The Australian Women's Register

Rachel Robinson became the General Organising Secretary of the Housewives’ Association (Victorian Division) in 1924. Educated at the Presentation Convent, Launceston, from 1912 to 1915, Robinson was an organiser with the People’s Liberal Party. She held the position of Organiser with the Australian Industries League in 1919-1921. Robinson acted as secretary for a number of candidates at various state and federal elections.

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.

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.