The Australian Women's Register

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 worked in the Pacific Manuscript Bureau at the Australian National University’s College of Asia and the Pacific, participated in Tongan language broadcasts and was an active member of the Multicultural Women’s Advocacy and the City Uniting Church’s social welfare programs. She was also 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.

Read more about Alice Kate Blackall in our sister publication The Encyclopedia of Women and Leadership in Twentieth-Century Australia.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cathy McGowan was elected to the Australian Parliament in the House of Representatives as the Independent Member for Indi at the 2013 Federal election.

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

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

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

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

Read more about Evelyn Helena Parker in our sister publication The Encyclopedia of Women and Leadership in Twentieth-Century Australia.

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

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

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

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

Read more about Halina Teresa Szunejko in our sister publication The Encyclopedia of Women and Leadership in Twentieth-Century Australia.

Halina received a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) in January 1989 for services to education and the Polish community.

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

Read more about Margaret Williams Weir in our sister publication The Encyclopedia of Women and Leadership in Twentieth-Century Australia.

Margaret Williams passed away in 2015, not long after she was recognised for her contribution to the development of Indigenous education policy by the University of Melbourne through the naming of the Dr Margaret Williams-Weir Lounge in the Melbourne Graduate School of Education, and the Dr Margaret Williams-Weir Vice-Chancellor’s Fellowship, of which Noel Pearson is the inaugural recipient.

A life-long educator, Dr Williams-Weir was an Alumna of University Women’s College, where she was offered a scholarship. She was the first Aboriginal graduate of an Australian University.

Roslyn Gay Atkinson AO is a Justice of the Supreme Court of Queensland, having been appointed to that position in 1998. In 2002 she also became the Chairperson of the Queensland Law Reform Commission, and served in that role until her retirement in 2013.