The Australian Women's Register

Originally named the Nursing Mothers’ Association the extra A for Australia was added in 1969 to reflect the national nature as the Association grew.

Established at a time when formula feeding was seen as modern and fashionable and viewed as being as good as, if not better than breastfeeding.

The Victorian Women Graduates’ Association, Geelong Branch resolved to disband on 15 September 1981. A belated “coffee party” was announced for 6 May 1982 of the “Geelong Graduates’ Group, ex A.F.U.W. – Geelong” to reminisce, plan for the future and discuss commitment to the Deakin Foundation.

The Mildura Branch of the Victorian Women Graduates’ Association was formed in July 1949 and existed until 7 March 1979.

The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union of Victoria was founded in 1887 when the 12 existing local branches in Melbourne suburbs and regional Victoria joined together to form a Colonial Union. It is primarily dedicated to promoting total abstinence from alcohol and other harmful drugs and all members sign a pledge to this effect. Under its broader agenda of ‘home protection’ and the promotion of a healthy lifestyle, and in its belief that the dangers of alcohol could not be tackled in isolation, the WCTU has pursued a very wide-ranging reform agenda mostly relating to the welfare of women and children. Importantly, influenced by its sister organisation in the United States, the Union became a major supporter of the campaign for women’s suffrage in Australia as it was believed that power at the ballot box was the only way to achieve their goals. While at its most influential in the years up to WWI, the movement continues today.

Invergowrie Homecraft Hostel was established as the Homecraft Hostel in 1929 by the Association of Headmistresses of Independent Schools of Victoria (now the Association of Independent Girls Schools of Victoria). Their aims were two-fold: to provide girls on leaving school with a practical home-training; and to establish home and institutional management as a recognised profession for women. Mrs May Isabel Weatherly was the first Principal 1929-38, followed by Margaret Ellen Kirkhope 1938-1967 and Judith Secombe 1968-73. Administration of the school passed to the Invergowrie Council, formed from the Invergowrie Past Students Association, in 1967, when the Headmistresses Association no longer wished to run the Hostel. Dwindling enrolments and financial difficulties forced the Hostel’s closure in 1973

(Source: Historical Note University of Melbourne Archives)

At the Australian Labor Party’s annual conference on 1917, the constitution was amended to establish an official committee for women. The committee was responsible for ‘organising women industrially and politically’. The executive committee was elected at a conference held by the Labor women of Victoria, in March 1918.

The Invergowrie Foundation is a public charitable trust. The primary focus of the Foundation is to promote and advance the education of girls and women within Victoria. The Foundation is administered by twelve Trustees. They are responsible for maintaining the assets and distributing annually the surplus funds to promote and advance education in Victoria.

Held at the Exhibition Buildings Melbourne from 23 October 1907 for five weeks.
Visitors of the exhibition were able to view a display of arts and crafts including: paintings, drawings, sculpture, photography, pottery, needlework, leatherwork, woodwork, spinning and weaving. Exhibitors from Australia, Britain, Europe, North and South America, India and Africa contributed to the exhibition, which was the inspiration of Lady Northcote, wife of the governor-general.

The War Widows’ Guild Of Australia was established in Victoria by the late Mrs Jessie Mary Vasey CBE, OBE. The broad aims of the Guild were to watch over and protect the interests of war widows. Qualification for membership of the Guild was restricted to widows of men who were killed on active service or whose deaths were accepted as being war-caused and were therefore in receipt of a war widow’s pension. Later, widows of interned civilians who received a repatriation war widows’ pension were included, as were widows of allied ex-servicemen.

The Carlton Refuge was established in 1854 with the aim of reforming prostitutes through a combination of prayer and hard work, which usually meant laundry work. As some prostitutes were also mothers, the care of single mothers became a way of fulfilling its primary goal. By 1860 its role had changed to accepting young unmarried women on their discharge from hospital and by 1880 the major part of the Refuge’s work was with those women. Declining demand and alternative means of care brought about its closure in 1949.

In response to the perceived needs of the ‘deserving poor’, the Melbourne Ladies Benevolent Society (MLBS) began operations as the Presbyterian Female Visiting Society in August 1845. By 1851, it was known as the MLBS, and retained that name until 1964, when it became the Melbourne Ladies’ Welfare Society. The Society supplied food, clothing and other necessities to the respectable poor at home, particularly women in the Fitzroy and surrounding areas. The MLBS was acknowledged as Melbourne’s principal relieving agency and played a major role in dispensing social service benefits until the 1940s, when the Commonwealth Government assumed a greater responsibility for social welfare.

The Temporary Teachers’ Club was formed in October 1955 in response to pressure from the increasing numbers of qualified married women teachers who felt that marriage should not be a bar to permanent employment in the Victorian state teaching service. As a section of the Victorian Teachers’ Union, it maintained pressure on that organisation to negotiate with the Victorian Government to legislate for the removal of the marriage bar. It could claim qualified success when appropriate legislation was passed in October 1956.

The National Council for the Single Mother and her Child (NCSMC), established in 1973, evolved from the Victorian based Council for the Single Mother and her Child, which was formed in 1970 to advocate on behalf of single mothers and their children. Embracing the concept of self-help, it campaigned successfully for the introduction of a Supporting Mothers’ Benefit, and supported single mothers who kept their children. The national body campaigned to abolish the legal construct of illegitimacy and to establish family courts to deal with affiliation proceedings and maintenance and custody rights. It continues to fight for the essential rights of all sole parent families.

The Women Justices’ Association of Victoria was formed in Melbourne on 30 June 1938 with the aim of uniting women justices, women special magistrates and women commissioners for the taking of affidavits throughout Victoria, all honorary appointments, ‘in a bond of mutual help and support’. It worked to increase the number of appointments of women and to encourage those women to exercise their privileges. It remained active until 1971 when declining numbers, the result of fewer women available for voluntary work, forced it reconsider its role. In 1972 it reformed to become the Australian branch of the International Association of Youth Magistrates.

The Women Principals Association (Victoria), as it was known from the late 1960s, was formed in July 1940 as the Association of Head Mistresses of Girls’ Schools. Its membership comprised the Head Mistresses of the thirteen government girls’ schools in existence at that time. It aimed ‘to discuss topics of general educational interest and particularly matters bearing directly on girls’ schools and their organisation’. It advocated strongly for the interests of students in girls’ schools to ensure that they enjoyed the same conditions and opportunities as students in boys or co-educational high schools. In the 1970s it vigorously defended the retention of girls’ schools in the state education system.

The Victorian Medical Women’s Society (VMWS), the pioneer medical women’s organisation in Australia, was founded in 1896 as the Women’s Medical Association, at the University of Melbourne Medical School. It was established to forge a closer relationship between medical women graduates and undergraduates and to promote the interests of medical women and further their professional development by education, research and improvement of professional opportunities.
By 1898 it had evolved into a postgraduate society, with meetings held in the consulting rooms of members. In 1927 it formed part of the Australian Federation of Medical Women. It continues to promote the health and welfare of all Australians, in particular women and children.

It promotes the health and welfare of all Australians, in particular women and children.

The Women’s Federal Political Association, the forerunner of the Women’s Political Association, was established in 1903, with Vida Goldstein as president, to educate women in political matters. Men were not excluded from membership. In March 1904 it changed its name to the Women’s Political Association of Victoria with the aim of organising more efficiently women’s votes in the interests of the home and children, of efficient government at all levels, and of improved social and industrial conditions. In an attempt to challenge the party ticket system, the WPA declared itself to be non party political and refused to affiliate with any political party, although its sympathies lay with the Australian Labor Party. Goldstein believed that party politics subsumed the interests of women. The WPA supported Goldstein in her attempts to be elected to the federal parliament and adopted a pacifist stance in World War One. It disbanded in 1919 when Goldstein travelled overseas.

The Women’s Peace Army was established on 15 July 1915 at the offices of the Women’s Political Association, in an attempt to mobilise the women in Australia who opposed all war, regardless of political party membership. It was to be a fighting body to destroy militarism ‘with the same spirit of self-sacrifice that soldiers showed on the battlefield’. ‘We war against war’ was the motto of the Women’s Peace Army. Their flag took the feminist colours of purple, green and white. The most well-known members were Vida Goldstein, president, Cecilia John and Adela Pankhurst. With autonomous branches in Sydney and Brisbane, the Women’s Peace Army projected a radical, militant image with its socialist anti-war ideology and attracted large numbers to its sometimes controversial public meetings. Other tactics included participation in peace demonstrations, support for peace candidates at elections, petitions to members of parliament and practical help to those disadvantaged by war. It participated in the anti-conscription campaigns of 1916 and 1917. With the end of the Great War, the Women’s Peace Army went into recess on 18 December 1919.

The Governesses’ Institute and Melbourne Home opened in Melbourne in 1863 with the aim of accommodating governesses, shop women, needlewomen and servants and to provide a central employment registry in a self-supporting institution. Its forerunner, the Melbourne Female Home, which opened in September 1857 in temporary premises in Collingwood, provided shelter only for newly arrived single female immigrants who were without friends in the colony. The Governesses’ Institute occupied a number of premises over the course of its existence in Little Lonsdale St. Melbourne, “Wynamo” in St Kilda and “Lovell House” in Caulfield. The governing body comprised a central committee, with nine local or suburban committees. A matron was employed to supervise the Home and its occupants. Strict rules applied; women were only admitted if they arrived on a week day, could pay a week’s board in advance and were without children. In 1863 Mrs Laura Jane a’Beckett was elected secretary of the management committee of six men and twenty-six women. It closed in 1936.

The Catalysts’ Society developed out of the meetings of nineteen women with intellectual interests who planned to establish a Lyceum Club in Melbourne in 1910. The meetings proved so enjoyable that the women decided to meet on a regular basis while waiting for the Lyceum Club to be established. The nineteen original Catalysts held their first dinner meeting on 24 September 1910 at Sargent’s Café. At that meeting they elected Ethel Osborne as president and Alice Michaelis and Jessie Webb as joint secretaries. They adopted the name of ‘The Catalysts’. At their second meeting they chose their motto ‘Changing but Unchanged’. Enid Derham presented the first paper on ‘The works of Thomas Hardy’, which was followed by discussion. This format for the monthly meetings continues today.

The Australian Pre-School Association, previously named the Australian Association for Pre-School Child Development, established in 1939, is the national association for the advancement of pre-school development. All major voluntary agencies in Australia who work in the field of pre-school education are affiliates. The Victorian branch was established in 1948 and is acknowledged as the representative voluntary pre-school body in the state. Its role is to make a co-ordinated approach to the state government when legislation related to pre-school groups is being prepared, when standards in pre-school centres are being negotiated or when requests for improved subsidies are under discussion. As a lobby group it has greatly strengthened the pre-school voice.

The Austral Salon of Music, Literature and the Arts was founded by a small group of women journalists in Melbourne as a club for women writers. It developed into a club for artistic and intellectual women interested in any of the fine arts and provided an important entre for many aspiring women musicians. The Salon continues it main aim of encouraging young artists by awarding scholarships and hosting student performances.

The Gentlewomen’s Aid Society was established in 1894 in the Williamstown home of Mrs John Clark, wife of the Reverend Clark, in an attempt to assist the many ‘gentlewomen’ who were left destitute as a result of the 1890s economic depression. Eligibility for membership rested on a recommendation from a committee member, a medical practitioner or a clergyman stating that the applicant was in genuine need of the Society’s assistance. The Society held two Sales of Work a year in a public hall to enable ‘those ladies who are dependent on their own exertions to sell their work’ and were either too frail or too old to battle the commercial world. The Society depended on donations and subscriptions to assist with operating costs. It remained in existence until 1989, when it was dissolved as a result of dwindling membership and declining demand for assistance the Society offered.

The Victorian Children’s Aid Society, originally named the Presbyterian Society for Neglected and Destitute Children, was established with the aim of rescuing ‘neglected and destitute children’. Its officers comprised a president, two vice presidents, a secretary and a committee. Although an initiative of the Presbyterian Church, by October 1894, it became interdenominational and independent, with its name changed to the Victorian Neglected Children’s Aid Society. The Society took in children, the majority of whom required temporary assistance and were the children of the ‘deserving poor’, and placed them with families in the country, who cared for them and educated them. Older children were taught household or farm work. It decided upon another name change in 1920, to the Victorian Children’s Aid Society. In 1991 it became Family Focus and in 1992 it merged with other children’s organisations to form Oz Child-Children Australia.

The South Melbourne Ladies’ Benevolent Society began in July 1875, when the Emerald Hill Benevolent Society formally handed over its work to a committee of women and continued to operate for one hundred and seven years. It provided relief to destitute families in the area. It was acknowledged as ‘ one of the best managed societies of its kind’.

The Children’s Welfare Association of Victoria (CWAV), established in 1912, is the co-ordinating body of non government child welfare agencies in Victoria. It is the peak body for over eighty community organisations delivering child and family support and welfare services. It aims to promote and protect the needs and rights of children and their families; to represent the needs of children and the agencies that assist them, to governments and other organisations; provide co-ordination and communication between welfare agencies and promote high standards in welfare programs. It attempts to meet these aims through holding conferences, producing publications and conducting research projects.

The Housewives Co-operative Association (later the Housewives Association of Victoria) was formed in mid-1915 and soon became one of the largest women’s organisations in the state. The movement, reacting to the spiralling cost of living during World War I, initially aimed mainly at ‘bringing the producer and consumer into direct contact’ and providing discounted goods to members. In 1921, however, it also adopted a clear political objective: ‘To advocate the equal status of women and adequate representation on all boards and tribunals dealing with the home and the cost of living.’ From the 1930s the Association focussed more on the provision of training and information relating to household management and also became more involved in broader activism to improve the civil and political status of women and with other social reform causes.