The Australian Women's Register

Edith Hurman, after commencing her early education in Perth, finished her medical training at Sydney University in 1922 and overcame many obstacles in order to become the first doctor to set up private practice in Cudal, New South Wales in 1925. With Muriel Amanda Rodda, a trained nurse, she was instrumental in the establishment of the town’s hospital in 1928. Edith Hurman remained in Cudal and worked in that hospital until her retirement in 1961. She subsequently wrote a booklet entitled The beginnings, in 1980, in which she told the story of how the Cudal Hospital was established. She was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire for her services to medicine in New South Wales on 1 January 1966.

Claudia Burton-Bradley, with a Bachelor of Arts, and Medicine and Surgery from Sydney University, commenced her medical career at the Royal North Shore Hospital, Sydney in 1943 and joined the Australian Medical Association. Apparently having specialised in orthopaedic surgery, by 1947 she was honorary assistant orthopaedic surgeon at the Rachel Forster Hospital, Sydney. Her major commitment, however, was to the Spastic Centre, Mosman, New South Wales, where she became its medical director from 1945-1962, honorary orthopaedic surgeon from 1949 and director of medical research and development from 1962-1964. She was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire on 11 June 1966 for her work as Research Director of the Australian Cerebral Palsy Association.

For service to international relations particularly in the cause of peace, Stella Cornelius was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) on 26 January 1987. She was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (Civil) on 3 January 1978 for services to commerce.

On 10 June 2019, Ita Buttrose was appointed Companion (AC) in the General Division, Order of Australia for eminent service to the community through leadership in the media, the arts, and the health sector, and as a role model. On 13 June 1988, she was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for service to the community, particularly in the fields of medical education and health care. In the Queen’s Birthday list 1979 she was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for service to journalism. She became the first woman to be awarded the Harnett Medal for community service and achievements in publishing, journalism, radio and television.

Margaret McIntyre was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (Civil) for services to education on 1 January 1948. She was the first woman Member of Parliament in Tasmania and was killed in an air crash three months after being elected to the Legislative Council seat of Cornwall as an independent.

Gwendoline (commonly known as Gwen) Plumb was awarded an Order of Australia (AM) on 13 June 1993 for services to the entertainment industry [1]. On 1 January 1973 she was appointed Order of the British Empire (Civil) for service to the community and charities.

Hazel de Berg interviewed thousands of people in her work as an oral historian. A significant number of her interviews are held in the oral history collection of the National Library of Australia. She was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (Civil) on 1 January 1968 for services in collection of archival material.

Pixie O’Harris was an artist and author particularly of children’s books. On 1 January 1976 she was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (Civil) for services to the Arts. In 1953 she was awarded the Queen’s Coronation Medal and in 1977 she received the Queen’s Silver Jubilee Medal. In 1977 she became patron to the Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children in Sydney.

Winifred Hilliard was appointed as a Member of the Order of the British Empire on I June 1977 for ‘Aboriginal welfare’. She was later awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia on the Queen’s birthday list, 1989, for ‘service to Aboriginal welfare, particularly the Pitjantjatjara people’.

Swimming champion Dawn Fraser is an iconic figure in Australian sporting history. A exceptional sportswoman with a larrikin streak, over the course of her swimming career, she won eight Olympic and eight Commonwealth medals. In October 1962 Dawn Fraser became the first woman to swim the 100 metres in less than a minute. She had to wait until after her retirement to see this record broken, and even then, it took eight years.

Dawn Fraser was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) on June 8, 1988. Her citation read, “For service to the community, particularly as a sports consultant and administrator, and through organisations for people with disabilities, and to the environment.”

Dawn Fraser also had a short political career. She was elected as an independent MLA for the seat of Balmain, New South Wales, in 1988. The seat was abolished in a redistribution prior to the next election. She ran, unsuccessfully, for the new seat of Port Jackson in 1991.

Margaret Court was one of Australia’s greatest sportswomen. She won 62 grand slam titles and, in 1970, was the second woman in history to win the Australian, French, U.S. and Wimbledon titles in a calendar year.

Winner of the ABC Sportsman of the Year Award in 1963 and 1970, Margaret Court was appointed to the Order of the British Empire – Member (Civil) on 1 January 1967 for services to sport and international relations. In 1970 she also won the Walter Lindrum Award.

In January 2003, Tennis Australia renamed Melbourne Park’s Show Court One to the Margaret Court Arena. She was the recipient of the 2003 Australia Post Australian Legends Award, and featured on a special 50c stamp.

In 2006 she was awarded the International Tennis Federation’s (ITF) highest accolade, the Philippe Chatrier Award.

In 2017, in the context of Australian debates about marriage equality, Margaret Court became a controversial figure, as many prominent people in tennis condemned her views on same sex marriage and the rights of transgender people.

In January 2021, Court was awarded an AC in the Australian Day Honours Awards list, for eminent service to tennis as an internationally acclaimed player and record-holding grand slam champion, and as a mentor of young sportspersons. In response to criticisms that it was not appropriate to honout her this way, based upon her controversial views on the rights of LGBTQI+ people, an anonymous member of the Council for the Order of Australia said the award to address a gender disparity created five years ago when Rod Laver became the first tennis player to be made a Companion of the Order of Australia (AC).

Awarded the Australian Sports Medal on 30 August 2000, Heather McKay was made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) on 26 January 1979 for her service to the sport of squash. She had previously been appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (Civil) on 1 January 1969 for services to sport. An Australian representative in squash and hockey, McKay dominated ladies squash for two decades and lost only two squash matches in her career.

Phyllis Benjamin was appointed a member of the Order of the British Empire on 31 May 1956 for services as a member of the Legislative Council in Tasmania. On 26 January 1977 she was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO). From 1968 to 1969 Benjamin was leader of the Upper House in Tasmania – the first woman in Australia to be appointed to the position.

Persia Galleghan, née Blaiklock, established a reputation as ‘a born organiser’ and ‘tireless worker’ for many philanthropic causes, which included the Red Cross Society and in particular the Voluntary Aid Detachments (VADs) in New South Wales. Educated in Brisbane, she married Sidney Porter in 1925, and they moved to Sydney, but he died after a short illness in 1933. On the outbreak of war in September 1939, she joined the newly formed Scottish Voluntary Aid Detachment situated at Millers Point, Sydney and later became its commandant. She devoted much of the next fifty years to the VAD movement in New South Wales and to the Red Cross Society. In addition to her voluntary work she qualified as a social worker in 1955 and was employed at the Concord Repatriation Hospital for nine years. She embarked upon a second marriage to Sir Frederick Galleghan in 1969, but was to be widowed again in 1971. She also contributed to the Arts by serving on the executive of the Opera Foundation of Australia and donating funds for an opera scholarship. Her desire to complete a history of the VAD movement, was thwarted by her death in 1997. Melanie Oppenheimer subsequently wrote a history entitled Red Cross VAs: a history of the VAD movement in New South Wales, using some of the records Persia Galleghan had collected. Persia Galleghan was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1978 and posthumously appointed to the Order of Australia in 1997. The Red Cross admitted her to honorary life membership, the highest honour bestowed by the Red Cross.

Helen Ashton was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire on 4 October 1918 for her work for the Red Cross Society. Her husband, James, worked closely with the first president, Lady Helen Munro Ferguson.

Gwen Meredith was the writer of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) radio serial Blue Hills. On 10 June 1967 she was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for her services to radio entertainment and on the 11 June 1977 an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for her services to the Arts.

Constance Fall’s distinguished war service in the Royal Australian Army Nursing Corps was acknowledged with a Mention in Dispatches on 1 April 1941 and the award of the Royal Red Cross medal on 16 April 1942, when she was serving with the 1st Australian General Hospital in the Middle East. Born in England of Australian parents, and educated there, Constance Fall completed her nursing training in Launceston, Tasmania. After her war service she assumed the position of matron-in-charge of the King George V Hospital in Sydney, New South Wales from 1948-1960 and from 1961 became matron of the New South Wales Masonic Homes in Glenfield. She was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1976 for services to the Red Cross Society.

Lillian Armfield was one of the first female plain-clothes detectives in Australia. She joined the New South Wales Police Force as a special constable in 1915 and retired 34 years later in 1943 as a special sergeant 1st class. During that time she helped runaway girls return home and dealt with female suspects or victims. Armfield was awarded the King’s Police and Fire Service Medal for outstanding service in 1947. Four years later, after her retirement, she was awarded the Imperial Service Medal.

Betty Cuthbert was the first Australian athlete to win an Olympic gold medal on Australian soil. Nicknamed the ‘Golden Girl’ of Australian athletics, she was inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame in 1985 as an Athlete Member for her contribution to the sport of athletic. She was elevated to “Legend of Australian Sport” in 1994.

Betty Cuthbert was so unsure that she would make the Australian Olympic Games team in 1956, she bought tickets to attend the Games as a spectator.

Nancy Bird Walton was Australia’s youngest female pilot. She was awarded imperial honours for her work with the Far West Children’s Health Scheme.

Distinguished librarian, trade unionist and feminist, Jean Fleming Arnot, worked at the State Library of New South Wales from 1921 until her retirement in 1968. During her life Arnot was a member and leader of numerous women’s organisations. Arnot was appointed as a Member of the Order of the British Empire (Civil) on 12 June 1965 for her community services in Sydney. She died in Sydney on 27 September 1995, at the age of 92.

Ida Emily Leeson (1885-1964) was born at Leichhardt, Sydney, the daughter of Thomas Leeson, a carpenter from Canada, and his Australian born wife Mary Ann, née Emberson.

Leeson was educated at Leichhardt Public School and Sydney Girl’s High School. She graduated with a Batchelor of Arts from the University of Sydney in 1906. In August that year she was appointed library assistant at the Public Library of New South Wales, and in 1909 was transferred to the Mitchell Library. In 1932 she was appointed second Mitchell Librarian.

In April 1944 Lieutenant Colonel A.A. Conlan secured Ida Leeson’s secondment as a research officer in the Directorate of Research, where she was ranked captain, and later major in the Australian Military Forces. She was a member of A.A. Conlan’s ‘think-tank’ which included John Kerr. Leeson did not return to the Mitchell Library, officially resigning in 1946. Toward the end of the war she was appointed librarian-archivist for the School of Civil Affairs, later known as the Australian School of Pacific Administration. In 1949 she went to Noumea to establish the library for the South Pacific Commission, returning to Australia the following year, where she continued to work for the commission in Sydney until 1956.

Shirley Anderson attended Marrickville Girls High School and the Metropolitan Secretarial College in Sydney before travelling and working overseas. She obtained an unrestricted Private Pilot’s Licence in 1950.

From 1960 until her retirement in 1985 she worked as an air traffic controller and instructor at Sydney’s Kingsford-Smith Airport. She was the first woman in Sydney to be appointed to this position.

The inaugural Jean Arnot Luncheon was held at Parliament House, Sydney, on 8 April 1994, and originated from Jean Fleming Arnot’s 90th birthday celebrations a year earlier at the same venue.

Zara Aronson, née Baar, distinguished herself through her journalism, feminism and charitable work in Sydney and Perth, after having spent her early life in Europe. She returned to Sydney in 1879 to complete her education. After her marriage to Frederick Aronson, a merchant, in October 1882, she launched into her charitable work and served on the committees of the Sydney Industrial Blind Institution and the Thirlmere and the Queen Victoria homes for consumptives. As an active feminist from the 1890s, she was an original member of the Women’s Literary Society and a founding member of the National Council of Women in 1896. She contributed to a range of journals and newspapers throughout her life, which included Australian Town and Country Journal, The Sydney Mail, and The Sydney Morning Herald, and wrote a cookery book, the proceeds of which she donated to the Junior Red Cross in New South Wales. She was an original member of the executive committee of the New South Wales Division of the British Red Cross Society in 1914 and organised and ran the depot which distributed more than a million books and magazines during World War I. She maintained her feminist interests when she became foundation secretary of the Women Writers of New South Wales in 1925, assuming the presidency in 1930. She was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire on 23 June 1936 for her services to the Red Cross Society.

Jean Sinclair Isbister (known as Clair) was a consultant paediatrician at the Royal North Shore Hospital, New South Wales, from 1949 and published many books on motherhood under the name Clair Isbister. She was appointed to The Order of the British Empire – Officer (Civil) on 1 January 1969 for services to medicine.

Nashar was Head, Department of Geology, Newcastle University College and University of Newcastle 1961-1980, Associate Professor 1964-1965, Professor of Geology 1965-1980 and Emeritus Professor since 1980. She was the first Australian to be awarded a PhD in geology from an Australian University and the first woman dean of science in an Australian university. Her early research addressed the geology of the Stanhope district in the Hunter Valley. This was later extended to embrace the mineralogy, geochemistry and genetic relations of the Carboniferous and Permian andesitic associations of eastern New South Wales, and the conditions of formation of secondary minerals in these andesitic and basic rocks. She was appointed OBE – The Order of the British Empire – Officer (Civil) – 1 January 1972 for her work in education and international relations.