The Australian Women's Register

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.

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.

Following her discharge from the Women’s Auxiliary Australian Air Force (WAAAF) on 29 November 1945 Dorothy Hawthorn joined the Reserve of Officers.

Educated at Brisbane Girls’ High School and Sommerville House, Hawthorn had been Deputy State Commissioner for the Girl Guides’ Association of Queensland, Secretary of the Federal Council for Girl Guides and worked for the Women’s Voluntary National Register with the Red Cross and the Australian Comforts Fund. She was one of the first WAAAF Officers appointed in March 1941, firstly with the Air Board and then Adjunct and Barracks Officer at the WAAAF Training Depot, Malvern. She became Commanding Officer of the Training Section in Sydney, and later, Section Officer with a Training Group. In 1944 Hawthorn was promoted to Wing Officer whilst in command of No 1 Training Depot, Larundel, Preston Victoria. Subsequently she served as Section Officer WAAAF at the North Eastern Area Headquarters of the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF).

Emma Miller was foundation president of the Woman’s Equal Franchise Association between 1894 and 1905. The vote for women in Queensland State elections was finally won in 1905; women had had the right to vote in Federal elections since Federation, and voted for the first time in the 1903 Federal election. On 2 February 1912, known as Black Friday, at the height of a general strike, Miller led a contingent of women to Parliament House, avoiding police with fixed bayonets. The women were charged by baton swinging police on their return from Parliament House. Miller reputedly stuck her hatpin into a horse ridden by the Police Commissioner, Patrick Cahill. Cahill fell from his horse and claimed to have been permanently injured. Direct political action was not Miller’s only cause. She was anti-militarist and opposed conscription in World War I. She believed that ‘those who make the quarrel should be the only ones to fight’. As vice-president of the Women’s Peace Army, Miller attended the Peace Alliance Conference in Melbourne in 1916. She also fought hard for free speech and civil liberties. During the First World War, Miller preached equal pay to those fearing that women would take the jobs of men away at the war.

Joanne Willmot was born at Cherbourg, Queensland. Living at the mission and later attending a state high school at Ipswich raised her political consciousness. A mother at the age of 17, Joanne moved to Adelaide in 1971, bringing her baby with her. She began work as a secretary with the Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement (ALRM) where she experienced both the excitement of being at the hub of Aboriginal activism and her growing awareness of sexism. Joanne left ALRM in 1976 to care for her family but maintained involvement in many Aboriginal organisations before taking up full time employment again with the Women’s Information Switchboard in 1983.

Trained as a pharmacist in Brisbane, Kate Carnell came to Canberra in 1977, becoming one of the first woman pharmacy owners there in 1981. From 1982 she held positions in a number of professional organisations, including inaugural and first female president of the Australian Capital Territory Branch of the Pharmacy Guild of Australia 1988–94. Elected to the Legislative Assembly for the Australian Capital Territory in 1992 she became Liberal Leader in 1993 and Chief Minister from 1995 to 2000. Her subsequent positions include director of the NRMA and chief executive officer of the Australian Divisions of General Practice, the Australian Food and Grocery Council, Beyond Blue and the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry. She was the inaugural Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman from 2016 to 2021.

Heather Crosby, née Gumley, was born in Oxford, England. Her father’s calling as an Anglican priest took the family first to India and then to Australia. Her Australian-born mother played a prominent role in the parishes in which they lived, and Crosby and her sisters were encouraged to gain tertiary qualifications. Crosby came to Adelaide to study social work and married in 1944. She helped her husband establish his general practice in Blair Athol, and they had two daughters. She became involved in community work and began her association with the YWCA in 1960. Crosby was President and Executive Director of the Adelaide YWCA, and a member of the National Council and the World Executive. She was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) in 1981.

Isabel Flick grew up in a camp in northern New South Wales, and worked on health, education and other social issues across the state. She helped establish Aboriginal housing in Collarenebri, New South Wales. She was a recipient of the Order of the British Empire for services to the community. Together with her sister Rose, she fought a long battle for the protection of the carved trees at the Collymongle Bora (male initiation) ground, northern New South Wales. The last four years before her death she lived in Gunnedah, New South Wales. She regularly travelled to Sydney to teach Aboriginal history at the Tranby Aboriginal College where she was on the Board of Directors.

Eve Fesl is a former discus champion of Victoria and Queensland and a Queensland netball representative. In 1988 she received the Order of Australia Medal for her work with the ethnic community and maintenance of Aboriginal languages. She gained her PhD with her sociolinguistic study on language policy and implementation.
Fesl has been a local councillor for Nunawading, Victoria, and a member of a number of national bodies including the Advisory Council on Multicultural Affairs, the National Museum of Australia’s Aboriginal Advisory Committee, the Aboriginal Literature Board and the Aboriginal Arts Board of the Australia Council.
In 1981 she became the first Aboriginal woman to be appointed Director of the Aboriginal Research Centre at Monash University, the position she currently holds. She also lectures in Koori and language studies, and she became an associate professor in 1992. In 1993 she published Conned! A Koori Perspective, a political history of the invasion and settlement of Australia from the Aboriginal point of view. She is author of numerous articles, book chapters, etc.

Lady Phyllis Cilento was born in Sydney on 13th March 1894 and educated in Adelaide, graduating MB, BS from the University of Adelaide. She did postgraduate work at hospitals and clinics in Malaysia, New Guinea, London, Paris and New York. Later moving to Brisbane with her husband, (doctor and medical administrator, Sir Ralph Cilento) she became a prominent member of the Queensland women’s movement and highly influential in broader areas of public health. She was a medical columnist, broadcaster, journalist and author of several books. Her interests lay in nutrition, vitamin therapy, family planning and antenatal and childcare. She founded the Queensland Mothercraft Association in 1930; the Queensland branch of the Business and Professional Women’s Club and was president of the Queensland Medical Women’s Association (1938-1947).

Roslyn Watson is an Aboriginal Australian ballet dancer and choreographer of international renown. Born in Brisbane of Biri descent, she has danced in a number of Australian companies since beginning her career in the early 1970s. She has danced internationally, and with international companies, including the prestigious Dance Theatre of Harlem.

Maureen Watson was born in Rockhampton in 1930. Of Biri descent, spent her early life in rural Queensland, moving to Brisbane with her five sons in 1970. She became heavily involved in the struggle for indigenous right and justice throughout the 1970s and 80s, as her participation in protests at the Brisbane Commonwealth Games testified to. She developed a well deserved reputation as a storyteller, her major medium for the promotion of Aboriginal culture.

Patricia O’Shane was born in Northern Queensland in 1941. A noted activist for Indigenous rights, her achievements in the public sphere have been remarkable. She was the first Aboriginal Australian barrister (1976) and the first woman to be appointed to the New South Wales Metropolitan Water, Sewerage and Drainage Board (1979). When she was appointed permanent head of the New South Wales Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs in 1981, she became not only the first Aboriginal person but also the first woman to become a permanent head of ministry in Australia.

Caroline Archer was born in 1922 and is best known for her leadership in the 1970s of the One People of Australian League (OPAL), an organisation that sought to promote the interests of Aboriginal people. She was appointed executive officer of OPAL in 1972, becoming the first Aboriginal person to hold the position.

Kathy Ware was born in 1949 at Springsure in Queensland. She grew up in Gladstone and Cairns, later working in various offices, as a kindergarten aide and as a teacher’s assistant in a TAFE adult literacy program.

She joined the federal Department of Social Security in Cairns, and later became an assistant to the National Aboriginal Conference (NAC) representative for the Cairns region. After the NAC was disbanded, she worked with the Commonwealth Employment Service for two years.

In 1987 she took up an appointment as the administrator of Deeral Aboriginal and Islander Corporation at Babinda, 50 kilometres southeast of Cairns, and has since worked on the expansion of the corporation’s facilities and enterprises.

Ida Toby, also known as Queen, was born in 1899 at either Walgra or Carandotta station in Queensland. She was of Warluwarra and Wangka-Yutjurru (of Wangkamana group) descent. Her ‘skin’ was Bilarrindji and her Dreaming was Emu; she had a black birthmark on her elbow in the shape of a legless emu. She grew up along the Georgina – on Walgra, Carandotta, Roxborough and Glenormiston stations. She was married first to Deamrah, and then to his younger brother Belia. She had two children and raised three step-children. The family travelled about Carandotta, as the brothers worked together for years poisoning dogs on the station, until they both died in c1962.
Between 1967 and 1975 Ida Toby provided valuable linguistic information on the Warluwarra and Wangka-Yutjurru languages. She also had an acting ability which helped her make up and act out imaginary conversations in those languages.
She died in 1976.

Dosina Nona married Peo (‘Bul-Bul’) Nona of Badu in 1960. A song composed for their wedding has become part of the Islands musical heritage. She nursed her husband until his death from renal disease in 1987.

Dosina is a community worker. She lives on Thursday Island in Torres Strait, where she is president of the Mothers Union, an Anglican church organisation representing Torres Strait women. In 1990 she represented the diocese of Carpentaria at a conference of South Pacific Mothers’ Unions in Papua New Guinea. As a Mothers Union organiser, Nona has been responsible for arranging the catering for many large-scale church festivities, including the consecration of Kiwami Dai as bishop in 1986.

Angelina Noble was born in c1890 near Winton in central Queensland. After being abducted by an itinerant horse dealer, she eventually came under the notice of the police in Cairns, and was sent to Yarrabah mission. An expert horsewoman, she accompanied her Aboriginal missionary husband James Noble, in 1904, on a gruelling overland expedition from Yarrabah to choose the site for a new mission on the Mitchell River, where 1,554 square kilometres of land had been gazetted as an Aboriginal reserve. From there they went to Roper River for three years, to help establish a new church missionary society.

Further pioneering work began in 1913 when Reverend E. Gribble requested their assistance in establishing a new mission at Forrest River (Oombulgurri) in Western Australia. They stayed there until 1932, before returning to Queensland to assist with work on Palm Island. Angelina was widowed in 1941 and, after a short period at Palm Island, died at St Luke’s Hospital in Yarrabah in 1964.

Monica Clare was the daughter of an Aboriginal shearer and an English women who died in childbirth when Monica was two years old. Taken into care at the age of seven, she and her brother grew up in a variety of foster homes in Sydney. After learning the finer arts of domestic service, Monica went out to work as a waitress and a factory hand.

In the 1950s, Monica became interested in Labor Politics. Her second husband, the trade unionist Leslie Clare, encouraged this interest and also encouraged her to be active in Aboriginal politics. She became the Secretary of the Aborigines Committee of the South Coast at Wollongong during the 1960s and, subsequently, of an Aboriginal committee called the South Coast Illawarra Tribe, from 1968 to 1973.

Monica Clare worked tirelessly for the political and social equality of Aboriginal people, and their independence. She died suddenly on National Aborigines Day, 13 July 1973.

Catherine (Cathy) Freeman was born in Mackay in Queensland in 1973. As a very good runner, she won a scholarship to boarding school where she was able to have professional coaching. In 1994 she became the first Aboriginal sprinter to win a gold medal at the Commonwealth Games, going on to win a silver medal in the 1996 Olympic Games and then gold at the Sydney Olympics in 2000.

She is very proud of her Aboriginal heritage and has carried the Australian and Aboriginal flags around the track after winning a race, which at times has resulted in public controversy.

She was made Young Australian of the Year in 1990 and Australian of the Year in 1998. She is the first person to receive both awards.

Tracey Moffatt is an internationally renowned Aboriginal photographer, documentary maker and director. Moffatt’s photography is reflected in her films and documentaries, which explore Aboriginal culture by confronting commonly held stereotypes.

Tracey Moffatt was born in 1960 in Brisbane, where she graduated from the Queensland College of Arts. Her debut film, Nice Coloured Girls, won the Most Innovative Film award at the 1988 Festival of Australian Film and Video. At the same festival, she won the Best New Australian Video award for her 5-minute Aboriginal and Islander dance video, Watch Out. Moffatt also produced Moodeitj Yorgas, which includes interviews, dances, and storytelling by Western Australian Aboriginal women. Her film Night Cries: A Rural Tragedy (1990) draws from the 1955 Chauvel film Jedda.

Moffatt’s photographic exhibitions include “Some Lads” and “Something More”.

Jeanie Bell is a linguist and educator who has lived and worked in Queensland, Victoria and the Northern Territory. Over the course of her career Bell has made an extraordinary contribution to the development of Aboriginal education within the tertiary sector, and to the preservation of Aboriginal linguistic heritage.

Maroochy Barambah is a distinguished indigenous musician whose career since the 1970s has spanned the genres of jazz, rock, musical theatre and classical opera.

Jessie Shillingsworth, of Margany descent, was born at Beechal Creek, north of Eulo in southwest Queensland. As a girl, she lived at Guwany-Mungarie camp, near the present Bundoona station. She married Arthur Shillingsworth and raised four sons and two daughters.

Jessie was the last person to have extensive knowledge of the language and culture of her people. She had not spoken her language for forty years prior to 1967, when she was first asked about it. She subsequently contributed many words to the grammar of her language published by Hazel McKellar in 1984. Jessie was also strongly opposed to the alcohol that was causing such damage to her people.

Maudie Naylon was the last fluent speaker of the Ngamini and Yarluyandi languages.

Cherry O’Keefe was an excellent horsewoman with a leading knowledge of the Ngawun language.