The Australian Women's Register

Most of Geason’s professional life centred on politics and writing, often a combination of both, including positions as a researcher in Parliament House, Canberra; Cabinet Adviser in the New South Wales Premier’s Department; and head of information in what is now the Environment Protection Authority. Since 1988 she has worked as a freelance writer and editor, and from 1992 till 1997, was literary editor of the Sydney weekly newspaper, the Sun-Herald.

Olive Pink was a botanical artist and anthropologist who campaigned for the rights of Aboriginal people. She was one of few women anthropologists working in a male dominated field in the 1930s and 1940s. Pink positioned herself as an expert on Aboriginal people and campaigned from this basis in her criticism of government officials, missionaries and pastoralists.

In February 1890, Dr Constance Stone became the first woman to be registered with the Medical Board of Victoria, paving the way for medical women in Melbourne, Australia, Working mainly with women and children in free clinics, she gave low-income women the opportunity to be treated in private, free from the embarrassment of examination in front of male medical students. She founded the Victorian Medical Women’s Society and was a member of a number of women’s organisations, including the Victorian Women’s Franchise League. Her major achievement was the foundation of the Queen Victoria Memorial Hospital.

Jane Fletcher published a number of books on nature and nature study, and broadcast on 7ZL Hobart and 3LO Melbourne. In 1934 she became the first woman to lecture to the Royal Society of Tasmania. She was an outstanding bird observer with a particular interest in crakes and rails.

Dame Enid Lyons AD GBE was the first woman elected to the Australian federal Parliament, in 1943. She was also the first woman in federal Cabinet. She was appointed as a Dame Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire (Civil) on 11 May 1937 for her public services to Australia and as a Dame of the Order of Australia (AD) on 26 January 1980.

A member of the Australian Labor Party, Judy Jackson was elected to the House of Assembly in the Tasmanian Parliament representing the electorate of Denison in 1986. During her parliamentary career, she held the ministerial portfolios of Health and Human Services from 1998-2002 and Attorney-General from 2002 until her retirement in 2006.

Fran Bladen was elected a State Member (ALP) for Franklin in Tasmania and held her seat from 1986 to 2002. She held several ministerial portfolios from 1989 to 1992, and returned to the ministry as Secretary to Cabinet in 1998. She resigned from the Legislative Assembly in 2002 to unsuccessfully contest the Legislative Council seat of Huon.

Irene Longman was the first woman to both stand for and be elected to the Queensland Parliament. She was a member of the Country and Progressive National Party for the electorate of Bulimba from 11 May 1929 to 11 June 1932. Longman moved Address-in-Reply to the Governor’s Opening of Parliament Speech on 21 August 1929.

Margaret Reynolds was a Senator for Queensland from 1983 until 1999. First elected to the Senate in 1983, she was re-elected in 1984, 1987 and 1993. Reynolds worked as primary and remedial teacher then a tutor before entering parliament. She also served on the Townsville City Council from 1979-1983. Reynolds’ responsibilities have included: Federal Government representative on the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation 1992-1995; Minister assisting PM on Status of Women 1988-1990; Chair of the Parliamentary Adviser to the United Nations; and Minister for Local Government 1987-1990. Reynolds has been a member of the Australian Labor Party since 1971, and has held many positions in the ALP.

Reynolds retired from parliamentary politics in 1999. She is now the National President of the United Nations Association of Australia and an Adjunct Professor and Sessional Lecturer in the School of Political science and international studies, University of Queensland.

After leaving school Dorothea Henslowe worked as a teacher and governess. During World War I she was a Voluntary Aid at Hornsey Hospital at Evandale after which she returned to teaching. After both her parents died in 1935, Henslowe travelled to Canada and then settled in Battery Point, Hobart. She worked in an honorary capacity for the Australian Board of Mission, a missionary organisation of the Anglican Church that works largely in Asia, the Pacific and with Aboriginal communities, for over 30 years.

Millie Best was one of the first two women elected to the Tasmanian House of Assembly. Throughout her life she was a dedicated community and voluntary worker including being a commandant in the Voluntary Aid Detachment Canteen Services during World War II.

On 2 January 1956 Amelia Best was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire for services to social welfare.

Jean Crittenden began nursing in 1937 as a Bush Nursing Sister. Crittenden then served with the Australian Army Nursing Service between 1940 and 1946. Assistant Matron at the Repatriation General Hospital in Heidelberg from 1946 to 1955, she then became matron of Queensland’s Anzac Hostel and the Kenmore Sanatorium. Following this, from 1958 until 1971, Crittenden was Matron of the Repatriation General Hospital in Hobart from 1958 to 1971. In 1966, she received the honour of being appointed a Member to the Order of the British Empire.

Emily Dobson was a tour de force in late nineteenth and early twentieth-century Tasmanian society. As the wife of the State Premier, Henry Dobson, she played a central role in multiple political and charitable organisations. She was vice-president of the Tasmanian section of the National Council of Women in 1899, and attended the first meeting of the International Council of Women in London that year. Dobson became president of the National Council of Women Tasmania in 1904 and held that position until her death. She was the first Australian to be elected vice- president of the International Council of Women at the Rome quinquennial in 1914.

Betty Jeffrey was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia on 8 June 1987 for service to the welfare of nurses in Victoria and ex-service men and women. Jeffrey was one of the members of the Australian Army Nursing Service who was captured by the Japanese after the fall of Singapore in 1942. Incarcerated in Japanese prisoner of war camps for three and a half years, after the war she wrote about the experiences in White Coolies (1954) which was later the basis for the film script Paradise Road (1999). After her return to Melbourne, and spending some time in hospital, Jeffrey and fellow survivor Vivian Bullwinkel travelled throughout Victoria raising funds towards a memorial for military nurses. The Nurses Memorial Centre was opened on 19 February 1950 and Jeffrey was appointed its first administrator. In 1986 she became the Centre’s patron.

Rachel Robinson became the General Organising Secretary of the Housewives’ Association (Victorian Division) in 1924. Educated at the Presentation Convent, Launceston, from 1912 to 1915, Robinson was an organiser with the People’s Liberal Party. She held the position of Organiser with the Australian Industries League in 1919-1921. Robinson acted as secretary for a number of candidates at various state and federal elections.

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.

Louisa Briggs, of Woiworung descent, was born on Preservation Island, Bass Strait. Around 1853 she and her husband, John, went to the Victorian goldfields. Then they worked as shepherds in the Beaufort district until 1871 when the family was admitted destitute to Coranderrk Aboriginal Station. There Briggs acted as nurse and midwife. In 1876 she was appointed matron and became the first Aboriginal woman to replace a European on salaried staff. She became the spokesperson for the residents and succeeded in securing the reappointment of the popular first manager. She fought the Aborigines Protection Board’s plans to sell Coranderrk and remove residents to other reserves, and gave evidence to the 1876 inquiry but was eventually forced off the reserve and moved to Ebenezer Aboriginal Station. After yet another inquiry in 1881 she moved back to Coranderrk where she was reappointed matron. When her sons were forced off the reserve under the Victorian Aborigines Protection Act 1886, she moved first to Maloga Mission, and in 1889 to Cummeragunja reserve. Late in life she moved to Barmah and finally to Cummeragunja where she died in 1925.

Paula Wreidt was elected to the Tasmanian House of Assembly in February, 1996. She was appointed to the portfolio of Minister for Education in September 1998, which made her Tasmania’s youngest ever female member of Cabinet. After her re-election in July 2002, Paula retained her position as Minister for Education. She also gained new responsibilities as Minister for Women Tasmania and Leader of Government Business in the House of Assembly. Following the 2006 election Paula assumed the role of Minister for Tourism, Arts and the Environment.

Ida West was born on Cape Barren Island, Tasmania, in 1919. She attended school at Lughrata, 7 kilometres north of Wybalenna. She married in 1939, and the family moved around the island, living in tents, as her husband had various outdoor jobs with the municipal council. Later, Ida lived in Burnie and Hobart, working as a cleaner while raising the children alone. She became actively involved in community life and acquired an extensive knowledge of Tasmanian Aboriginal culture. She was a board member of the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre, and served as its acting president. Her autobiography, Pride against Prejudice: Reminiscences of a Tasmanian Aborigine, was first published in 1984.

Truganini was the daughter of Mangana, chief of the Bruny Island people. A survivor of The Black Wars that accompanied European settlement in Tasmania, her life epitomises the story of colonial encounters in Tasmania, the clash of two disparate cultures and the resistance and survival of indigenous Tasmanians.

After losing her mother, her sister and her prospective husband at a young age, all of them the victims of colonial violence, Truganini worked hard in the early 1830s to unify what was left of the indigenous communities of Tasmania. An intelligent, energetic and resourceful woman, she worked with white authorities to protect other survivors of The Black Wars who had been forcibly removed from their homelands. In 1830 George Augustus Robinson, a Christian missionary was hired to round up the rest of the indigenous population and he settled them on Flinders Island. Truganini and her husband, Woorrady, helped Robinson in this venture in the hope that removing them would protect them from further violence. Unfortunately, the shock of resettlement, combined with the unsanitary conditions the people were forced to live in, proved fatal and the resettlement program did not work. The result was the virtual annihilation of the one hundred or so people left – mainly due to malnutrition and illness.

Truganini went with Robinson to Port Phillip in 1839 where a similar settlement was attempted with mainland nations, again with disastrous results. This time, having learnt from the Tasmanian experience, Truganini joined with the Port Phillip people when they resisted Robinson’s plans but she was captured and sent back to Flinders Island.

In 1856 there were only a few remaining indigenous survivors left in Tasmania, Truganini among them, who were taken to Oyster Bay. By 1873, except for Truganini, all of the people taken there had died. Truganini was moved to Hobart where she died in 1876. She had no known descendants.

Even in death she was not left in peace. Her skeleton was on display in the Tasmanian Museum from 1904 to 1907. It was not until 1976 that her remains received a proper burial. Aboriginal rights workers cremated Truganini and spread her ashes on the D’Entrecasteaux Channel, close to her birthplace.

Despite being labelled as such for many years, Truganini was not the ‘last Tasmanian Aborigine’, as the population of mixed descent Aboriginal people living in Tasmania readily attests to. Nevertheless, the story of her life and death remains immensely important, not only as a symbol of the plight of indigenous Australians, but as an example of the insensitivity of museum practices.

Lucy Beeton spent most of her life on Badger Island, though she was sent to Launceston as a young girl to receive a Christian education. In adult life, the well-loved Beeton provided an education for the children of sealers on Badger Island and entertained visitors there.

Fanny Cochrane Smith was born in 1834 at Wybalenna settlement on Flinders Island in Bass Strait. From the age of seven she spent her childhood in European homes and institutions, mostly in the household of Robert Clark, catechist at Flinders Island, in conditions of neglect and brutality. When Wybalenna people were moved to Oyster Cove she went into service in Hobart, but returned to Oyster Cove the same year.

On her marriage in 1854 to William Smith, sawyer and ex-convict, she received an annuity of £24. In 1857 they moved to Nicholls Rivulet and took up a land grant, and the first of their 11 children was born the following year. They supported the family by growing produce and splitting shingles. After Truganini died, she claimed herself to be ‘the last Tasmanian’. Her annuity was raised to £50, and she was granted 120 ha of land. She became a Methodist and an active fundraiser, donating land for a church.

Cochrane Smith was proud of her Aboriginal identity, and of her knowledge of food gathering and bush medicine. She became famous for her wax cylinder recordings of Aboriginal songs, now housed in the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery.

Kerry Sculthorpe-Randriamahefa grew up on a farm at Nicholls Rivulet near Oyster Cove in southern Tasmania. After leaving school at 16 and working at a number of jobs, including secretarial work, waitressing and labouring, she travelled overseas. She received a Diploma in Natural Healing in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1972, and completed bilingual studies in Business and Commercial Practice in 1975. She lived in France and Madagascar before returning to Tasmania in 1977.

In 1981 she received her Bachelor of Arts (Social Work) degree from the University of Tasmania, and in 1987 completed a Graduate Diploma in Public Policy at the Australian National University in Canberra. She worked at the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies in the research and administration sections before joining the Australian Public Service in 1987. Since 1990 she has been the manager of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission in Tasmania. She has participated in national forums on indigenous education, health, land rights and legislation, and published a number of papers and reports on Aboriginal issues.

Elizabeth Robinson was a remarkable woman and an Independent candidate for Newcastle in 1932.

A member of the Australian Labor Party (ALP), Ann Barker served as the Member for Bentleigh from 1988-92 in the Legislative Assembly of the Victorian Parliament. She was defeated at the 1992 election, stood unsuccessfully as the ALP candidate for Oakleigh in the 1996 election. but returned to parliament as the Member for Oakleigh in 1999. She held the position of Parliamentary Secretary, Training and Higher Education from 2002-06 and served as Acting Speaker of the Legislative Assembly from 1999-2006. She was re-elected at the November 2006 election and served as Deputy Speaker of the Legislative Assembly from 2006-2010. She was re-elected in November 2010 when the Labor Government was defeated, but retired from Parliament at the 2014 election, when the ALP returned to Government.

Valerie Bush has been a long term environmental campaigner who stood as an Australian Democrats candidate in the 1995 New South Wales Legislative Assembly elections for Cronulla.

Matina Mottee is the Australian born child of Greek migrants who arrived in Australia in the early twentieth century. Her father emigrated from Greece in 1905 as a 12 year old and eventually settled in Tasmania where Matina was born.

Mottee was instrumental in establishing the Association of Non-English Speaking Background Women and in 1987 became that organisation’s first convener. In 1988 her extensive work on behalf of women in migrant communities was recognised when she was awarded the QANTAS Ethnic Communities Award. In keeping with her egalitarian ethics, however, she chose to interpret the award as honouring all immigrant women, not just Matina Mottee.

Upon accepting her award in 1988, Mottee said, ‘I have struggled from [a young age] for equality of opportunity for both my gender and my race.’ Her continued work on the behalf women of culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, at an age when others might have considered retirement, indicates that her attitude and motivation has not changed.