The Australian Women's Register

The Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement Inc (ALRM) is a not for profit organisation that provides legal service to Aboriginal people and their communities. Established in 1971, and incorporated in 1973, it exists to get social justice for Aboriginal people and their communities.

The inaugural meeting of the Catholic Women’s League in Australia took place in Adelaide, South Australia on 25 October 1914. Based on the British model, the aim was to centralise the activities of various Catholic women’s societies and give public expression to Catholic thought on vital questions. Its founder, Miss Betty Leworthy became the first secretary, with Mrs Abigail McMahon Glynn president. Whilst in London in 1916 Glynn received permission to use the British Catholic Women’s League badge. Australian members devised their motto as ‘Charity, Work, Loyalty’ and expressed the intention ‘to unite Catholic women in a bond of common fellowship for the promotion of religious and intellectual interests and social work’. One of its major projects was to establish the St Mary’s Hostel in 1916, which continued until 1972. From 1975 the Catholic Women’s League Child Care Centre operated from the Hostel site at 178 East Terrace.

The social activism of quite young women is graphically captured in the activities of the Girls Social and Political Union, which flourished between 1914 and 1917. It was a discussion group formed by Ellinor Walker in 1914, when she was just 18, with a friend, and around 20 other young women. The aims of the group were to promote mutual awareness of matters South Australian, Australian, Imperial and international to make the most effective use of their voting rights.

They discussed a wide range of social, political and economic topics, some of which bear currency today—’large pensions being granted to Government servants at the present time of so-called economy’; sweated labour; the wheat scheme, land values taxation.

The Save Our Sons Movement was formed in 1965 to seek the reappeal of the National Service act and disbanded in 1975. In an effort to bring back servicemen stationed in Vietnam, the Save Our Sons movement made public protests against the conduct of the war in Vietnam, aided those who had been jailed after refusing to be conscripted, spoke on behalf of conscientious objectors at rallies, passed out leaflets, attended vigils and supported in court those who were charged with resisting conscription.
The Save Our Sons movement was just one of the many groups opposed to Australia’s involvement in the Vietnam war. Although there were male members, women held all office-holder positions.

The Women’s Electoral Lobby (WEL.) first formed in Victoria, 1972. Conducted on a voluntary, non-profit basis, the W.E.L is a political pressure group that seeks to remove the economic and social disadvantages of women in Australia, to end discrimination against women and to promote equal opportunity. The W.E.L was constituted with a double purpose – to carry to the elected representatives of the community the views and requirements of female electors and to inform those female electors about their representatives’ standard of consciousness of women’s issues.

One of a series, the Third Women and Labour Conference intended to encourage research and experience sharing which furthered women’s understanding of their participation in the workforce and Australian society. More than 100 sessions were conducted with papers and workshops covering topics such as women and work, technological change and its impact upon women’s employment, women and the family, the programs to assist women to take up “non-traditional” employment, migrant women, women’s studies, feminist theory and practice, lesbianism, women and ageing, women and the media, women and art, work and unions, feminist literary criticisms and the strategies for women in the 80s (discussed by guest speakers Deborah McCulloch and Bettina Cass). The conference aimed to ensure the participation of a wide range of women and to promote contributions on important topics.

In 1973, the first national conference on Sexism in Education was convened by the Women’s Liberation Movement, fuelled by concern for the position of women and girls in society and Women’s Studies courses were established at Flinders and Adelaide Universities. Teachers and Students quickly became aware of a shortage of materials in this area and a group of women educators began meeting in 1974 to redress this. In July 1975 the Women’s Studies Resource Centre was established at Wattle Park Teachers College funded by a grant from the Australian National Advisory Committee for International Women’s Year. After moving several times the WSRC relocated to its present address in the suburb of North Adelaide.

Initiated by women already in the art world, the Women’s Art Movement (hereinafter named W.A.M.) was part of an international trend somewhat belated in Australia, which lead women artists to look at their position as women in society and to analyse their position as artists through a feminist frame. The W.A.M offered women artists support within an alternative group structure. The group began with the aim of supporting and promoting women artists, educating members on the problem of discrimination and working with one another to overcome sexism in the arts and society. Fifty women ranging in age from 18 to 65 attended the first meeting. As attendance numbers grew, funding was required. Such monetary resources were obtained from the South Australia Arts Grant Advisory Committee (A.G.A.C), the Community Arts Board (C.A.B), and the Visual Arts Board (V.A.B) for salary and administrative costs, workshops and the publication of the book Women’s Art Movement 1978-1979, Adelaide, South Australia, respectively.

The Zonta Club of Adelaide was officially chartered on April 17, 1969. Allthea Tebbutt was elected as the first president of the Club, alongside Board Members Irene Jeffries, Dr Catherine Ellis, Geraldine Little, Joyce Cupples, Brenda Coulter and Judith Hay.

The Panhellenic Women’s Movement was a broad-based, progressive women’s organisation established in 1977 in order to assist and represent Australian women of Greek heritage.

The National Fitness Council of South Australia was a government advisory body established in 1939 that alerted individuals to the importance of gaining physical fitness, and encouraged community interest in open space and the “Quality of Environment.” In 1976 the Council was taken over by the Department of Tourism, Recreation and Sport.

The South Australian Women’s Amateur Sports Council was established with financial and administrative assistance from the National Fitness Council to promote the interests of sportswomen in South Australia, and to help formulate “a common policy on planning and development for women’s sport”. One of its most important initiatives, in cooperation with the National Fitness Council of South Australia, was the establishment of the Women’s Memorial Playing Fields on the corner of Shepherds Hill Road and Ayliffes Road, St. Marys.

The concept of a Women’s Memorial Playing Fields emanated from the concern from South Australia’s sporting women over the lack of playing areas available to them. Sports field for women had always been in short supply in Adelaide, but the situation was made worse by the rapid growth of women’s participation in sport in the post-war period.

This concern led to the formation of the South Australian Women’s Amateur Sports Council. With the help of the National Fitness Council they lobbied the government for resources and were eventually successful. In 1953 the Premier, the Hon. Tom Playford, granted the Council 20 acres of reserve land on the corner of Shepherds Hill Road and Ayliffes Road, St. Marys for a centre for women’s sport.

From 1953-55 the fields progressed and prospered. In 1956 to honour those who had died during war, a memorial drinking fountain was erected, and the grounds as a whole were dedicated to the South Australia Servicewomen who served in World Wars I and II. A ceremony remembering the nurses and other women in the services is held each February.

The work of early Trust members is commemorated in the naming of the Helen Black oval, the Gordon Brown oval and the May Mills Pavilion.

The Women’s Memorial Playing fields are the only dedicated women’s memorial of this type in Australia.

The Catholic Female Refuge in Adelaide was established in Mitcham in in 1856 to shelter girls who were in ‘moral danger’. Its ‘clients’ soon extended beyond girls to women who also needed support. In exchange for care and shelter, women and girls assisted with the sewing and laundry work which helped to provide an income for the refuge. Some women remained at there for years as ‘Magdalens’ working and praying with the nuns.

From 1868 to 1962 Josephite nuns ran the refuge, which moved to Norwood in 1872, and into new premises at Fullarton in 1901. The institution continues to function today as a women’s housing co-operative.

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.

The Women Lawyers’ Association of South Australia was incorporated in July 1998, although the need for a women’s association had been discussed well before then and was long in the making.

On 21st September 1988 a meeting was held at the Law Society to discuss forming a women lawyers group. Over 95 women attended and 60 more sent their apologies. This represented more than half of the women practising law at that time and clearly indicated that the concept of a women lawyers committee or group had considerable support.

The Women Lawyers Committee of the Law Society was formally established in April 1989. A volunteer committee took responsibility for running the section, which has continued to this day. Following the establishment of Australian Women Lawyers in 1997, the Women Lawyers Association of South Australia Inc. has operated as an independently incorporated body, although their activities remain intertwined with those of the Women Lawyers Committee of the Law Society.

The Supreme Court of South Australia is the superior court of the State and is a court of both law and equity. It deals with the most important civil cases and the most serious criminal matters. In its appellate jurisdiction, the Supreme Court reviews and determines errors which may have occurred in other courts of the State and interprets and expounds the law for the guidance of other courts. The court was set up by ordinance of 7 Will. IV c.5 on 2 January 1837, five days after the Colony of South Australia was founded. Its first sitting was held on 13 May 1837.

The Magistrates’ Court of South Australia was established by the Magistrates Court Act 1991. The Court handles the greatest proportion of litigation in the State. It has four jurisdictions: Civil (General Claims); Civil (Minor Claims); Civil (Consumer and Business) and Criminal.

The inaugural Composing Women’s Festival was held in Adelaide in September 1991. The Festival was founded by composer Becky Llewellyn and it brought Australian female composers together for the first time.

Founded in July 1988, the South Australian Women’s Suffrage League was at the forefront of the campaign for womens’s right to vote.

The Queen Victoria Hospital was the name given to the Queen Victoria Maternity Hospital in 1966. The hospital provided maternity and women’s health services, and also operated as an adoption agency. In March 1989 the Queen Victoria Hospital merged with the Adelaide Children’s Hospital to form the Adelaide Medical Centre for Women and Children.

The Queen Victoria Hospital merged with the Adelaide Children’s Hospital in 1989 to form the Adelaide Medical Centre for Women and Children. In 1995 the centre was renamed the Women’s and Children’s Hospital.

The current Women’s and Children’s Hospital was given its name in 1995, after previously being called the Adelaide Medical Centre for Women and Children.

The centre is located in North Adelaide, South Australia.

In 1939 The Queen’s Home was renamed the Queen Victoria Maternity Hospital. Seven years later, in 1946, it was declared a public hospital under the provisions of the Hospital Benefits Act.

In 1966 the hospital was renamed The Queen Victoria Hospital.

The Queen’s Home was officially opened on 24 May 1902 – Queen Victoria’s 83rd Birthday. The hospital was established as a private maternity hospital and from 1917 unmarried women were admitted for the first time.

In 1939, the hospital was renamed the Queen Victoria Maternity Hospital.

The Advanced School for Girls opened in Adelaide in 1879. It was the first state secondary school for girls in Australia.

In early 1908 the Advanced School for Girls amalgamated with the Pupil Teacher School and the Grote Street Model School to form the Adelaide Continuation School. The school was renamed Adelaide High School in July of the same year.

In 1951 the school was split into two parts to form the Adelaide Boys’ High School and the Adelaide Girls’ High School.

The Queen Adelaide Club was founded in 1909 by Mrs Margaret Annie Box. The Club, which was named after Queen Adelaide, was established as ‘an exclusive residential club for social and non-political purposes’.