity and the $10,000 bursary from the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation’s to study international best practice agricultural education.

A passionate advocate of primary industry courses in schools, Jackie Brown says there’s a well known shortage of young people going into careers in and around agriculture and she hopes her project will help find ways to motivate and encourage young people to think again about the primary industries.

A member of the Liberal Party of Australia, Cindy McLeish was elected as the Member for Seymour in the Legislative Assembly of the Parliament of Victoria in November 2010. As a result of the electoral redivision of 2012-13, she was elected to the new Legislative Assembly seat of Eildon at the November 2014 election.

Ethel Tory was a teacher of French and Latin and an advocate for drama and language studies, particularly French. She taught French and Latin in Western Australian schools and at the University of Western Australia before undertaking further study in French literature in Paris. She was appointed a lecturer in French at the Australian National University in 1961 and promoted to Senior Lecturer in 1965. In 1970, she published an edition of Giraudoux’s play Intermezzo for use in schools and universities. She retired in 1977 but continued to teach French and to support drama studies at the Australian National University through donations and a bequest on her death in 2003.

Ruth Arndt was a qualified social worker who, while unable to practise her profession because her British qualifications were not recognised in Australia, was a tireless advocate and community worker in Canberra, particularly for migrants and foreign students. She taught English to many new arrivals, taught German and Economics at both Canberra Boys’ and Girls’ Grammar Schools and worked as a research officer in the Department of External Affairs. She also served on the Australian National University Council, the Governing Body of Bruce Hall and was president of the Ladies Drawing Room at University House.

Jan Brown was a distinguished Canberra artist whose work has been exhibited in Canberra since the 1960s and whose public art installations include Kangaroos in Commonwealth Park and the Icarus group of sculptures in Petrie Plaza in Canberra. She taught sculpture and drawing for over forty years at the Canberra Technical College and the Canberra School of Art.

Born to Belgian and Scandinavian parents, Hilma Dymphna Lodewyckx grew up surrounded by languages which, combined with a natural talent, saw her master over eight languages and become a successful linguist. Her most ambitious and important work was a translation from German to English of Baron Carl von Hügel’s New Holland Journal. After meeting her future husband Manning Clark at Melbourne University, the couple journeyed to Germany and England, respectively, to continue their studies. They married at Oxford in 1939. Returning to Australia to escape the war in Europe, the couple and their growing family eventually settled in Canberra where Manning took up a position at what would become the Australian National University. Dymphna worked to raise her young family and establish their home as a warm welcoming space for friends and colleagues, as well as assisting Manning with translations and editing for his historical works. By 1959 Dymphna returned to teaching, eventually taking up a position at the ANU German Department. She was also an activist for Aboriginal rights and the environment. After Manning’s death in 1991 Dymphna worked tirelessly to turn the home they shared into Manning Clark House – a cultural hub for scholars, artists and writers. Today, Manning Clark House still plays a vital role in the Canberra community.

Joan Corbett began her career in Canberra as a mathematics teacher then worked as a union official with the ACT Teachers Federation. She was appointed the first Women’s Officer of the Australian Teachers’ Federation in 1986, then joined the Commonwealth Public Service specialising in policy development initially in the Department of Employment, Education and Training on youth support and women’s employment including child care issues. Moving to the Department of Health and Ageing in 2003 she worked in the areas of Indigenous health and the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. She left the Australian Public Service in 2011 and is currently an Associate Professor in Public Health at the University of Canberra.

Joyce Goodes was a well-known Canberra personality who made a substantial contribution to the cultural and community life of the capital between the mid-1940s until her death in 1990. In the late war years she instigated meetings for the establishment of the city’s first kindergarten at Acton in 1944, and her teaching at Canberra Girls’ Grammar School over thirty years culminated in her single-handedly setting up the new library of 10,000 books at the Junior School, built in 1973. But Joyce Goodes is best remembered for the quality of her body of work as a local theatre producer, director and actor, first at Canberra Repertory Society in its early days and, from 1960, with her own group The Theatre Players. The legacy of this work resides in an award, The Theatre Players Scholarship, granted yearly to assist a promising young person from the ACT undertaking their tertiary education in any aspect of theatre craft.

Yetty Landau was an actor and comedian who worked in Melbourne and with travelling companies. She was a popular broadcaster in Melbourne and Canberra and with her actor husband set up schools which taught drama, elocution and public speaking. After her husband’s death Yetty continued teaching verse speaking, training choirs and successfully preparing students for the examinations of Trinity College, London.

Alice Mayo was a third generation Australian, the daughter of William Mayo and Mary Ann Warwick. Her grandfather, Albert Mayo, had arrived as a convict in 1839 and lived and worked in the Duntroon area. Alice Mayo married Harold Vere Chumleigh in 1913. They were divorced in 1934 and she married Ferdinand Lomax in 1935. She worked as a schoolteacher as well as running a florist shop in Double Bay and a lingerie shop in Penfold’s Buildings in Sydney. She played the piano as well as tennis. She grew up in Majura and lived between there and Sydney until the time of her second marriage. She and Ferdinand Lomax ran hotels at Boree Creek and Brown Mountain before retiring to Batehaven. Ferdinand Lomax died in 1969. Alice Lomax lived to the age of 101, only moving to a Nursing Home at the age of 99.

Isabel Masters was born in Western Australia in 1912. She graduated from university in 1934 with Honours in English and taught at Kobeelya Girls’ Grammar School in Katanning, Western Australia, Ascham Girls’ School in Sydney, New South Wales and Merton Hall (now Melbourne Girls’ Grammar School) in Melbourne, Victoria before becoming principal of Canberra Girls’ Grammar School in 1947. She retired in 1962, having overseen the doubling in size of what was described as a ‘happy’ school.

Una Mitchell was Headmistress of Canberra Girls’ Grammar between 1937 and 1947. She left Canberra to return to her home state to become Headmistress of St Hilda’s Anglican School for Girls in Mosman Park in Perth. She retired in 1967 and was appointed Chairman of the Conference of Independent Girls’ Schools of Australia. She was an inspiring Science teacher and highly respected principal, who had high educational and moral standards. She dedicated her life to ensuring the girls in her care were prepared for what she saw as a rapidly changing and modernizing world. She taught them to have ‘a high regard for personal integrity’, to be adaptable as well as to have ‘enquiring minds and the spirit of adventure’.

As a young migrant who arrived in Australia from the Netherlands in 1953, Petronella Wensing became concerned about the welfare of other migrants, particularly women, and how they could be successfully integrated into the community. As a consequence of her growing awareness of the problems that existed for them, she became a delegate of the St. Patrick’s branch of the Catholic Women’s League and on 22 June 1961, a member of the Good Neighbour Council of the ACT. Her work with migrants was recognised in the ACT International Women’s Day Awards 2011.

As a skilled artisan her specialities were lace making and embroidery. She was foundation President and a Life Member of the Canberra Lace Makers Association, a past President of the Embroiders’ Guild of the A.C.T. and as well, a member of the Australian Lace Makers Guild. She continued to volunteer and consult with the National Gallery of Australia and the Canberra Museum and Gallery, Canberra on lace and textiles for many years.

Carol Woodrow has pursued a wide-ranging career in theatre in Canberra for many years. In the 1970s through her work with Canberra Youth Theatre, she provided opportunities for young people to learn about drama through improvisation. At the Jigsaw Theatre Company, she worked with professional actors to develop and present work for schools. In the 1980s and 1990s she worked as a freelance director of avant-garde and community theatre with several ensemble companies, developing new scripts and nurturing new playwrights, and also directed plays for professional theatre companies.

Sue Salthouse has worked in the area of social justice since 1996, playing an active role in the systemic advocacy for women with disabilities. She lives in Canberra where she runs her own consultancy company that specialises in work in the disability sector and conducts social research, policy analysis and advice in a number of areas beyond disability advocacy, including project development and management, conference facilitation and TAFE teaching. She has worked extensively with Women in Adult and Vocational Education (WAVE) to develop leadership training projects for women, including women in Aboriginal communities. In 2013 she works hard in a voluntary capacity for Women with Disabilities ACT and Rights International (Australia).

In 2015, Sue was Canberra Citizen of the Year, in recognition of her outstanding commitment and contribution as a disability advocate. In late 2019, Sue was further acknowledged for her enormous contribution to the public good when she was awarded the honour of 2020 ACT Senior Australian of the Year.

Sue Salthouse died in a motor vehicle accident in Canberra on 20 July 2020.

Read an interview with Sue Salthouse in the online exhibition Redefining Leadership.

A student of Newnham College, Cambridge, and a suffragist, Pattie Craske completed a natural sciences degree in botany with second-class honours at a time when the university did not grant degrees to women. After teaching in England, she married Australian entomologist, Robin Tillyard, in Sydney. In 1928, by then the mother of four daughters, she moved to the small, isolated community of Canberra where she became a leader in community, sporting and university organisations and was elected to the Canberra Community Hospital Board in 1935. She was the social face of the growing city, renowned for her welcome to newcomers, in later years being regarded as the ‘grande dame’ of Canberra.

Tonga-born Sioana Faupala graduated from Sydney Teacher’s College in 1959. She taught at the Queen Salote College before marrying Halote Faupula in 1966. From 1972-82 she and their three children lived on the Yirrkala Mission in Arnhem Land following her husband’s appointment as its Methodist minister. There she taught in the Yirrkala Primary School. After subsequent appointments to Uniting Church parishes in Dee Why and Kurri Kurri in NSW, Halote retired to Canberra where he died in 2000. Sioana now works in the Pacific Manuscript Bureau at the Australian National University’s College of Asia and the Pacific, participates in Tongan language broadcasts and is an active member of the Multicultural Women’s Advocacy and the City Uniting Church’s social welfare programs. She is a Uniting Church Elder, assistant Chair of its Tongan congregation and President of both the Canberra Tongan and Pacific Islands United Associations.

Read more about Frances Barkman in our sister publication The Encyclopedia of Women and Leadership in Twentieth-Century Australia.