The Australian Women's Register

First established in 1914, in 1923 the Club affiliated with the Australian Federation of University Women (AFUW). The same year the Club affiliated with the Women Students’ Union (as the Women Students’ Club had become known), assuming independent status rather than that of a sub-society. It disaffiliated with the Women Students’ Union in 1929 and became The Adelaide University Women’s Graduates’ Association. It later affiliated directly with the University Union in 1934. In 1968 the name of the Association was changed to the South Australian University Women Graduates’ Association, following the establishment of Flinders University. After the Brisbane Conference of January 1974 all branches of the AFUW altered their constitutions and names in the interest of uniformity and greater unity, and the Association became the AFUW – SA. The Association was incorporated in 1981. In 2009, the name was changed again in line with the National body.

The objects of the Association as expressed in the 1929 constitution were “to promote understanding and friendship between the women graduates of this and other universities and to keep abreast of modern developments in academic subjects of interest to students”. A bursary fund was established in 1929 and donations were made to the Australian Federation for scholarships and bursaries, the funds being derived from subscriptions and from the hiring of hoods and gowns (initiated in 1935). In the 1960s, a formula was established for the apportionment of funds for bursaries, and the Association began a separate fund to finance its own bursaries while still contributing to AFUW. And IFUW fellowships. The Jean Gilmore bursary was established in 1969 (initial value $500, open to all Australian women graduates proceeding to a higher degree) and the Doreen McCarthy and Barbara Case bursaries in 1979. Vocations Conferences for female secondary students were initiated in 1933 and held regularly (with the exception of the war years) until 1973.