The Australian Women's Register

The funeral service for former Group Officer Betty Docker, aged 81, was held at the Royal Military College, Duntroon. Director of the Royal Australian Air Force Nursing Service (RAAFNS) Docker trained at the Alfred Hospital, Melbourne. She then joined the hospital staff before enlisting with the RAAFNS in 1944. During her time in the service she fought for change so married women could continue on as nurses and women could reach the highest ranks – something not allowed previously. After 28 years with the RAAFNS Docker retired in 1975 having been awarded The Royal Red Cross (2nd Class), 1968; Royal Red Cross, 1970; the Florence Nightingale Medal, 1971 and the National Medal in 1977.

Selina (also spelt Sulina) Sutherland was the first person in the State of Victoria to be licensed under the 1887 Neglected Children’s Act. The Act sanctioned private licensed individuals to remove children from unfit homes and take them under their own guardianship. The daughter of Baigrie and Janet (née MacDonald) Sutherland, Selina Sutherland was born in Scotland, spent some time in New Zealand before settling in Melbourne, Australia, in 1881. Initially she worked as a nurse and, along with Mrs Maria Armour, founded the Scots’ Church Neglected Children’s Aid Society in 1881. For the next 28 years Sutherland was involved with helping Melbourne’s poor. Following her death on 8 October 1909 a public appeal was held to erected a granite memorial for her grave.

Ethel Osborne and her husband William, who had been appointed professor of physiology and histology at the University of Melbourne, migrated to Australia in 1904. Osborne, a foundation member of The Catalysts, visited the Lyceum Club while travelling through London. At the inaugural meeting of the Lyceum Club in Melbourne she was elected vice-president. Back in England during World War I Osborne worked with the British Ministry of Munitions of War. Here she conducted investigations for the Health of Munition Workers’ Committee and the Industrial Fatigue Research Board. Upon her return to Melbourne she was invited to report to the Commonwealth Court of Conciliation and Arbitration on the conditions of employment of women workers in the clothing industry, for a case which won some workers a 44 hour week. Osborne then studied medicine at the University of Melbourne, practising at the Queen Victoria Hospital for Women and Children, the (Royal) Melbourne Hospital and privately. Osborne became a foundation member of the Emily McPherson College of Domestic Economy council, serving as treasurer, vice-president and president. When the college’s new premises were opened in 1927, its hall was named after her. Before retiring, in 1938, Osborne represented Australia at the Pan-Pacific Women’s Conference (Honolulu 1928 and 1930), attended the Congress on Industrial Accidents and Diseases (Geneva) the International Congress of Industrial Relations (Amsterdam), the Disarmament Conference (Paris) and investigated employment problems in Yorkshire.

Jessie Webb became the first female teacher at the University of Melbourne when she joined the History Department. A prominent figure in women’s organisations she was a founding member of the Catalysts, the Lyceum Club, the Victorian Women Graduates Association, and the Women’s College. Webb, who completed two major overseas trips, is permanently commemorated in the name of the History Department Library at the University of Melbourne.

Cecilia Downing was a leading figure in the Victorian women’s movement in the early twentieth century, spreading her activities and influence over an enormous range of organisations. The daughter of Isaac and Mary (née Morgan) Hopkins, Downing was born in London and came to Australia in 1858. She obtained her Teaching Certificate from the Training Institution in Carlton and taught at Portarlington before marrying John Downing in 1885. The couple returned to Melbourne in 1901. Although she had seven children, Cecilia became heavily involved in women’s groups and welfare work. She was one of Victoria’s first child probation officers (1907) and was an officer bearer with both the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union and the Australian Women’s National League. From the 1920s, she devoted her energies to the Housewives Association (having become one of its earliest members in 1917) and served as its federal president from 1940-45 and Victorian president from 1938 until her death in 1952. On 8 June 1950 Cecilia Downing was appointed a Member of the British Empire for social welfare services in Victoria.

Frances Desailly was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire on 8 June 1939 for her services to charities. The daughter of an early pioneer of Victoria, Dr Daniel Curdie, she married Dr Julian Gilbert Desailly on 4 May 1904 and had one daughter. A member of a number of welfare societies, she was president of the Ladies’ Benevolent Society and vice-president of the Girls’ Employment Movement. Awarded life membership of the Camperdown Red Cross, Camperdown Mothers’ Club and the District Hospital Auxiliary, she was also a member of the Charles Dickens Society and the Alexandra Club.

The author of the Billabong series of books, Mary Grant Bruce began writing poetry and short stories at the age of seven. Later she became editor of her school magazine. After completing her matriculation Bruce moved to Melbourne where she worked as an editor and wrote weekly stories for the Leader children’s page. Her first book A Little Bush Maid, originally a serial, was published in 1910. Between 1910 and 1942 she published 37 children’s novels. During her career Bruce was a contributor to Blackwood’s Magazine, Morning Post, Daily Mail, Windsor Magazine, Cassell’s Magazine, Strand, Argus, Age, Herald (Melbourne), Australasian, Leader, Sydney Morning Herald, Sydney Mail, Lone Hand Auckland Weekly Press, Woman’s World, West Australian and the British Australasian. During World War II Bruce worked for the AIF Women’s Association, sold her autograph at charity auctions for the war effort and broadcast a series of talks for the Department of Information.

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.

Glen Tomasetti was born in Melbourne, Australia. An academically and musically gifted woman, she was well-known throughout the Australian folk music circuit, working on commercial television and cutting eleven albums in the 1960s. A left-leaning environmentalist and feminist, Glen was vehemently opposed to the Vietnam War and was a member of the Save Our Sons Movement in Victoria. In 1967 she made headlines when she was subpoenaed to court for withholding one-sixth of her income tax on the grounds that this was the exact proportion used by the Holt government to finance the war in Vietnam.

She became a hero of the feminist movement in 1969 when she adapted the words to an old shearing gang ballad, ‘All among the wool boys’. Glen’s version ‘Don’t be too Polite, Girls’ was written to support the 1969 case for equal pay that was being heard by the high court.

Glen Tomasetti had three children and believed that motherhood was the emotional core of her life. She has been described as “a woman of singular passion that found focus in motherhood, friendship, art, the environment and justice for the oppressed. Her creativity was multifaceted. She was a historian, poet, novelist and actor. She was formidably intelligent and her god had bestowed on her extraordinary physical beauty.”

Irene Pye enlisted in the Australian Women’s Army Service (AWAS) on 8 September 1943. Following basic training she worked in a number of administrative positions and was posted with the 3rd Psychology unit at the time of her discharge on 11 February 1947. A member of the Australian Women’s Army Service Association ( Victoria.) Inc., since its inception, she attends functions and reunions.

Mary Goddé grew up on a farm in Western Victoria and put her experience driving tractors to good use when she joined he Australian Women’s Army Service on 8 September 1943. After her marriage in 1947, she moved to Myrtleford, in north-eastern Victoria, where she played a significant role in the Catholic Women’s League.

Alice Speedie, the daughter of the Reverend John and Susan (née Long) Burns was treasurer of the Housewives’ Association of Victoria for 20 years. Educated at Clarendon College, Ballarat Victoria and Inglemere College, Adelaide, South Australia, she married Charles Speedie on 10 October 1905. They had three children. A member of the executive to the Children’s Cinema Council of Victoria, Speedie was President of the Australian Women’s National League, Elsternwick branch, between 1939-1943. She later became vice-president of the branch. A delegate to the National Council of Women of Victoria and the Youth Problem of Today committee, Speedie was the President of the Housewives’ Association of Victoria, Elsternwick branch. Aged 76, Alice Speedie died in 1955.

Alma Colman, the daughter of Alvington and Undine (née Cruthers) Silvester, was educated at the Presbyterian Ladies’ College (PLC), Melbourne, Victoria. She joined the Junior School teaching staff before working at Trinity Grammar School, Kew. On 17 January 1942 she enlisted in the Australian Women’s Army Service (AWAS) and was the first chief instructor of the Army Women’s Services Officers’ School (AWSOS). Prior to her discharge on 23 July 1945 she was the Deputy Assistant Director of Army Education for Women’s Services with the rank of Major. On 9 January 1945 she married David Colman.

Appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for her service to education, particularly in the field of history, on 26 January 1989, Kathleen Fitzpatrick was the first woman council member of the National Library of Australia, and a foundation member of the Australian Humanities Research Council (later the Australian Academy of Humanities).

Dr Patricia Clarke is a writer, historian, editor and former journalist, who has written extensively on women in Australian history and media history. Several of her publications are biographies of women writers and others explore the role of letters and diaries in the lives of women. Since the 1980s she has played an active part in national cultural institutions and community organisations in Canberra and her work has been recognised by a number of awards and grants.

Jessie Clarke, daughter of Ivy Brookes and grand daughter of Alfred Deakin, trained in social work and was professionally active in the Port Melbourne, Victoria, area. She studied in New York in the 1930s, was a junior delegate to the League of Nations Union in Geneva and an activist on behalf of refugees. She founded the Nappy Wash delivery service in the period after the Second World War.

The daughter of Thomas and Gwenelian (née Bartleman) Laby, Beth Laby completed her secondary schooling at Korowa Anglican Girls’ School. She graduated with a Diploma of Foods and Cookery, Institutional Management, from the Emily McPherson College of Domestic Economy before becoming a demonstrator with the Metropolitan Gas Company.

In 1942 Laby was appointed to the cookery department at Emily McPherson College and part of her college war work included teaching members of the Australian Women’s Army Service, the Women’s Royal Australian Navy Service and army hospital cooks. She demonstrated to civilian women the use of diverse foodstuffs during a time of food rationing and uncertain supply, as well travelling to country towns to show women how to make ovens from oil drums in case the war moved south from Darwin.

Laby became acting head of the Emily McPherson College cookery department following the resignation of Miss Jose and later taught at Prahran Technical College. In her retirement she was a delegate to the National Council of Women of Victoria (NCWV) for the Home Economics Association of Victoria. From 1992 to 1997 she was an associate of the NCWV and continued to contribute to council fund-raising activities and assist the home economics advisers well into the 1990s.

Constance Ellis became the first woman graduate of the University of Melbourne to obtain the degree of Doctor of Medicine (MD) in March 1903. She joined the pathology department of the Queen Victoria Hospital in 1902 and was honorary pathologist from 1908 until 1919. Ellis was the first woman to become a demonstrator and lecturer of Pathology at the University of Melbourne.

A foundation member of the Lyceum Club, Ellis was also a member of the Medical Women’s Society, the Australian Association for Fighting Venereal Diseases, the Victorian branch of the British Medical Association, the National Council of Women of Victoria, the Victorian Baby Health Centre Association and the Emily McPherson College.

Anna Brennan, member of a talented Victorian family, was a devout Catholic who actively pursued the cause of women’s equality throughout her life. She was one of the earliest woman to graduate in law at the University of Melbourne in 1909 and practised as a solicitor in her brother’s legal firm for fifty years. She was a foundation member of the Lyceum Club in 1912 and president from 1940-41.

The Victorian Legal Women’s Association was established in 1931 with Brennan serving as president. A founding committee member of the Catholic Women’s Social Guild in 1916, later the Catholic Women’s League, she served as president from 1918-1920. She joined the Victorian branch of St Joan’s International Alliance, holding the office of president from 1938-1945 and again in 1948 until her death in 1962.

On 29 November 1924 a ceremony of the Perpetual Profession of Dr Mary Glowrey, now Sister Mary of the Sacred Heart took place in the Church of St Agnes at Guntur (India). Mary Glowrey, who completed her medical training at the University of Melbourne, (MBBS 1910, MD 1919), was the first president of the Catholic Women’s Social Guild (now Catholic Women’s League). After receiving assurance from the Pope that she would be allowed to continue in her profession, Glowrey left Melbourne for India in 1920. At this time nuns were still prevented from practising medicine, She entered the Society of Jesus, Mary and Joseph, a Dutch order of nuns and spent the next 37 years involved with medical work in Guntur, India. Glowrey House, the Catholic Women’s League headquarters in Nicholson Street, Fitzroy, is named in her honour.

On 26 January 1998 Nina Buscombe was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia for service to the community through the Motor Neurone Disease Association of Victoria, the Victorian School for Deaf Children, the Victorian Council of Social Service, and Zonta. In 1987 she was honoured with an Anzac of the Year Award for her contribution to the community and the Motor Neurone Disease Association of Victoria awarded her a Life Governorship and instituted The Nina Buscombe Award in her honour.

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.

Bella Guérin became the first woman to graduate from an Australian university when she was awarded her Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Melbourne (number 255) in December 1883. She taught first at Loreto Convent, Ballarat then as lady principal of Ballarat School of Mines university classes, resigning upon marriage to Henry Halloran. A civil servant and poet, Halloran married Guérin on 28 June 1891 aged 80. Following his death Guérin married George D’Arcie Lavender.

Bella Guérin was politically active and a member of the suffrage movement. She became vice-president of the Women’s Political Association in 1912, and later joined the Labor Party.

Trade union official Mary Lambert, State secretary of The Australian Hairdressers, Wigmakers & Hairworkers Employees Federation was also a member of many committees within the union movement. She was a union representative on several committees including the State Wages Board, Industrial Training Commission committees and trades committees.

Pre-school teacher and educator Heather Lyon was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire on 11 June 1977 for her service to education.

Joyce Nicholson was born in Melbourne, the daughter of publisher D.W. Thorpe. She was educated at Methodist Ladies College before completing a Bachelor of Arts at the University of Melbourne, where she was vice-president of the Student Representative Council. She has been active in the women’s movement, involved in early years with the Women’s Electoral Lobby (W.E.L.) and Sisters Publishing Ltd. She was Managing Director, and later sole owner, of D.W. Thorpe Pty Ltd from 1968 until 1987, when the firm was sold. She is the author of over 25 books, many of them written for children, others dealing with women’s issues.