The Australian Women's Register

Merran Martin has taught English to migrants and refugees in Canberra since 1985. From 1973-75 she worked in the Department of Immigration teaching English in a migrant hostel, as a shipboard education officer, and in its Migrant Education Section in Canberra. Fluent in French and German from childhood she also taught English in Europe in the early 1970s. She is currently Education, Placement and Referral Officer, Special Preparatory Program Manager and Home Tutor Scheme Coordinator in the Adult Migrant English Program at the Canberra Institute of Technology.

Michelle Ronksley-Pavia is one of Australia’s emerging scientific artists. Born in England, she has lived in various parts of the United Kingdom and Europe. She studied for eight years in Belgium, where she attended the State-operated Ecole des Beaux Arts in Brussels. Whilst in Europe she was greatly influenced by the works of the Impressionists and the Belgian Surrealist painter, Rene Magritte.

Ronksley-Pavia emigrated and took up Australian Citizenship in 1992. She attended the University of Western Sydney and continued with postgraduate study in Visual Arts. Here she was drawn to the work of artists like James Gleeson and Brett Whiteley. Ronksley-Pavia exhibited widely and joined the National Association for the Visual Arts. The influence of the Association saw her career begin to flourish.

Glenda Adams was a Sydney-born and educated novelist and short-story writer. She studied journalism at Columbia University in New York, where she subsequently taught creative writing. During the 1980s she was writer-in-residence at a number of Australian universities before returning to Australia in 1990 to teach creative writing at the University of Technology, Sydney. Her MA writing program there became the model for successful postgraduate writing programs across Australia. Her novels Dancing on Coral (1987) and Longleg (1990) won a number of major Australian literary prizes. She died in Sydney in 2007.

Zora Cross was, among other things, a poet and author of children’s verse. She wrote for the Brisbane Daily Mail as a freelance journalist, and was drama critic for the magazines Green Room and the Lone Hand.

Kerry Kenihan worked as a primary school teacher before turning to journalism, a career she has followed for over thirty years. She was at one time women’s editor of the Melbourne Sunday Observer and chief sub-editor of New Idea. In the 1970s Kenihan was a prolific writer of short stories, many of them romances, which she published under various pseudonyms. Since then she has worked freelance, writing both general news and features on topics including medicine, food and wine, and women’s issues.

Her second son, Quentin, was born in 1975 with severe osteogenesis imperfecta (OI), which meant that his bones were as brittle as eggshell. With her husband Kenihan founded the Osteogenesis Imperfecta Foundation to assist families afflicted with this condition. Their experiences in caring for Quentin and helping him to overcome the difficulties resulting from his OI led her to write the bookHow to be the Parents of a Handicapped Child – and Survive (1981), and in 1985 when Quentin was ten she wrote his story.

Margaret Perger stood as a candidate for the Australian Greens Party in the seat of Bega in the Legislative Assembly at the New South Wales state election, which was held on 24 March 2007.

Michele Sacco stood as a candidate for the Australian Greens Party in the seat of Strathfield in the Legislative Assembly at the New South Wales state election, which was held on 24 March 2007.

Sue Wynn stood as a candidate for the Australian Greens Party in the seat of Swansea in the Legislative Assembly at the New South Wales state election, which was held on 24 March 2007.

Helen Mayer was elected to the House of Representatives of the Federal Parliament of Australia as the Member for Chisholm in Victoria in 1983. A member of the Australian Labor Party she served until 1987 when she was defeated at the General election. She died in 2008.

Olive Zakharov was elected to the Senate of the Parliament of Australia in 1983 as a representative for Victoria. A member of the Australian Labor Party, she served until her death in 1995.

Maria Vamvakinou was elected to the House of Representatives of the Parliament of Australia as the Member for Calwell in 2001. A member of the Australian Labor Party, she was re-elected at the elections which were held in 2004, 2007, 2010 and 2013.

Karin Geradts stood as a candidate for the Australian Greens Party in the Legislative Assembly seat of Broadmeadows at the Victorian state election, which was held on 30 November 2002. She stood again unsuccessfully at the 2006 election as the Greens candidate in the seat of Yan Yean.

Hilary Bray stood as a candidate for the Australian Greens Party in the Legislative Council Province of Chelsea at the Victorian state election, which was held on 30 November 2002. She was a candidate again for the Australian Greens in the Legislative Assembly seat of Cranbourne at the state election, which was held on 25 September 2006. She has been employed as a secondary school teacher in the state system since 1990.

Alice Jackson was a journalist and editor who was on the staff of the Australian Women’s Weekly from its inception in 1933. Prior to working for the AWW, she enjoyed stints on Smith’s Weekly and the Sydney Daily Telegraph. She was formally appointed editor of the AWW in 1939 – the first woman editor of the magazine which, by then, had an all female hierarchy. She is credited with establishing the national distribution system that made the AWW so attractive to advertisers.

Matilda Evans arrived in Adelaide with her family in 1851. Her first novel, Marian, or the Light of Someone’s Home was completed in 1861 while Evans was working as a governess near Mt Barker. After the death of her husband, Ephraim Evans, she opened a school at Angaston and resumed writing novels. Her works, which always had religious and temperance themes, included Vermont Vale: or Home Pictures in Australia (1866), Emily’s Choice: An Australian Tale (1867), Minnie’s Mission: an Australian Temperance Tale (1869) and Golden Gifts (1869). Evans opened Angaston House in North Adelaide in 1868. A collected edition of her fourteen novels was republished several times.

Eliza Fewings was appointed Headmistress of the Brisbane Girls’ Grammar School in 1896. Her dismissal from the position in 1899 after accusations of incompetence by the second mistress, Maud Sellers, led to a great deal of public protest. Fewings opened her own school, the Brisbane State High School for Girls (Somerville House), in October 1899. By 1903 it was the largest girls’ school in Queensland.

Marian Harwood was a committed member of the New South Wales branch of the Peace Society, becoming vice-president in 1913. She founded the journal Pax in 1912, and established a library of peace literature. Harwood funded the Sydney office of the Peace Society and offered prizes to children in state secondary schools for essays on peace. She also gave money to several Sydney hospitals and children’s homes. Marian Harwood had a strong interest in feminist organisations. She wrote several monographs on subjects that ranged from the life of Rose Scott, to the success or otherwise of international peace conferences, and to the study and performance of Shakespeare’s plays.

After winning a Bulletin prize in 1913 for a sonnet about Canberra, Nina Murdoch published a book of verse, Songs of the Open Air. She was one of the first women general reporters at the Sydney Sun, and from 1922 was working in Melbourne at the Sun News-Pictorial using the pen-name ‘Manin’. She was the first woman permitted to cover Senate debates. In 1930, Murdoch published Seventh Heaven, a Joyous Discovery of Europe, based on her own travels. Another book, She Travelled Alone in Spain, followed five years later. Her last book, Portrait in Youth of Sir John Longstaff, was published in 1948.

Ruby Scott was assistant physicist in the Physics Department at the University of Sydney, then a teacher at Woodlands Church of England Grammar School, before the outbreak of WWII. Post-war, she worked as a radio engineer with Amalgamated Wireless Australasia. After the birth of her son she became a science teacher at Danebank Anglican School for Girls, where she established a Science Department.

Lucy Woodcock was a founding member of the New South Wales Teachers’ Federation in 1919, and became president of the Australian Teachers’ Federation in 1932. A trade unionist and a feminist, she also gained a favourable reputation as a humanitarian worker during the depression years. Woodcock helped to found the Australia-China Society and hosted a meeting in April 1956 that led to the establishment of the Aboriginal-Australian Fellowship.

Jane Sutherland arrived in Sydney with her family in 1864. She studied at the National Gallery School of Design, and held a number of exhibitions from 1878. Sutherland was a leader in the movement away from the nineteenth-century tradition of studio art, and toward the plein-air style, sketching directly from nature.

Florence Johnson, a teacher and active unionist, stood as an Independent Labor candidate in the Legislative Assembly seat of St Kilda at the Victorian state election, which was held on 9 April 1927.

A devout Catholic, Annie Golding was president of the Women’s Progressive Association in Sydney from 1904. She lobbied for equal pay for women, and equal opportunity in the work force.

Phyllis Gibb was the first teacher at the School of the Air in Broken Hill, New South Wales.

As a small child, Kitty Lund entertained the Broken Hill community with her acting and dancing performances on the local stage. In later life, as Kit Harris, she published two popular books on handcrafts.

Annie Carl operated the ‘Travellers Rest’ lodging house in Silverton, New South Wales. She was one of the first teachers in the town.

A member of the Australian Democrats, Sandra Kanck was elected to the Legislative Council of the Parliament of South Australia at the election, which was held on 11 December 1993. She remained in the Parliament until January 2009.