The Australian Women's Register

Born in Perth in 1906, Dame Rachel Cleland lived an active life which was centred around politics and community organisations. At one time considered the matriarch of the liberal party, in her later years Dame Rachel was very vocal on her opposition to the logging of old-growth forests. She insisted that the Liberal party under Menzies would never have taken the same stance as the current party on such issues. Dame Rachel’s community work with women and children was recognised in 1959 when she was appointed as a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) and again in 1966 when she was appointed as a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE). In 1980 Dame Rachel became the only western woman to be appointed as a Dame of the British Empire (DBE) by the government of Papua New Guinea for the volunteer work she did for many Papua New Guinea organizations and for helping involve women in public affairs.

Betty Cuthbert was the first Australian athlete to win an Olympic gold medal on Australian soil. Nicknamed the ‘Golden Girl’ of Australian athletics, she was inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame in 1985 as an Athlete Member for her contribution to the sport of athletic. She was elevated to “Legend of Australian Sport” in 1994.

Betty Cuthbert was so unsure that she would make the Australian Olympic Games team in 1956, she bought tickets to attend the Games as a spectator.

Edith Cowan, the first woman to be elected to an Australian parliament in Western Australia in 1921, was described in her entry in Australian feminism, a companion, as ‘a committed, tireless and public campaigner for women’s and children’s rights from the early twentieth century’. Married at the age of seventeen to James Cowan, registrar and master of the Supreme Court, they had five children. She was the founding secretary in 1894 and later president of the Karrakatta Club, a women’s club in Perth, which campaigned for female suffrage. Her commitment to women’s well-being resulted in her active involvement in the establishment of the Western Australian National Council of Women in 1911. She was a foundation member of the Children’s Protection Society in 1906 and the first woman to be appointed to the Children’s Court bench in 1915. She became a Justice of the Peace in 1920. In the same year her work was acknowledged with her appointment to the Order of the British Empire for her contribution to the Western Australian division of the Red Cross Society, of which she was a founding member in 1914.

A clock tower at the entrance to King’s Park in Perth was erected to her memory in 1934 and in 1995 her portrait was printed on the Australian fifty dollar note.

Born in Laverton, Western Australia, May O’Brien survived her removal to Mount Margaret Aboriginal Mission as a child, eventually taking up her first appointment as a teacher at Mount Margaret. After teaching for 25 years she moved into education policy, working for the Western Australia Ministry of Education and the Aboriginal Education Branch.

O’Brien was awarded the British Empire Medal on 31 December 1977 for work in Aboriginal education. For this she was also awarded the John Curtin medal. O’Brien was a delegate for Australia at the United Nations conference on Women in Denmark, 1980. She has written several children’s books.

Horton (ed) (1994), Encyclopaedia of Aboriginal Australia; WCTU (1980), Some Aboriginal Women Pathfinders.

Bessie Rischbieth’s interest in woman’s suffrage was aroused when she attended a suffrage meeting in London in 1908. A co-founder of the Women’s Service Guild of Western Australia in 1909, she was also co-founder and President of the Australian Federation of Women Voters (1921-1942). Rischbieth edited The Dawn, a women’s paper issued in Perth from 1914 to 1939. A talented craftswoman her art embroidery, beaten copperwork and word carvings were exhibited with the West Australian Society of Arts. In the later years of her life Rischbieth clashed with Jessie Street, whom she labelled a communist. Bessie Rischbieth was appointed as an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for her work with women’s movements.

Violet Herring, née MacGregor, gave forty years of service to the Red Cross Society and was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire for her services to that organisation in 1954. Although educated in Melbourne, she spent most of her life in Queensland, and was a life member of the Creche and Kindergarten Association, vice-president of the District Nursing Association of Queensland for thirty years and a driver for the Lady Goodwin District Nursing Transport Corps for twenty years. She also served on the committees of the 2nd Australian Imperial Forces Nurses’ Fund and for the building of St Martin’s hospital.

Australia’s first female athletic star, Decima Norman won five gold medals at the 1938 Empire Games (later known as the Commonwealth Games) in Sydney. She won gold medals in the 100 yards, 220 yards, long jump and two relays, and in winning the 100 yards she beat the world record-holder. She might well have won Olympic gold in 1940 if those Games had not been cancelled. Decima Norman was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire in 1982 for her services to sport.

On 10 June 1961, Ida Spencer was appointed a Member to the Order of the British Empire for services to the Country Women’s Association in Western Australia.

Mollie Lukis graduated with Honours from the University of Western Australia in 1932. She worked as a teacher from 1934 to 1940 in Perth, Victoria and England, then with the Munitions Supply Laboratories during the war years. In 1945 Lukis was appointed State archivist of the Museum and Art Gallery of Western Australia. On June 1976 Lukis was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (Civil) for archival work.

Rita Samson attended Miss Parnell’s School (now St Hilda’s Anglican School for Girls), Claremont, Western Australia. She married Robert Bruce Laurie and the couple moved to Melbourne where they stayed for 28 years and raised two sons. Following the death of her husband, Laurie returned to Western Australia to stand in as Mayoress of Fremantle for the deceased wife of her brother Frederick Samson, Mayor of Fremantle. A Mayoress was needed for the upcoming Royal visit, and Laurie retained the position until her brother retired in 1972. She was appointed an Officer to the Order of the British Empire on 10 June 1967 for services as Mayoress of Fremantle. In 1976 she launched the Fremantle Port Authority’s new pilot ship the Sir Frederick Samson.

Gertrude Ruston was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (Civil) on 13 June 1970 for services to the community. Ruston was state secretary of the Women’s Service Guild for over six years, convener of the committee for Mentally Retarded Children, vice-president of the Slow Learning Children’s Group and Honorary life member. She served as a member on the Western Australian committee on Access for Disabled for many years and assisted in the producing of the Guide to Perth for the Handicapped. One of her most outstanding services was the establishment of the Citizens Advice Bureau in Perth. Ruston also was involved with the establishment of Council of Social Service of Western Australia, Citizens’ Advice Bureau and Perth Emergency Housekeeper Service.

On 12 June 2000 Beryl Grant was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for service to nursing and to the community through the support and development of services and programmes for children and families, particularly in rural and remote areas of Australia. She was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (Civil) on 1 January 1976 for services to nursing.

Mildred Manning was a full-time staff member at Wesley College (Perth) from 1930 until her retirement in 1970. The College named the biology laboratory in the then new science block after her in December 1963. On 1 January 1964 Mildred Manning was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (Civil) (MBE) for services to education in Western Australia.

Erica Underwood was the first woman Deputy Chairman of Council at the Western Australian Institute of Technology, the first psychologist trained in Western Australia, an ABC broadcaster and a founder of the University radio station 6 NR. [1] She was appointed to The Order of the British Empire – Member (Civil) on 31 December 1977 for services to radio, education and the community.

Champion sprinter and hurdler, Shirley Strickland (as she was then known), became the first Australian female to win an Olympic medal in a track and field event at the London Olympic Games in 1948.

Shirley de la Hunty was appointed Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) on 26 January 2001 for service to the community, particularly in the areas of conservation, the environment and local government, and to athletics as an athlete, coach and administrator. She had been appointed a member of the Order of the British Empire (Civil) (MBE) for services to athletics on 1 January 1957.

Elizabeth Hansen was a foundation member of Perth’s oldest Aboriginal community organisation, the Coolbaroo League, formed in the 1940s. She has been a long-time campaigner for Aboriginal rights and was vice-president of the New Era Aboriginal Fellowship and Treasurer of the Aboriginal Rights League and Old People’s Home.

Hansen won the Western Australian Citizen of the Year Award in 1976, and was appointed as a Member of the Order of the British Empire for ‘Aboriginal welfare’ on 31 December 1979.

Catherine Martin was a journalist for the West Australian newspaper from 1957, specialising in medical reporting. She was born in the United Kingdom but emigrated to Western Australia and lived there for most of her life.

Jean Conochie forged a successful career in librarianship at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), later the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO). She took up her appointment in 1946 and remained there for all her working life, gaining an international reputation as a serials cataloguer and bibliographer. She was responsible for cataloguing standards across the entire CSIRO library network, and for the ongoing compilation of the CSIRO union catalogue. She was an active member of the Library Association of Australia as a member of the Board of Examiners from 1966-1972 and of numerous committees and represented the Association at international conferences. She was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire on 31 December 1977 for public service in the field of science. The Library Association of Australia honoured her with the H.C.L. Anderson Award in 1985 for outstanding service to librarianship in Australia.

Norma Parker taught social work at both Sydney University and the University of New South Wales. She was awarded an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Letters from Sydney University, and was appointed as a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (Civil) on 3 June 1972, for education and child welfare. The Norma Parker Correctional Centre for Women at Paramatta, New South Wales, is named after her.

Beryl Splatt was educated at the University of Melbourne, where she was awarded an MSc. A Carnegie Grant enabled her to undertake postgraduate study at Middlesex Hospital, London in 1938. She worked as a biochemist and metabolist at the Royal Melbourne Hospital from 1923 to 1964 and also demonstrated in clinical biochemistry at the University of Melbourne from 1940 to 1961. She served as a committee member on the Red Cross Blood Transfusion Service 1940-1960, as a member of the Royal Melbourne Hospital Clinical School 1957-1961 and as the first president of the Association of Hospital Scientists of Victoria. She was appointed MBE – Member of The Order of the British Empire (Civil) – 1 January 1965 for her work in the Biochemistry Department at Melbourne Hospital.

Ruby Hutchison was the first woman elected to the Legislative Council in Western Australia, and the first to take her place in any Australian Council. She was the only female member of the Chamber during this period. Her work enabled the introduction of the first law to enable women to serve on juries, and she founded the West Australian Epilepsy Association to fight discrimination against people with intellectual disabilities.

Jennifer Fowler is an internationally renowned composer who was born in Bunbury, Western Australia. She works as a freelance composer in London, where she has lived since 1969.

June Craig was a member of the Western Legislative Assembly from 1974 until 1983, and served also as a cabinet Minister. In 1994 she received an Order of Australia (AM) for her long and distinguished parliamentary and community service.

Lyla Daphne Elliott joined the Australian Labor Party in 1955, and was a member of the Legislative Council in Western Australia from 1971 until 1986.

Meta Overman was a Dutch-born composer who studied piano and composition with leading figures in Rotterdam before emigrating to Western Australia in 1951. She earned accolades for her works, which included choral, instrumental, chamber pieces, ballets and operas. After lengthy sojourns in both Melbourne and Holland, she returned to Perth in 1978, where she remained until her death in 1993.

From 1974 to 1993 Margaret McAleer served in the Parliament of Western Australia. She was the first non-Labor member of the Legislative Council, and served as Whip from 1980 to 1993.

Grace Sydney Vaughan served in the Western Australian Legislative Council from 1974 to 1980. She drew on her extensive experience as a community and social worker to campaign on issues concerned with poverty, unemployment and welfare.