The Australian Women's Register

During World War II Elsie Byth was an executive and/or committee member of a number of organisations. President of the National Council of Women of Australia in 1944 and the National Council of Women of Queensland (1940-1945). She was vice-president of the Australian Comforts Fund in 1940 and the Women’s Voluntary National Register; member of the management committee for the Queensland Patriotic Fund; member of the War Saving committee and the War Accommodation committee. Married to solicitor George Leonard Byth (Len) in 1917, they had four children. Her hobbies included music, flowers and fine needlework.

Muriel Heagney worked tirelessly for the labour movement in various capacities during her long life. Her major commitment, however, was to achieve equal pay for women workers. Born into a labour family, she joined the Richmond branch of the Political Labour Council (later the Australian Labor Party – ALP) in 1906, and was a delegate to the Women’s Central Organising Committee in 1909. Other positions she held included: membership of the Victorian central executive of the Australian Labor Party from 1926-1927; secretary of the Women’s Central Organising Committee; and ex officio member of the party’s central executive in 1955. She was a founding member of the Council of Action for Equal Pay which was established in Sydney in 1937 under the auspices of the New South Wales branch of the Federated Clerks’ Union and was secretary for most of its existence. It disbanded in 1948. She returned to Victoria in 1950 and continued to maintain her union and political interests into the 1960s. Her publications include Are women taking men’s jobs?, (1935), Equal pay for the sexes, (1948), Arbitration at the crossroads, (1954). She died in poverty in St Kilda in May 1974.

A member of the original Australian Women’s Army Service Officer’s School, Joan Bryce was appointed Assistant Commandant. She was discharged on 12 February 1946 with the rank of Lieutenant.

When established in 1981, Joan Bryce became the first patron of the AWAS Association of Queensland.

Dorathea Skov joined the Australian Women’s Army Service (AWAS) after seeing an advertisement for girls interested in becoming army officers in 1941. Prior to enlisting Skov had been secretary of a variety of sporting bodies and suburban church groups as well as being interested in the YWCA. She became a member of the original Officer’s School and was later appointed Assistant Commandant Northern Command. Early in 1942 Captain Skov was one of the officers who interviewed candidates to enlist in the AWAS, visiting sixteen outback centres per week in the busiest period.

Dorathea Skov was the Queensland representative on the Sybil Irving Memorial Fund Committee.

Alma Hartshorn was a member of the Australian Student Christian Movement before she joined the Australian Women’s Army Service on 14 December 1942. She attended the first officer’s school and was later posted as Assistant Commandant Northern Command with the rank of Captain. Hartshorn was discharged on 1 March 1945.

Following the war, Hartshorn became a lecturer in Social Work at the University of Queensland. A member of the AWAS Association Qld, she became patron in 1995. For her academic and professional work, Alma Hartshorn was awarded an OAM (Member of the Order of Australia) on 26 January 1983, as well as a Fullbright Scholarship.

President of the Women’s Services Sub-Branch of the RSL, Alice Penman served with the Australian Army during World War II. She served in the Middle East as a Voluntary Aid Detachment member and then in Far North Queensland. Penman later served with the Australian Army Medical Women’s Service (AAMWS) after the Government of the time decided to distinguish between military and non-military Voluntary Aids.

During the ‘Australia Remembers, 1945-1995’ celebrations Penman participated in a number of functions emphasizing the work carried out by the Voluntary Aid Detachment Red Cross members.

On 13 June 1993 she was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia for service to veterans particularly through the Returned & Services League New South Wales and to the Friends of the Northcott Neurological Centre.

On 29 June 1985 Meta Williams was appointed to the Order of the British Empire – Officer (Civil) (OBE) for services to the Girl Guide Movement.

Williams’ association with Guiding commenced at the end of 1930 when she became a member of the 1st Coorparoo Company (23rd Brisbane) and was enrolled in early 1931. She went on to hold a variety of positions at local, state and national levels.

In 1984 Williams researched and complied the publication The Continuing Challenge: a history of Queensland Guiding from 1919-84 which was launched by Senator Lady Bjelke-Petersen. This was followed by The Continuing Challenge Part 11 1984-91 in 1992 as well as histories of four former State Commissioners’ terms of office.

Williams was also a member of the state executive of the YWCA Queensland, member of the Victoria League for Commonwealth Friendship in Queensland and the Pan-Pacific and South-East Asia Women’s Association (Queensland).

In March 1981 Meta Williams was honoured in being elected Mother of the Year (Queensland).

Pamela O’Neil was Australia’s first Sex Discrimination Commissioner.

Judy Abbott was awarded the Royal Red Cross, 1st Class on 18 February 1943 for her leadership while matron with the 2/6 Australian General Hospital in the Middle East and Greece. After the war Abbott won the 1946 Florence Nightingale International Foundation scholarship, and studied at the Royal College of Nursing, London for 18 months. In 1948 she returned to her pre-war position on the tutorial staff at the Brisbane Hospital.

Abbott was appointed principal matron of the Citizen Military Forces and served with the 1st Camp Hospital, Brisbane, for a short time during the Korean War. From 1954 until 1956 she was president of the Australasian Trained Nurses’ Association (Queensland Branch) and a member of the Queensland State Nurses and Masseurs Registration Board. Nearing the end of her career, she worked as a staff nurse with the Commonwealth Savings Bank for five years and then in a doctors’ surgery before retiring in 1970.

Judy Abbott fractured her spine in 1975 and suffered quadriplegia. After her death on 27th November her body was given to the school of anatomy, University of Queensland.

Frances Provan was one of the first 14 females posted to HMAS Harman, the communications station in Canberra, on 28 April 1941, making her one of the first members of the Women’s Royal Australian Naval Service (WRANS).

A member of the New South Wales Army Nursing Service Reserve (NSWANSR), Bessie Pocock served in the Boer War. She was awarded the Queen’s and the King’s South Africa medals and mentioned in despatches. Once again Pocock enlisted in the defence force at the outbreak of World War I. Serving in Cairo and Ismailia (Egypt) Pocock was later a matron on hospital ships. On 2 May 1916 Bessie Pocock was awarded the Royal Red Cross Medal (2nd class) for her service with the Australian Army Nursing Service (AANS).

During World War II Beryl Pender was superintendent in Queensland of the Australian Women’s Land Army (AWLA). She was previously with the Queensland Public Service and secretary to the Queensland Trade Commission. Pender was the first married woman to be readmitted to the public service on the outbreak of the war. Following the war she maintained an interest in the ‘land girls’ and helped with the organising of the 30-year reunion and a short history of the organisation.

First Assistant Secretary, Office of the Status of Women 1993-1994.

Julie Hammer was the first woman to command an operational unit in the RAAF, the Electronic Warfare Squadron, and was awarded a Conspicuous Service Cross for that command. She was the recipient of the 1996 Association of Old Crows (Australian Chapter) Award for Distinguished Service to Electronic Warfare. She was awarded the 2001 Sir Charles Kingsford Smith Memorial Medal by the Royal Aeronautical Society to recognise her contribution to Australian aerospace and delivered the 2001 Kingsford Smith Memorial Lecture. She is a Fellow of the Institution of Engineers Australia, a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society and a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. She was the first woman in the RAAF to become a member of the General List on promotion to Group Captain 1996, and the first serving woman in the history of the Australian Defence Force to be promoted to One Star level, on promotion to Air Commodore in 1999. She served for three years from 1996 to 1998 as one of the Prime Minister’s representatives on the Governor General’s Australian Bravery Awards Council.

Barbara Ward was born on February 12, 1954 in Gympie, Queensland, educated at Aspley State High School and studied Economics at the University of Queensland.
Barbara was advisor to the Hon Paul Keating, MP between 1979 and 1985. ( Keating was Treasurer of Australia between 1983 and 1991).
Barbara held various positions with TNT Finance between 1985 and 1993 and then was Chief Executive of Ansett Worldwide Aviation Services 1993-97.
Barbara has been Chairman of North Power since 2000 and a director of the Commonwealth Bank since 1994.

(Source: Herd, Margaret (editor) Who’s Who in Australia, 2002, 38th edition, Crown Content, Melbourne.)

[NB: the above biography was researched and written by Philida Sturgiss-Hoy]

A fourth-generation Chinese Australian, Shun Wah is known for hosting ABC & SBS programs Studio 22, The Big Picture, Image, Eat Carpet, The Noise and Media Dimensions.
In 1996, she was nominated for an AFI award in ‘Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role’ for acting debut in Floating Life.
She is the co-author with Greg Aitkin of the publication Banquet: 10 Courses to Harmony.

(Sources: http://www.amida.com.au/profiles/1001.diffe.html accessed 18/02/02; http://www.anu.edu/pad/community/literary/pastlitevents/Text/shun-wah.html accessed 18/02/02 and http://www.thei.aust.com/isite/cellfloatlife.html accessed 18/02/02)

Katie Spearritt completed her PhD in Industrial Relations and became E-commerce consultant at Hewlett-Packard.
She joined the Women’s Electoral Lobby in 1993 and is founding convenor of the Young Feminists Group, Women’s Electoral Lobby (Victoria).
In 1988 Spearritt was award the University Medal, University of Queensland and the Australian PostGrad Research Award in 1993.

(Source: http://www.arts.monash.edu.au/ws/research/projects/women_changing.html accessed 01/02/02; http://www.buseco.monash.edu.au/Centres/NKCIR/Update/Issue2/news05.html accessed 01/02/02 and Contemporary Australian Women 1996/97)

“Margarey is founding Editor of Australian Feminist Studies, founding Director of the Research Centre for Women’s Studies at the University of Adelaide, and author of a the biography of Catherine Spence Unbridling the Tongues of Women (1985). Other
publications include Debutante Nation: Feminism contests the 1890s, co-edited with Sue Rowley and Susan Sheridan (1993) and Women in a Restructuring Australia: Work and Welfare, co-edited with Anne Edwards (1995).
(Source: Passions of the first wave feminists, Susan Magarey.)”

A member of the Australian Labor Party, Jenny Macklin was elected to the House of Representatives of the Australian Parliament representing the electorate of Jagajaga, Victoria in 1996. She was re-elected in 1998, 2001, 2004, 2007, 2010 and 2013. On 22 November 2001, Macklin was elected unopposed as Deputy Leader of the Federal Opposition and retained that position until November 2006. She was Shadow Minister for Employment, Education, Training and Science. With the election of a Labor Government in 2007, she took on the ministerial portfolio of Families, Housing, Community Service and Indigenous Affairs. She continued to hold that position after the 2010 election. Her final portfolios before the defeat of the Labor government in September 2013, were Disability Reform; Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs.

McLucas was elected as a Senator for Queensland in 1998. She trained as a Primary School teacher at the Townsville College of Advanced Education, and was the first woman President of the Townsville CAE Student Union in 1977. Her teaching career was mainly in northern Queensland. McLucas was an active member of the Queensland Teachers’ Union in 1977 and was also the Secretary of the Cairns and District Provincial Trades and Labor Council from 1985-1988. In 1995 she was elected as a councillor for the Cairns City Council and represented the people of Division Seven until taking up her Senate seat on 1 July 1999. She was re-elected in 2004 and 2010. She currently holds the positions of Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Queensland and for Disabilities and Carers.

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.

Wendy Edmond was Queensland Minister for Heath and Minister Assisting the Premier on Women’s Policy. She was elected MLA (ALP) for the electorate of Mount Coot-tha on 2 December 1989.

Nancy Cato was an acclaimed author. She published several historical novels and biographies and two volumes of poetry. Cato was also a strong campaigner for environmental conservation.

Edna Walling is best known for her contribution to Australian landscape architecture design. She was also a talented amateur photographer, and used the many photographs of gardens she took to illustrate the books and articles she wrote. Walling also created portrait photography.

Dr Ruth Sanger was an internationally known expert in blood grouping, who for many years worked for the Medical Research Council in London.

Ruth Sanger, the daughter of Hubert and Katharine Mary Ross (née Cameron) Sanger, obtained her Science Degree from Sydney of University in 1940. She then worked in the blood-grouping laboratory of the Sydney Red Cross Blood Transfusion Service. After the Second World War Sanger moved to London and worked for Dr Robert Race, her future husband, at the Medical Research Council. In 1950 she co-wrote Blood Groups in Man, with her husband and they released their sixth and final edition in 1975. Dr Sanger also contributed papers to medical and genetic journals. She was admitted as a fellow of Britain’s Royal Society in 1972 and in the same year she was a joint recipient of the Gairdner Foundation Award. In 1983 Dr Sanger retired as director of the British Medical Research Council, a position she had held for ten years. She was a member of the International Society of Blood Transfusion and an affiliate of similar groups in Canada, Germany, Mexico and Norway. The British Blood Transfusion Society has established the Race and Sanger Award.

Dorothy Hill was the first female Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science (1956); the first Australian woman elected to the Royal Society (1965); the first female President of the Australian Academy of Science (1970); and the first woman in an Australian university to be president of her university’s professorial board (1971-1972).