The Australian Women's Register

Ruth Hamilton-Williams, the daughter of James Davidson, enlisted in the Australian Army Medical Women’s Service (AAMWS) on 1 May 1943. She served as Assistant Controller at the Australian Military Forces Headquarters in Melbourne before being discharged, with the rank of Major, on 21 November 1946.

Ivy Kent, the daughter of William and Elizabeth Woods, was educated at Iona Convent (New South Wales) and Mosman’s Park in Western Australia. Kent, who was a leader in the Labour Women’s Movement of Western Australia, a worker in youth welfare and an officer of the Housewives Association, established a club for neglected girls during World War I. She served on the Married Women’s Relief Court for 20 years and was a member of the Lotteries Commission, the Adult Education Board, the National Fitness Executive and Soldiers’ Dependants’ Appeal. In 1944 Kent became the first woman commissioner of the Australian Broadcasting Commission (representing Western Australia). In 1953 Kent was elected Foundation President of the Association of Civilian Widows in Western Australia, a movement which became national five years later. In 1959 she was elected National President, and later, National Life Governor. On 1 January 1968 Ivy Kent was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire for her service to the welfare of women and children.

Camilla Wedgwood, the fifth of seven children of Josiah and Ethel (née Bowen) Wedgwood, came to Australia in 1928 to lecture in anthropology at the University of Sydney. She then lectured at the University of Capetown, South Africa and at the London School of Economics and Political Science before being granted a fellowship to study the lives of women and children on Manam Island, New Guinea by the Australian National Research Council. Later Wedgwood became principal of Women’s College at the University of Sydney and held this position until her appointment in the Australian Army Medical Women’s Service, at the express wish of General Sir Thomas Blamey. She developed policies for postwar educational reconstruction in Papua New Guinea. Following her discharge Wedgwood returned to lecturing. A member of the Australian Student Christian Movement she was also involved with the Rachel Forster Hospital for Women and Children, the Anthropological Society of New South Wales, the Australian Federation of University Women and the Australian Institute of International Affairs.

Sally Bowen, who lived most of her adult life in Wollongong, was a prominent union, political and community activist. During her life Bowen was involved with Miners’ Women’s Auxiliaries, the Women’s Centre in Wollongong, the Union of Australian Women, the Save Our Sons movement, the Jobs for Women Campaigns and the Environmental Movement.

Aged fifteen, Eileen Powell joined the Australian Labor Party (ALP) and remained a member for over 45 years. She trained at the Party speakers’ classes in Balmain and became Assistant Secretary of the Stanmore Branch in 1929. After working for Grace Brothers (Broadway) Powell commenced work with the Labor Daily. From 1937 until 1944 she worked with the Australian Railways Union, New South Wales Branch. During this period Powell became an organiser for the Railway Refreshment Rooms (RRR) staff and achieved an Industrial Relations award for them. The mostly women workers were not employed directly by the Railways Department, were not covered by other awards and were dispersed throughout railway towns in New South Wales. On their behalf she appeared before the full bench of the NSW Industrial Commission and when the judgement was handed down there was a cut in the spread of hours, provisions for overtime, increased wages and the abolition of the compulsory board and lodging payments. Powell was also a member of the Council of Action for Equal Pay, the ALP Women’s Central Organising Committee and the United Associations of Women.

Louisa Dunkley co-founded the Victorian Women’s Post and Telegraph Association in 1900. A campaigner for equal pay for women, she joined the Postmaster-General’s Department in 1882. By 1890 Dunkley had passed the proficiency tests and transferred to the Chief Telegraph Office as a telegraphist. In the 1890s she helped to establish a committee of women telegraphists and postmistresses to present a case for equal pay, with their male colleagues in the Post and Telegraph Department of Victoria. They received increases in salary, though not equality with men telegraphists. Because the male union discourages female members the Victorian Women’s Post and Telegraph Association was established in 1900 with Dunkley as vice-president. She represented the association at the telegraphists’ conference in October 1900 at Sydney, where she met her future husband, Edward Charles Kraegen, secretary of the New South Wales and Commonwealth Post and Telegraph associations from 1885 to 1904.

Henrietta Greville established her life-long involvement with the labour movement when she moved to the goldfields at West Wyalong, following the breakdown of her marriage to John Collins. Here she pegged out a claim, sold meals to the miners and helped establish a branch of the Political Labor League, as well as meeting her future husband, miner and union organizer, Hector Greville. To help support her family Greville, at times, worked as a seamstress. Later she became an organizer for the Australian Workers’ Union, the Women Workers’ Union, and for some time acted as its delegate at the Trades and Labor Council. As a Labor candidate, Greville was defeated for the federal seat of Wentworth in 1917 and the state seat of Vaucluse in 1927. Greville became associated with the Workers’ Educational Association of New South Wales in 1914 when she joined an economics class. By 1918 she was branch secretary at Lithgow, became a member of the executive in 1919 and the first woman president in 1920. Greville was still active with the association in 1954, at the age of 94. On 1 January 1958 Henrietta Greville was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire for social welfare services in New South Wales.

Joyce McConnell was appointed to the Order of the British Empire on 12 June 1976 for community services. She was an active member of a number of national women’s groups and Australian Capital Territory associations. McConnell was President of the National Council of Women of Australia, member of the National Women’s Advisory Council, National Women’s Consultative Council and the Federation of University Women. In 1976 McConnell was Australia’s delegate to the International Council of Women conference in Vancouver.

Former primary school teacher Barbara MacLeod joined the Women’s Royal Australian Naval Service in 1954. During her service she served in every Australian state except Western Australia. In 1976 MacLeod became the first woman officer of any service to attend the Australian Administrative Staff College (AASC). Three years later she was the first woman naval officer of Captain’s rank to be posted to a male Captain’s position. In 1982 MacLeod became an Honorary Aide-de-Camp (ADC) to Queen Elizabeth. She was the first Australian woman to be appointed as an ADC, a post which had to be relinquished on her retirement. On 9 June 1975 Naval Officer Barbara MacLeod became a Member of the Order of Australia. She was also awarded the Queen’s Silver Jubilee Medal (1977) and the National Medal (1977) and Bar (1979).

Cathy Picone was born in Moree, New South Wales in 1949. Cathy was brought up as a Catholic, and it seems that her Italian/Irish father’s faith and her parents’ different religious practices were a source of tension in her youth. Cathy’s father was a successful bookmaker and Cathy did her secondary schooling at a Catholic college in Armidale. After false starts in Medicine and Science courses, she studied Arts at Sydney University and graduated with a DipEd. Cathy moved to South Australia with her husband in 1973 and worked in suburban high schools. In the early 1980s she became determined to do community service that was ‘change-oriented’. She became involved in People for Nuclear Disarmament. Through this she was invited to join the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom.

Judy Finlay was treasurer of the Australian Women’s Land Army Association New South Wales from 1996.

Rosemary Follett was born in Sydney in 1948 but is Canberra in her heart, describing herself as ‘in lock step’ with the city. (Interview) ‘It’s a peaceful, tolerant place’ with a ‘sense of spaciousness and community’ she says. (Interview)

It is also the place where she, as the Australian Capital Territory’s (ACT’s) first chief minister, in 1989 became the first woman to lead an Australian state or territory government. As ALP leader, she presided over 3 ministries and remained in parliament until 1996 as the member of Molonglo. Her portfolio responsibilities included Social Justice, Treasury and Public Service, Attorney-General, Law Reform, Consumer Affairs, Police and Emergency Services.

Follett described herself as belonging to the Left faction of the ALP and came to power with a platform of open accountable government, social justice and a policy that half of all positions on government advisory boards and committees should be filled by women.

After leaving politics she served as the ACT Discrimination Commissioner from 1996 until 2004.

Annabelle Pegrum held the position of Chief Executive of the National Capital Authority from 1998 to 2008. Prior to this she held a number of senior executive management positions with the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) Government.

Pegrum has been involved in several architecture organisations, and has served as President of the ACT Chapter of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects.

She was the 1998 Telstra ACT Business Woman of the Year and received a Centenary Medal in 2003.

In 2008 she took up an appointment as a professorial Fellow at the University of Canberra and is the University Architect.

Ros Kelly was elected with a large majority as the first woman member of the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) House of Assembly and was later elected to the House of Representatives for the electorate of Canberra (1980-1995). She was the first Labor woman federal minister in the House of Representatives and the first to give birth while holding office. A complete record of her parliamentary service, including a link to her first speech, can be found in the Parliamentary Handbook of the Commonwealth of Australia (see below).

Lilias Stuart Humphreys, artist and genealogist, was born at Orange, New South Wales, in 1909, the fourth daughter and eldest child of Percival Stuart Garling (1873-1951) and Margaret Isabella Jane McSpadden. She married, in 1936, Jack Iorweth Humphreys (1905-1989) at her parents’ home ‘Wanganui’, Longueville, New South Wales; they had a daughter, Jennifer Karen (1937-1983). In 1927 the family home had been the venue for the celebration of the 112th anniversary of the arrival in Australia of Lilias’s great-great grandfather, the solicitor and magistrate Frederick Garling Senior (1775-1848). Her great grandfather was the customs officer and marine artist, Frederick Garling Junior (1806-1873), whose son was Arthur Crawford Garling (1833-1910).

In the 1960s, Lilias Humphreys began her genealogical researches into the descendants of Frederick Garling Senior and their extensive connections with other families. She carried on the earlier researches of her uncle, William Mylam Nicholas Garling. She was assisted by her daughter, Jennifer, who conducted her own research on Susannah Matilda Ward, nee Baldwin, appointed by Governor Macquarie as matron and superintendent of the Female Orphan Institution. Lilias Humphreys died in 1985.

Rachel Roxburgh was born in Sydney, New South Wales in 1915. She attended East Sydney Technical College and Adelaide Perry School. Afterwards she spent ten years in England and Europe, where she continued her studies at London Central and Hammersmith Art Schools. After her return to Australia she taught arts and crafts.

Roxburgh wrote a number of books on architecture and early Australian families. Her published works include The Early Australian scene: illustrated by example of early buildings in New South Wales (1969), Thomas Potter Macqueen of Segenhoe, New South Wales (1972), Early colonial houses of New South Wales (1974), Colonial farm buildings of New South Wales (1978), Berrima Court House (1981), Throsby Park: an account of the Throsby Family in Australia 1802-1840 (1989) and Some early colonial buildings (filmstrip, 1962). She also published a number of articles on old buildings, for example those published in the Journal of Royal Australian Historical Society (New South Wales).

Roxburgh died on 13 April 1991 in Castle Hill, New South Wales and is survived by her brother, Mr J. Roxburgh.

Social reformer, Rose Scott was born at Glendon, near Singleton, NSW, on 8 October, 1847. Rose Scott was one of the key figures in the turn-of-the century movement committed to the universal suffrage and a general improvement in the condition of women. She lived at home and did not marry, she devoted her life to the women’s movement.

In 1889 she helped form the Women’s Literary Society in Sydney and it was out of this society that the Womanhood Suffrage League developed in May 1891. She wrote and debated and lectured and argued until in 1902 the Women’s Suffrage Act became law in New South Wales. She lobbied for the establishment of Children’s Courts for juvenile offenders, for the ‘age of consent’ to be raised from fourteen to sixteen for girls (Crimes (Girls’ Protection) Acts 1910), and for a more comprehensive and equitable system of family maintenance to be established.

She opposed Federation and, in later years, conscription. She was president of a local branch of the London Peace Society, formed in 1907, and international secretary of the National Council of Women of New South Wales, formed in 1896.

One of the most important figures of her time she died in Sydney on 20 April 1925.

Ivy Shore won the Portia Geach Memorial Art Award (Australia’s richest and most prestigious art award for women painters only) with her first entry – a portrait of Della Elliott- in 1979. She went on to win “Most Highly Commended” prizes in the ‘Portia’ three times thereafter, making her the top winner in the history of the award.

Dr Winifred Wall spent her childhood in Broken Hill and Georgetown in the mid north of South Australia. After attending bush schools she went to Gladstone and Adelaide High Schools. Wall won a scholarship to study medicine at Adelaide University (1918-1922). She then worked at the Royal Adelaide Hospital where her duties included treating returned servicemen from World War I. She married Dr Fred Wall, they had four children, and she established a private practice. During World War II she returned to the Royal Adelaide Hospital where she specialised in anesthesia. Foundation president of the Family Planning Association (South Australia), Wall was awarded Life membership of the Royal District Nursing Society, the Australian Medical Association and the British Medical Association. On 26 January 1979 Dr Wall was appointed a member of the Order of Australia for service to the community, particularly in the field of women’s affairs.

Dr Mildred Mocatta, a diagnostician, conducted a practice in Adelaide.

Patricia Deal was trained at the Rachel Forster Hospital at Redfern. She worked in various Repatriation Hospitals, becoming the Director of Nursing at the Repatriation General Hospital in Daw Park, Adelaide. She also served as a nurse in Vietnam as part of the Australian Army Nursing Corps and remained an active member, retiring in 1986 with the rank of Major.

Marjorie Ladkin, née Soady, was born in Sydney, New South Wales. In 1933 she began training at the Sydney Hospital, and upon graduation worked for a nursing agency. She was the first full-time secretary of the Royal Australian Nursing Federation (South Australia Branch) serving in this position from 1965-1975. The successful development of the Branch is largely due to her dedication and drive and, innovations advocated by Ladkin have resulted in a better ratio of staff/patient care. On 13 June 1983 Marjorie Ladkin was awarded an Order of the Order of Australia for service to nursing.

Eve Ainsworth was born in Adelaide, South Australia and was adopted in infancy by the couple whose name she was given. In 1941 she was called up for duty with the Australian Army Nursing Service and went to the Middle East later that year. On her return to Australia Eve nursed in Queensland, until her marriage in 1944.

Dr Frances Mocatta grew up in the Blue Mountains in New South Wales. She studied medicine at the University of Sydney. A former Resident Medical Officer (RMO) at Rachel Forster Hospital, Royal Hospital for Women Paddington and Manly District Hospital, Sydney. In 1947 she married William Theyer Dean and had two daughters. She established a private practice in Meredith, Victoria and then Medindie, South Australia. Mocatta worked as a physician in allergic diseases. In 1963 she became a Medical Officer (MO) to the allergy clinic at the Repatriation Hospital.

Her publications included papers on the treatment of patients who were hypersensitive to bee strings. Her work was written up in the International Archives of Allergy and Applied Immunology in 1986. Dr Frances Mocatta retired in 1991.

Shirley Shennen, born Wilson, was educated at Moree Intermediate High School. During World War ll she enlisted in the Women’s Auxiliary Australian Air Force. In 1949 she married Graham Barnes. The marriage ended in divorce in 1972. Later she married Frank Shennen.

Elizabeth Hoffman grew up at the Cummeragunja Reserve in New South Wales. She moved to Melbourne in 1971, and started to work with the Aborigines Advancement League (AAL) as Matron of the Gladys Mitchell Youth Hostel. She was elected President of the AAL Management Committee three times, and at different times was Vice President and Treasurer, until taking up employment with the League as Director in 1976. She was the Chairperson of the Aboriginal Legal Service for three years, and the Chairperson of the Aboriginal Housing Co-operative. She also worked with the National Aboriginal and Island Women’s Council and the Women’s Council at Echuca, and was a member of the Steering Committee of the Aboriginal Housing Board and of the local Aboriginal Land Council. She also worked as a Commissioner with the Aboriginal Development Commission. In the early 1970s, she co-founded the Elizabeth Hoffman House, Aboriginal women’s refuge in Melbourne which in 1984 became Incorporated and independent of the AAL. She was one of the 250 women included in the Victorian Honour Roll of Women which was read out in Victoria’s Parliament House on 7 May 2001. She was awarded a National NAIDOC Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2006 and her collection of poetry To Our Koori Sons was published in 2009.

Iris Clayton was taken to the Cootamundra Domestic Training Home for Aboriginal Girls in the 1950s, and from there sent to work as a servant in Canberra. At the age of 18 she was allowed to return home where she married. She returned to Canberra in 1977 to work at AIATSIS, first as a library assistant and later on the switchboard, where she stayed for a number of years. She was awarded a grant to research the Wiradjuri births, deaths and marriages, and her findings have been deposited at AIATSIS.

From 1991, Clayton worked as a health worker at the Winnanga Nimmityjah Aboriginal Health Service in Canberra. She was involved in community issues and served as a council member of the ACT Cultural Council. She influenced a generation of Canberra school children by becoming a regular visitor to ACT schools, sharing her stories and explaining her culture.

Iris Clayton died on 5 July 2009 at Bega, New South Wales, after more than a decade of recurrent health problems.