The Australian Women's Register

Suzanne Cory (AC FAA FRS) is an Australian molecular biologist of international renown. She has worked on the genetics of the immune system and cancer and has lobbied her country to invest in science.

She was Director of the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research between 1996 and 2009, after spending eight years as Joint Head of the Molecular Biology Unit with her husband, Jerry Adams, before her appointment as Director.

In 1998 she received the Australia Prize, in 2001 the L’Oréal-UNESCO Award for Women in Science, followed by the Royal medal in 2002 and the Pearl Meister Greengard Prize in 2009. She was the first elected female President of the Australian Academy of Science and took office on 7 May 2010 for a four-year term. In 2011 the Suzanne Cory High School, a public high school that caters to 800 students from years 9-12, opened in Cory’s honour in 2011.

Dame Margaret Guilfoyle was the first woman to be appointed to federal Cabinet with portfolio, when, in 1975 she became Education and then Social Security Minister in the Fraser Liberal Government. In 1980 she became the first woman to hold an economic portfolio when she became Minister for Finance. On 31 December 1979 Margaret Guilfoyle was appointed to the Order of the British Empire (Dames Commander) for her services to public and parliamentary service. She left parliament in 1987.

Established in 1896, the Queen Victoria Hospital in Melbourne was the first women’s hospital in Victoria, operated for women by women. Originally housed in William Street, Melbourne, new premises were purchased with money raised by Victorian women contributing to Dr Constance Stone’s ‘Shilling Fund’. The hospital moved to its Lonsdale Street site in 1946. In 1989 it was relocated to the Monash Medical Centre at Clayton.

Established in 1896 as the Victoria Hospital for Women and Children, as a clinic in a local church hall, The Queen Victoria Hospital was one of three hospitals in the world founded, managed and staffed by women, ‘For Women, By Women’, for the benefit of poor women uncomfortable with male doctors. There were eleven female founding doctors led by Dr Constance Stone.

The hospital was funded by an appeal coinciding with Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee. After three years, there were enough funds to move into separate premises, the old Governess Institute in Mint Lane. Known as the Queen Victoria Hospital for Women and Children, the name changed to the Queen Victoria Memorial Hospital when the Queen died in 1901.

In 1946, the hospital moved into premises vacated by the Royal Melbourne Hospital on Lonsdale Street. In 1965, it became Monash University’s teaching hospital for obstetrics, gynaecology and paediatrics, at which point it became a ‘Family Hospital’ that treated and employed males.

In 1977 the hospital amalgamated with McCulloch House and was renamed the Queen Victoria Medical Centre. The years later , in 1987, it merged with Moorabbin Hospital and moved to Clayton. In 1991 it was involved with yet another merger, this time with Prince Henry’s Hospital, to form the Monash Medical Centre.

Jane Fletcher published a number of books on nature and nature study, and broadcast on 7ZL Hobart and 3LO Melbourne. In 1934 she became the first woman to lecture to the Royal Society of Tasmania. She was an outstanding bird observer with a particular interest in crakes and rails.

The Lyceum Club (Melbourne), established in 1912, was directly modelled on the lyceum clubs of England. Membership is restricted to women graduates and other women who had distinguished themselves in art, music, literature, philanthropy or public service.

Amy Rivett was a medical practitioner who specialised in gynaecology. She was a disciple of Marie Stopes and advocated birth control. During WWI she worked in several hospitals in Brisbane. After the war she moved into private practice, first on her own and then, from 1946, with her brother Edward in Sydney. She was a founding member of the Queensland Medical Women’s Society.

Mary Rivett was trained as a psychologist and lectured briefly at the University of Sydney. With her sister Elsie she formed the free Children’s Library and Crafts Club in 1922. In 1934 they formed the Children’s Library and Crafts Movement which after their death became the Creative Leisure Movement.

In February 1890, Dr Constance Stone became the first woman to be registered with the Medical Board of Victoria, paving the way for medical women in Melbourne, Australia, Working mainly with women and children in free clinics, she gave low-income women the opportunity to be treated in private, free from the embarrassment of examination in front of male medical students. She founded the Victorian Medical Women’s Society and was a member of a number of women’s organisations, including the Victorian Women’s Franchise League. Her major achievement was the foundation of the Queen Victoria Memorial Hospital.

Teacher, kindergarten activist, and philanthropist, Ada Mary a’Beckett was born in Adelaide in 1872. Throughout her career she worked as a demonstrator and lecturer in biology at the University of Melbourne as well as teaching at various schools throughout Victoria. She was very closely involved in the kindergarten movement, helping to establish the Kindergarten Training College in Kew. Ada was appointed as a Commander of the Order of the British Empire, 3 June 1935, and had a kindergarten named after her the following year. She died in 1948 in Melbourne.

Galbraith, a prominent Victorian naturalist, joined the Field Naturalists’ Club of Victoria in 1923 and in 1970 was awarded their Australian Natural History Medallion. In 1950 she published Wildflowers of Victoria which by 1970 had gone to three editions.

Mavis Jackson was a microbiologist. She founded International House (University of Melbourne) and served as President of the Lyceum Club from 1973-75.

The Women’s Electoral Lobby (WEL) was established in Melbourne in 1972 by Beatrice Faust. She was inspired by feminists in the United States who had been rating presidential candidates. The organisation quickly spread to Sydney, Adelaide and Canberra and in 1978 WEL Australia was formed as a coalition of state, territory and regional groups. Primarily a women’s political lobby group, WEL surveyed political candidates and their policies affecting women, wrote submissions and developed media skills for women to lobby for the inclusion of women in the area of government policy. Originally the WEL campaign was based on six demands: equal pay, equal employment opportunity, equal access to education, free contraceptive services, abortion on demand and free 24-hour childcare.

Jane Elix was the National Coordinator of the Women’s Electoral Lobby from 1985-86.

Mavis Freeman worked with Macfarlane Burnet during the 1930s and, with Burnet, succeeded in identifying the microbe responsible for Q fever. She became only the second female scientist to join the AIF and served in the Australian Army Medical Corps during World War II, undertaking research into safe methods for blood transfusion in malarial regions.

Mary Owen was founding Coordinator of The Working Women’s Centre Melbourne, 1975-1986, when it was absorbed into the Australian Council of Trade Unions. She was a staff member of AAESDA (Association of Architects, Engineers, Surveyors & Draughtsmen of Australia), 1965 -1975 and a member of La Trobe University Council 1983-1990. She was appointed Deputy Chancellor of La Trobe University 1989. A founding member of Emily’s List, Mary Owen was also a Member of the Women’s Electoral Lobby (WEL) for over forty-three years. She represented WEL on many Government committees, making a significant impact on policies advancing the status of women, especially the fight for equal pay.

In 1986 the first Mary Owen Dinner was organised in Melbourne to celebrate Mary’s retirement. Held annually, the event lasted twenty years. There was always a female keynote speaker and the audience, normally in the order of 600 women, wearing the feminist colours of purple, green and white, was a sight to behold. The last dinner was held in 2005.

Mary Owen was a very early supporter of the Australian Women’s Archives Project, which began as a community based organisation’s response to a request from Mary Owen for help with conserving the records of her long and varied contribution to public life.

Born in 1921, Mary was a woman who effected change – and made Australia a better, more equal place for all of us coming after her. She died 23 March, 2017.

The Melbourne Working Women’s Centre was the first trade union women’s research and advisory centre in Australia. Established in 1975, under the auspices of the white collar union peak body, the Australian Council of Salaried and Professional Associations (ACSPA), it operated as an independent lobby and research group concentrating on women’s issues in employment. When the ACSPA amalgamated with the ACTU in 1979, so too did the Working Women’s Centre. It became defunct in 1984.