The Australian Women's Register

Daughter of Arthur Walker and his wife Frances (née Sinclair), Ellinor Walker was born in Melbourne, Victoria and moved to Adelaide, South Australia when she was nine years old. She attended the Wilderness School, and was awarded the Tennyson Medal for English at the age of fifteen. Walker graduated as a kindergarten teacher, and spent two years as Director of the Halifax St Free Kindergarten. She then opened the Greenways School at her family home in Fullarton, and directed this for 24 years. At the age of eighteen she and a friend formed a Girls’ Club to study political matters, and this led to her joining, at the age of 21, the Non-Party Association. She was an active member of this for 65 years, and when (as the League of Women Voters, which it had become) it voluntarily ended in 1979, she gave the valedictory speech. She was a passionate supporter of the League of Nations and the movement to maintain world peace. In 1940, with the help of Roma Mitchell (later Governor of South Australia) she drew up the Bill which became the Guardianship of Infants Act, No. 55 (1940), giving mothers equal rights with fathers over their children. In 1962 and 1963 she organised an Australia-wide campaign which resulted in recognition of the needs of civilian widows with dependent children. She was a member of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU). In 1964 she helped form the Local Government Women’s Association, and in 1971 was president of the Women’s Christian Temperance League, of which she had been a member since 1935. Walker wrote several historical pageants and she also wrote a monologue, ‘The Story of the Franchise: How Women Won the Vote in SA’ (1944) for the Golden Jubilee of Women’s Suffrage. Her poem ‘Lullaby’ was set to music by Ruby R McCulloch, and is held in the Mortlock Library. Ellinor Walker was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire on 12 June 1971 for her service to the community.

Beryl Miller was born in Geelong, Victoria. The daughter of British migrants she came to Adelaide after her marriage in 1945. She joined the Eureka Youth League at 15 and joined joining the Communist Party of Australia in 1952. She was involved with the Union of Australian Women, the Women’s International Democratic Federation and the Australian Peace Committee. She left the Communist Party and became a foundation member of the Socialist Party of Australia. Miller represented South Australia in 1964 when the Communist Party of Australia organised the first women’s delegation to Russia.

Berthe Mathilde Fritsch (née Simpfendor) was born in 1896 in the Baranduda – Leneva District in Victoria, Australia. Her father was a Lutheran Pastor. She took over the housekeeping duties after her mother died in 1920. She married Walter Fritsch in 1922, moved to New South Wales then back to Victoria, before settling in Adelaide in 1938 at St Stephen’s. There she joined the Lutheran Women’s Guild, and the Lutheran Women’s Association of South Australia. Fritsch served on the Ladies’ Committee of Emmanuel College from 1942-1971 and represented the Lutheran Women’s Association at the Women’s Jubilee Convention in Canberra in 1951. In 1954 she went to Minneapolis, USA, to the LWF (Lutheran Womens’ Federation?) assembly. She had 5 daughters who all graduated from the University of Adelaide.

Mavis Cooper, née Price, was born in Bairnsdale, Victoria and grew up in Melbourne. She trained as a nurse and moved to Jamestown, South Australia after she met her future husband, a farmer, on holiday there. After joining the Country Women’s Association’s choir in 1957, she was soon an office holder in the local branch. She progressed from Branch President to State President in 1974 and then National President in 1977. Mavis Cooper was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire on 14 June 1980 for service to the Country Women’s Association.

Miriam Tonkin, née Brunning, was born in Melbourne, Victoria. She left school at 13 years of age to begin work. She was very active in the Eureka Youth League as a teenager and worked on the Communist Party’s Guardian newspaper. Married in 1950 she and her husband moved to Adelaide with their five young children in 1958. In the late 1960s Tonkin became involved in the peace movement and Women’s Liberation. Her belief in women’s right to control their fertility led to her involvement in organisations including the Humanist Society, the Abortion Law Reform Association and the Friends of the Pregnancy Advisory Centre. Tonkin qualified as a kindergarten teacher in the mid 1970s and became active in her union and in education reform as well.

Marina Berton was born at Mildura, Victoria in 1948 to Italian-born parents who had emigrated in 1937. Berton moved to Adelaide to attend Wattle Park Teachers College in 1965. Early in her teaching career she became involved in English language adult education for migrants, and more recently in developing Italian language education for second generation Italo-Australians. Throughout, Berton has been much involved with the Italian Federation of Emigrant Workers and their Families (FILEF), including six years as its President.

Alice Creswick (née Reid) is best known for her work in the Free Kindergarten Union (FKU) although she was also an important figure in the Australian Red Cross Society (ARCS) during World War 2. A woman of considerable energy and acumen, she developed a life-long interest in the area of early childhood development. She was president of the committee of the Lady Northcote Free Kindergarten for ten years (1928-1938) and joined the executive of the Free Kindergarten Union (FKU), becoming president in 1939. In 1940, she was ‘headhunted’ by the Australian Red Cross Society, when they asked her to become its principal commandant. In this capacity, she travelled widely, both inspecting and establishing Red Cross services and activities. She resigned from this position in 1946 and immediately resumed her presidency of the FKU, picking up where she left off as an energetic leader who tirelessly lobbied the government for greater support for pre-school training. Ill health forced her to resign in 1949, but she maintained her interest and activism in the area of early childhood development. She died in 1973, leaving large bequests to the organisations she supported in her lifetime: the FKU, the Australian Red Cross and the Anglican Church.

Dr Jean Hailes was a pioneer in women’s health in Australia. In 1970 she began the first clinic in Australia dedicated to the management of women in midlife and beyond. Hailes was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia for service to medicine particularly in relation to women. Following her death in 1988, her colleagues and friends created the Jean Hailes Foundation to honour her memory.

Lillias Skene was a prominent member of numerous women’s groups and social welfare organisations in Melbourne from the early 1900s into the 1940s. She initially focussed on philanthropic work, but from the 1920s she devoted most of her energies to the Red Cross and the National Council of Women of Victoria. She was present at the inaugural meeting of the British (Australian) Red Cross on 25 August 1914 and was a member of the Victorian council from about 1920 until 1941. She became assistant-secretary of the National Council of Women in 1914, honorary secretary in 1916, vice-president in 1921 and president in 1924. In this year she also became foundation president of the federal council of the various State-based National Councils of Women.

Lady Millie Peacock was the first woman member elected to the Victorian Parliament and the third woman elected to Parliament in Australia. On 1 January 1901 she married Victorian Parliamentarian Alexander Peacock (knighted 1902). Lady Peacock was the first President of the Creswick branch of the Australian Red Cross Society. She was a member of the Provisional Committee of the Victorian Division of the Australian branch of the British Red Cross Society (1914-1915). She then became a member of the Victorian Divisional Committee until 1934 and was a member of the Victorian General Committee until 1938. Following the death of her husband in 1933 Lady Peacock stood for and won her late husband’s Legislative Assembly seat of Allandale. During her time in Parliament she made only one speech. She retired from Parliament in 1935.

Joy Warren was a tireless fundraiser and patron of the arts in Canberra. She was the owner-director of Solander Gallery since 1974 and ran a public relations business geared towards the arts.

She had been an arts journalist and spent fifteen years with Canberra Repertory Society.

On 26 January 2001 Joy Warren was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for service to the arts, particularly in the Australian Capital Territory.

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.

June Cochrane began nursing training at the Royal Adelaide Hospital in 1950 and became a nurse after a chronic disability prevented her from continuing as a clinical nurse. For nineteen years she was the Principal Nurse Educator at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Adelaide. She was an active member of the Royal Australian Nursing Federation and council member of the Royal College of Nursing Australia, becoming its Executive Director in 1981.

Ruth Hurn, née Derbyshire, was born in Melbourne. During the early years of World War II she was a Red Cross volunteer at the Port Lincoln Hospital. In 1945 she commenced training at the Royal Adelaide Hospital (RAH). In 1969 she was appointed Nursing Advisor to the Hospitals Department. During five years in this post, Hurn was associated with several developments in nursing education including the tertiary nursing course at Sturt College of Nursing in Adelaide. After retirement from the Hospitals Department she spent five years as Director of Nursing at the Berri Hospital.

Judith Wotherspoon was born in Melbourne and came to Adelaide with her parents at the age of eight. After nursing in Papua New Guinea, Britain and Canada, Judith studied at Flinders University for a Bachelor of Arts degree. Subsequently she worked in the field of community health and as a part-time lecturer at Sturt College of Advanced Education. Between 1982 and 1985 she was senior lecturer in nursing at the Darwin Community College, then went to the University of New South Wales to complete a masters degree in health planning. In 1988 she took up an appointment as lecturer in nursing at the South Australian Institute of Technology (now the University of South Australia).

Hilary Cranswick, née Hogarth, was born in Victoria. When her father enlisted in the war Hilary came with her mother and sister to live with relatives in Adelaide. Her father was killed during the war. She went to Britain in 1939 and held many wartime nursing positions including accompanying children of one of her employers to Canada when the blitz necessitated their evacuation. On returning to Australia in 1942 Hilary joined the Australian Army Nursing Service and had postings in Papua New Guinea and in New South Wales. She retired from nursing after her marriage.

Dorrie West went to school in Horsham, Victoria, before moving to Adelaide with her family. She completed a Bachelor of Arts at the University of Adelaide in 1921 and her teacher training. A teacher at Adelaide High School she left her position upon marriage in 1934, as was the custom of the time. During World War II she returned to teaching. She was an active member of both the YWCA and the Australian Federation of University Women. Following the death of her husband she joined the Lyceum Club and was President 1957-59. Her bequest to the University of Adelaide supports postgraduate scholarships for women and concerts at the Elder Conservatorium in Adelaide. Relatives remember Dorrie as being very engaging and encouraging.

Lois Mander-Jones grew up in Victoria and attended Presbyterian Girls College in Geelong. In 1940 she joined the Union Bank in Melbourne and then joined the Army. She was on General Blamey’s staff in Queensland. She became the personal assistant to the Director of Intelligence Brigadier John Rogers and also worked for Brigadier Kenneth Wills. On 9 June 1943 she married Evan Mander-Jones. Her husband went to New Guinea and returned to be the head of the Intelligence School. As couples could not work in the same unit she was transferred to Army Education. She became pregnant and was discharged from the army. She lost this baby and another child. Her husband was appointed Director of Education in South Australia. She had three sons and continued to work for the University. They spent a year overseas in 1959. She did a marriage guidance course and counselled for five years. Family commitments were dominant in the 1950s and 1960s. In 1965 she enrolled in a Diploma of Social Work and in 1968 she took a part time job as a research worker with the Institute of Technology. From 1970 to 1978 she worked as a part time supervisor and trainer of counsellors. Her husband died in 1975. In 1978 she started working at Flinders University as a part time social work demonstrator and she retired in 1982. She became involved with the Lyceum Club being Vice President and President and in 1993 Australian President of the Association of Lyceum Clubs. Mander-Jones was awarded honorary life membership in 1993.

Lady Elizabeth Bright, the daughter of Herbert Boyd and Annie (née Holden) Flaxman graduated from Melbourne University in medicine in 1937. She became a resident at the Queen Victoria Hospital for women and children. She moved to the Adelaide Children’s Hospital in 1939, met Charles Bright and was married in 1940. During the War Bright worked as a locum and did the medical examinations for the Women’s Australian National Service (WANS) recruits. She wrote “The Diary of a woman Doctor” for the Advertiser. She became the honorary medical officer for the Kindergarten Union of South Australia and was on the Social Welfare Committee of the Red Cross. Bright travelled extensively with her husband, Sir Charles Bright. She became patron of the South Australian branch of the Women Writer’s Association from 1982 to 1991 and in 1983 published a book written by her late husband called The confidential clerk about Charles Flaxman and George Fife Angas.

Helen Brookes was born in Melbourne and moved several times before settling in Adelaide in 1929. She started her working career at the Waite Institute with Dr Davidson. Later Brookes became a technical assistant and eventually senior lecturer as a systematic entomologist. Following her retirement, in 1982, she presented her insect collection to the Australian National Insect Collection in Canberra. Brookes was a member of the Lyceum and Minerva Clubs. In 1999, Year of the Older Person, Brookes was invited to a symposium in Canberra as an outstanding older woman scientist.

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.

Frances Gertrude Kumm (nee Cato), influenced by her mother F.J. Cato and sister Una Porter (nee Cato) – both ardent Young Women’s Christian Association supporters – joined the Young Women’s Christian Association’s National World Fellowship Committee in 1931 and was made president of the Young Women’s Christian Association of Melbourne (1943 – 1945).

Kumm held the office of National president from 1945 – 1951, visiting ‘all local associations’ throughout Australia during this time. She attended the World Young Women’s Christian Association Council meetings in China (1947) and Lebanon (1951) and was ‘for some time’ Vice President of the World Young Women’s Christian Association Council.

Instrumental in early Young Women’s Christian Association immigration committees, Kumm was elected to the Commonwealth Immigration Advisory Council in 1949 and was President of the Victoria National Council of Women. She received an OBE in 1948 and made the Queen’s Birthday Honours List.

Louisa Briggs, of Woiworung descent, was born on Preservation Island, Bass Strait. Around 1853 she and her husband, John, went to the Victorian goldfields. Then they worked as shepherds in the Beaufort district until 1871 when the family was admitted destitute to Coranderrk Aboriginal Station. There Briggs acted as nurse and midwife. In 1876 she was appointed matron and became the first Aboriginal woman to replace a European on salaried staff. She became the spokesperson for the residents and succeeded in securing the reappointment of the popular first manager. She fought the Aborigines Protection Board’s plans to sell Coranderrk and remove residents to other reserves, and gave evidence to the 1876 inquiry but was eventually forced off the reserve and moved to Ebenezer Aboriginal Station. After yet another inquiry in 1881 she moved back to Coranderrk where she was reappointed matron. When her sons were forced off the reserve under the Victorian Aborigines Protection Act 1886, she moved first to Maloga Mission, and in 1889 to Cummeragunja reserve. Late in life she moved to Barmah and finally to Cummeragunja where she died in 1925.

Merle Jackomos, of Yorta Yorta descent, grew up at Cummeragunja, New South Wales. During the famous walk-off of the Cummeragunja people who crossed into Victoria in 1939, Merle and her family were amongst those who stayed to make sure that the station was not closed and sold off by the government. She married Alick Jackomos in 1951, and became involved with the Aborigines Advancement League of Victoria. She helped found the National Aboriginal and Islander Women’s Council of which she became Victorian vice-president, and the Northcote Aboriginal women’s refuge. In 1972 she was elected to the Aboriginal Affairs Advisory Council. She was later appointed director of Aboriginal Hostels Ltd, and in 1981 was elected to the National Aboriginal Conference, of which she remained a member until its abolition in 1985.

Sarah Powell was State President of the Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen’s Mothers’ Association for 25 years and was made Life President. She was decorated with the OBE in June 1943 for her services in this organisation. She founded the Croydon Branch and attended their annual meeting on her 92nd birthday five days before she died.

Bessy Cameron was educated at a ‘native institution’ (later known as Annesfield) at Albany, opened in 1852 by Anne Camfield, a teacher and governess. Bessy took her certificate of Proficiency with honours, and was sent to Sydney to attend a ‘model school’, where she became an accomplished pianist. In 1866 she returned to Albany to help Mrs Camfield in the school and was employed as church organist. In 1867 Bessy was sent to the Moravian Ramahyuck mission as a teacher. Not being able to marry a European man of her choice, she was transferred to Lake Tyers, were she married Donald Cameron, a Jupagilwournditch man from Ebenezer in 1868. Bessy lost her initiative and enthusiasm, which was reflected in a marked deterioration in her status. Her married years were spent moving from Ramahyuck to Lake Tyers and back, in a struggle to support her four surviving children. Her marriage deteriorated, and in 1887 Bessy fell seriously ill following another miscarriage. The rest of her life was spent battling to prevent the forceful removal of her children and grandchildren.