The Australian Women's Register

Women and the Australian Church was established in 1984 as a means of changing the understanding of the role of women in the Australian church and in society. It was initiated by the women Religious within the Catholic church and has been supported ideologically and to some extent financially by the Religious Orders of both men and women. It has developed into a network of local and regional groups in the various states of Australia. Men are included in the membership. Although Catholic by origin, it encourages membership from other religious denominations.

The Benevolent Society of New South Wales was the first charitable organisation to be established in Australia. It aims were ‘to relieve the poor, the distressed, the aged, the infirm,’ to discourage begging and to ‘encourage industrious habits’ among the poor and to provide them with religious instruction. In 1820 a Ladies Committee was established to attend cases of poor married women during their confinement. This service marked the beginning of the District Nursing service in Australia. In line with the changing needs of pregnant women, the Benevolent Society built and opened the Royal Hospital for Women in 1905 and was responsible for its administration until 1992 when it handed it over to the state government. The Society continues to work in the field of social welfare in New South Wales.

The Commission for Australian Catholic Women (CACW) was established on the recommendation of the Report on the Participation of Women in the Catholic Church in Australia, which was presented to the Australia Catholic Bishops Conference on 12 April 1999. Its aim is to promote the participation of women in the Catholic Church of Australia. Its commissioners include representatives from Adelaide, Sydney, Ballarat, Melbourne, Whyalla, Perth and Mt Isa. The Commission meets four times annually and works to facilitate the decisions and proposals of the Bishops to build a more inclusive church. The inaugural Chair of the Commission was Geraldine Hawkes.

The Golding Centre for Women’s History, Theology and Spirituality was established in April 2003 on the initiative of Dr Sophie McGrath and Dr Rosa MacGinley who understood the necessity of providing a sound academic basis for the Catholic Church’s response to the need for Catholic women to recover their history, theology and spirituality. The Centre comprises a three member team with members based on the campuses of McAuley-Banyo (Queensland), Mt Saint Mary (New South Wales), and St Patrick’s (Victoria). A multi-disciplinary centre, it is situated within the Institute for the Advancement of Research with outreach to the various appropriate Schools within the University faculties.

The Sydney Female Refuge Society was established in 1848 and had premises in Pitt St and at Glebe. It aimed to assist prostitutes abandon their work by cutting them off from the world and by requiring them to conform to the aims and practices of the institution. The middle-class Ladies’ Committee enforced strict moral codes coupled with religious instruction to rehabilitate the Refuge inmates. By providing them with laundering and needlework skills they were enabling them to find alternative work once they left, but at the same time required them to work at those tasks while at the Refuge. The minimum period of stay was eighteen months, although the actual time inmates stayed varied.

Originally established as the Sydney Foundling Hospital in 1874, it became the Infants’ Home in 1877. It assumed responsibility for the care of infants of single mothers and destitute parents and provided a temporary home for the mothers. Its management comprised an all female Board until 1973, when the first male joined. It was the first organisation to move from residential care to long day care in the early 1970s and the third family day care scheme to commence operations in New South Wales. The Family Centre of Early Intervention commenced in 1978.

The Sydney District Nursing Association was established in 1900 on the initiative of the Anglican Christian Social Union, which considered the care of the sick to be part of its Christian responsibility. It supplied trained nurses to visit the sick and poor in their own homes. In 1906 it made the decision to co-operate with other religious organisations, thereby becoming a non-denominational association. By 1935 the Association was incorporated as a second schedule hospital, governed by a board of directors appointed by the Government. The Association expanded rapidly after 1956 with the passing of the Home Nursing Subsidy Act with the result that by 1967 decentralisation of the service was a priority. The name was changed to the Sydney Home Nursing Service in 1967. The Sydney Home Nursing Service is the largest single organisation in New South Wales delivering community nursing care.

The Australasian Trained Nurses’ Association (ATNA), Australia’s first nursing association, was formed in New South Wales in 1899, with branches subsequently established in Queensland in 1904, South Australia in 1905, Western Australia in 1907 and Tasmania in 1908. It sought to improve the status of nurses through registration and to develop standards of training in hospital schools of nursing. The Association commenced publication of its journal entitled Australasian Nurses’ Journal, (ANJ) in 1904. The state branches eventually came to form branches of the Australian Nursing Federation, which was established in 1924.

The New South Wales Bush Nursing Association was formed in 1911 on the initiative of Lady Dudley, wife of the Australian Governor-General. She enlisted the support of the National Council of Women in her strategy to organise an effective nursing service in rural areas. Under vice-regal patronage the Association was assured of success, with the state government providing the first subsidy in 1912. It was disbanded in 1975 when the Health Commission took over management of the Bush Nursing Centres and most were converted to Community Health Centres.

The Australian Women’s Ski Club was founded in Sydney in September 1932 and a Victorian branch was formed in November of the same year. The New South Wales branch was disbanded in March 1963. The Victorian branch continues to operate at Mt Buller, Victoria.

The Cootamundra Home began as the Cootamundra hospital, in operation from 1897 to 1910, and reopened in 1911 as the Cootamundra Domestic Training Home for Aboriginal Girls. It was maintained by the Aborigines Welfare Board until 1968 and was then passed over to the care of the NSW Department of Youth and Community Services and eventually closed its doors in 1974.  This was the place where Aboriginal girls were placed after forcible removal from their parents under the Aborigines Protection Act of 1909. The idea was to segregate ‘part-Aboriginal’ children from their families and assimilate them into the mainstream community. The girls were not allowed to remain in any contact with their families, and were later sent to work as domestic servants. The building that housed the Home was later taken over by the Aboriginal Evangelical Fellowship as a Christian vocational, cultural and agricultural training centre called Bimbadeen College.

The Australian Comforts Fund was established in August 1916 to co-ordinate the activities of the state based patriotic funds, which were established earlier in World War I. Mainly run by women, they provided and distributed free comforts to the Australian ‘fit’ fighting men in all the battle zones. They became divisions of the Australian Comforts Fund. The Council of the Fund comprised two delegates from New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland and one from the states of Western Australia, South Australia and Tasmania. The Executive headquarters was located in Sydney. It ceased operation on 10 April 1920 and was reconstituted in World War II in June 1940 and ceased operation again on 27 June 1946.

The Australian Women’s Conference for Victory in War and Victory in Peace was held in November 1943, organised around the theme ‘A War to Win, a World to Gain’. In a feat of organisational excellence, given the restrictions placed on interstate travel during war time, ninety-one women’s organisations from around Australia met in Sydney, Australia, to discuss post war reconstruction and the ‘problems that will effect women and children in the post war period.’ The Australian Women’s Charter, which documents the resolutions brought forward during the conference and is considered a landmark feminist manifesto, was an important outcome of the conference.

The United Associations of Women (U.A.) was one of the most radical feminist groups of the mid twentieth century. It was formed in Sydney, New South Wales, in 1929 by women who perceived a need for a more politically forceful alternative to the range of Australian women’s organisations already in existence. Concerned that groups like the National Council of Women and the Feminist Club had become, by the late 1920s, social clubs rather than political lobby groups, Jessie Street, who had been an office-bearer of both the aforementioned organisations, but had become increasingly frustrated by their conservativism, took action. A series of meetings late in 1929 involving Street and other like-minded women such as Linda Littlejohn, Ruby Rich and Adela Pankhurst Walsh culminated in the establishment of the United Associations on 18 December 1929. The UA was extremely active throughout the 1930s and 40s, and played a major role in organising the Australian Women’s Charter Conference in 1943.

The national body of the Australian Federation of University Women was renamed to the Australian Federation of Graduate Women (AFGW) in December 2009. Presumably, this was when the New South Wales branch also changed its name.

The inaugural meeting of the Australian Women Pilots’ Association (AWPA), was held at the Royal Aero Club of New South Wales at Bankstown on 16 September 1950. Thirty-five women became charter members. Nancy Bird Walton, the catalyst for the formation of the Association was elected founding president, with Maie Casey wife of the Governor-General at the time, R. G. Casey, its patron. The aims of the Association include encouraging women to gain flying licenses of all types, maintaining pilot networks in state and local areas where women in aviation can meet and exchange information, promoting training, employment and careers in aviation and assisting in the future of aviation through public interest, safety and education. Full membership is open to any female pilot who holds or has held a pilot’s licence.

Cummeragunja Reserve was established in New South Wales in 1883 when some of the Aboriginal residents from Maloga Mission, five miles down the river, moved in order to be free of the strict religious lifestyle. It became a thriving and prosperous community and a site of Aboriginal activism in the early twentieth century. On 9 March 1984 the title deeds for the land passed to the Yorta Yorta people through the newly created Yorta Yorta Land Council. Today, many Aboriginal families reside on Cummeragunja.

The Women’s Abortion Action Campaign was established in Sydney in 1972 as one element of the Women’s Liberation Movement. Its main focus was to mobilize support for the repeal of abortion laws, which involved primarily public meetings, demonstrations and conferences. It also lobbied members of parliament before elections and disseminated information about the legal status and availability of abortion.

The Girls’ Secondary Schools’ Club was formed in Sydney in 1927, registered under that name in 1928 and incorporated as a limited liability company. It provided a meeting place in the city for members of the ex-student unions of, initially, ten independent girls’ schools. Membership rose from 400 in 1928 to 1800 after World War II. The club rooms were initially located in Castlereagh Street until 1930, when the Club relocated to the Gowings building in Market Street, Sydney, where it remained until its closure, due to falling membership and increased costs, in 1994.

The Queen Victoria Club was established in 1901 as the Women’s Liberal League of New South Wales. In 1907 it changed its name to the Queen Victoria Club. It aimed to foster friendship between women, assist musical artists and promote the love of good music. As a way of achieving its aims, the Club held monthly ‘musicales’ under the patronage of the Governor’s wife and established two scholarships at the Sydney Eisteddfod, one for piano and the other for violin. It sponsored also, scholarships for violin and cello at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. From 1970 until 1994 the Club met in the rooms of the Girls Secondary Schools’ Club in the Gowings Building, Market Street, Sydney. The Club was dissolved in 1995, with the remaining funds used for the establishment of a piano scholarship at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.

SDN Children’s Services Inc. was the first organisation in Australia to provide all day care for children. The Sydney Day Nursery was established in 1905 in Woolloomooloo on the initiative of a group of young women with an interest in young children’s care and education as a result of their involvement in the Sydney Kindergarten Union. The organization aimed to ‘preserve family life, to educate mothers in child health and to save babies from death and from becoming State wards’. The Day Nursery catered for infants and toddlers ranging in age from a few weeks to three years. By 1927 the Association had established five centres. It changed its name in 1931 to become the Sydney Day Nursery and Nursery Schools Association Inc. and in 1934 it established the Nursery School Teachers Training College. It changed its name again in 1999 to become SDN Children’s Services Inc. This new name reflected an expansion of services for children other than centre based long day care.

One of Australia’s early radio clubs, the 2WG Women’s Club was an important fundraising group as well as an essential communication tool for women in the Wagga Wagga region with its twice daily broadcasts and weekly meetings especially for women.

The Association of Non-English Speaking Background Women of Australia (ANESBWA) was established in 1987, with the aim of promoting access and equity for the culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) women of Australia. The founding members argued that women could not rely on the male heads of existing multicultural, ethnic and feminist organisations to represent their interests and that they must speak up for themselves.

As well as networking with women in state and territory Ethnic Community Councils, ANESBWA sought to link up with existing organisations that catered for women, such as social, cultural and political groups. A key feature of the organisation was that it was not ethnically aligned and was therefore in a position to cut across multicultural politics to lobby on behalf of all CALD women.

According to an executive member of the organisation, ANESBWA ceased operating in 1997, due in large part to the federal government of the day removing funding. It was deemed by the Coalition government that migrant women of CALD background should simply function under the auspices of FECCA (the Federation of Ethnic Community Councils of Australia), thus ignoring the women’s need for an autonomous voice. Nowadays, CALD women are represented by the Network of Immigrant and Refugee Women of Australia.

The Australian-Migrant Women’s Association was established by Dorothy Buckland-Fuller in 1974 to bring together immigrant and Australian-born women to discuss matters of common interest. Buckland-Fuller, who had some influence within the Greek community in New South Wales, was concerned that Greek women were often too inward looking. She wanted to expose them to new ideas and open lines of communication between them and other women of culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds.

Buckland-Fuller was assisted by International Women’s Year funding in 1975 to promote the initiative. She received a small grant to assist in running a program of monthly meetings as the premises of the Greek Orthodox Community of New South Wales in Sydney. These meetings brought together about one hundred women at a time from different ethnic communities, as well as Buckland-Fuller’s friends from the Women’s Electoral Lobby and academic circles.