Alice Hazel King (1908-1997)

Alice Hazel King (1908-1997)

by | Mar 21, 2024 | Women’s History Month | 0 comments

Written by Melina Apostolidis, RAHS Volunteer

To celebrate Women’s History Month in 2024, the Royal Australian Historical Society will continue our work from previous years to highlight Australian women who have contributed to our history in various and meaningful ways. You can browse the women featured on our Women’s History Month webpage.

Alice Hazel King was an Australian historian and the first woman elected President of the Royal Australian Historical Society from 1982–1984. Her research on historical personalities and subjects contributed to a greater appreciation of Australia’s colonial history.

Born in 1908 in the Eastern Suburbs, Hazel came from a highly affluent family. She started her historical studies in earnest after her enrolment at Sydney University, graduating in 1953 with an honours degree in history. She then completed a masters in 1956, focusing on police organisation and administration in early NSW. After her mother died in 1956, she pursued further study abroad for a PhD at St Hugh’s College in Oxford. Her thesis was on Sir Richard Bourke, Governor of NSW from 1831 to 1837. It was revised and published in 1971 and ‘became the standard treatment’ on the subject.[1]

A photograph of Hazel King holding the 'History House' Green Plaque. Standing beside Hazel are Sir Roden Cutler and John Vaughan. Interpretive panels are visible in the background.

RAHS President Hazel King with Sir Roden Cutler, Chairman of State Bank of NSW, and RAHS General Secretary John Vaughan for the launch of the Green Plaques at History House on 11 April 1985.

Hazel’s academic interests reflected a nascent and growing interest in Australia’s history. As Anna Clark discusses in Making Australian History, there was a sort of ‘industrial revolution’ about the history of Australia around the sixties and Hazel was a part of this change.[2] It is also important to keep in mind that Hazel’s academic achievements happened at a time when it was rare for a woman to receive the extensive education she had. She was subsequently appointed a lecturer at the University of Sydney in 1960, where she taught early modern European history until her retirement in 1974.[3]

The growth of Australian national history was a slow evolution, and like this, Hazel was not a revolutionary figure, but rather one who had undertaken the task of laying the groundwork. As a research assistant at the Mitchell Library, under the supervision of Marjorie Jacobs, another RAHS member, Hazel had undertaken the classifying of new archival materials.[4] This experience helped her work on the Australian Dictionary of Biography, which included entries on Sir Richard Bourke and Eliza and Walter Hall (Eliza was her mother’s cousin and was recognised for the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Research in Pathology).

While she taught early modern European history over the course of her time at Sydney University, it was never her passion. Increasingly, she wrote about Australian history and the emerging personalities during the post-contact period. Elizabeth Macarthur was not originally considered as one of Australia’s leading figures and it was Hazel’s research that led to her being included in other studies.[5] Hazel’s interest in the role of women in history grew, which was also reflected in her other extracurricular activities, such as for Zonta, an organisation dedicated to promoting the fellowship of women in professional occupations. Following her study of Elizabeth Macarthur, she wrote about her half-sister, Olive, in One Woman at War. It was a collection of letters about her career as a hastily organised ambulance driver who worked with the Serbian army as the First World War broke.[6]

Hazel’s academic work came alongside her extensive volunteering effort, mirroring her parents’ civic-minded lifestyle. She joined the RAHS in 1954 while she was still beginning her university studies, working as an office bearer, librarian, and vice president. In 1982, she became the first woman to be elected RAHS President.[7] Hazel was a steadying figure for the RAHS at a time when memberships had been low, and the idea of selling History House had been in the minds of some. As Editor of the Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society between 1964 and 1991, her academic training helped maintain the journal’s scholarly standards. She also contributed many articles to the journal.[8]

Hazel was certainly one of many historians who helped develop our understanding of Australia’s history. Thanks to her hard work, we can better understand Australia’s story. Hazel’s career reminds us that developing a revolutionary idea is much more difficult when there is no groundwork to base it on. Her research provided a foundation to build more nuanced accounts of Australia’s colonial past.

References:

[1] B.H. Fletcher, ‘King, Alice Hazel (1908–1997)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/king-alice-hazel-27067/text34541, published online 2021, accessed online 20 March 2024.
[2] Anna Clark, Making Australian History, Penguin Random House, 2022, p. 157.
[3] B.H. Fletcher, ‘Eulogy for Dr Hazel King’, History magazine, no. 55, 1998, p. 3.
[4] K.J. Cable, ‘Alice Hazel Kelso King, 1908–1997: An Obituary’, Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society (JRAHS), Vol. 84, Part 1, June 1998; Fletcher, ‘King, Alice Hazel’.
[5] A.H. King, Elizabeth Macarthur and her World, Sydney University Press, 1971.
[6] A.H. King, One Woman at War: The Letters of Olive King, 1915–1920, Melbourne University Press, 1989.
[7] A. Whittaker, ‘Biographical Notes on the Fellows of the RAHS’, in Much Writing, Many Opinions: The Making of the Royal Australian Historical Society 1901–2001, JRAHS, Vol. 87, Part 1, June 2001, p. 77.
[8] Cable, ‘Alice Hazel Kelso King’.

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Florence Mary Taylor née Parsons (1879-1969)

Florence Mary Taylor née Parsons (1879-1969)

by | Mar 19, 2024 | Women’s History Month | 0 comments

Written by Judith Dunn OAM, RAHS Councillor

To celebrate Women’s History Month in 2024, the Royal Australian Historical Society will continue our work from previous years to highlight Australian women who have contributed to our history in various and meaningful ways. You can browse the women featured on our Women’s History Month webpage.

Florence Parsons arrived in Parramatta in 1884 at the age of 4 years from Somerset, England, with her parents John, a stone quarryman and Eliza, a washerwoman.[1] John obtained work with Parramatta Council as a draftsman-clerk and later in the sewerage construction branch of the Department of Public Works. Florence, a very bright child, attended Parramatta Public School while assisting her father with engineering calculations. Following the deaths of her mother in 1896 and father in 1899, Florence, then aged nineteen, needed to find work to support herself and two younger sisters.[2]

A photograph of Florence Mary Taylor. She is wearing a wide-brimmed hat and carries a parasol.

Florence M. Taylor, ca.1926 (State Library of New South Wales).

The most likely work in those days for young women was in domestic service but Florence was determined to become a draftsman. She worked in Francis Stowe’s Parramatta architectural practice who had been an acquaintance of her father and enrolled in night classes at Sydney Technical College. Later articled to architect Edward Garton, she became the first woman to complete studies in architecture in 1904. She became chief draftsman for the prestigious office of John Clamp, who recommended her to become the first female member of the Institute of Architects in 1907 but was refused in a groundswell of antipathy from her male counterparts.[3] She was not admitted as a full member of the Institute until 1923. Despite this setback, she built up a successful business designing over 100 homes. Some of these still exist in Cremorne and Roseville.[4] In 1907, with her then employer Clamp, she worked on the basement of Farmers Department Store in Pitt Street Sydney, the first example of a woman contributing to commercial architectural design in Sydney. In the same year, she provided the perspective drawings for the prize-winning entry in a competition for the Commercial Traveller’s Building in Sydney. Again in 1907, she won several prizes in the architectural section of the ‘First Australian Exhibition of Women’s Work’ in Melbourne.

Florence continued to study at Technical College and then Sydney University, becoming qualified as a civil and structural engineer. Together with her degree in architecture, she was the first woman to gain qualification in any of these three disciplines in Australia.[5]

In April 1907 she married George Augustine Taylor, artist, aviator, inventor and craftsman at St Stephens Presbyterian Church in Sydney. George had been one of her lecturers at college and was a close friend of Francis Stowe, in whose business Florence worked. There were no children of the marriage. As a couple, Max Freeland described them as being ‘possibly the most amazing couple in Australia’s history.’

With marriage came two new ventures – flying and publishing. Florence became the first Australian woman to fly a heavier-than-air craft. George had built a glider in his Redfern workshop, and she flew it from the Narrabeen Sandhills on 5 December 1909, although this seems to have been merely a hobby, with publishing and architecture being their main interests.[6]

Within months of their wedding, George and Florence established their Building Publishing Company, specialising in building industry journals, three of which, Harmony, Young Australia and Australian Home, Florence edited. In 1913, they became founder members of the Town Planning Association, with Florence as its secretary for many years.[7] George died suddenly in 1928 when he drowned in his bath during an epileptic fit. Florence continued with their publishing endeavours, although she was forced to close eight of their eleven journals. She continued to publish Building, Lighting and Engineering, Construction and the Australasian Engineer, somehow finding time to also publish her own book, Fifty Years of Town Planning with Florence Taylor.

Although accolades and memberships were slow to arrive in her early years, many honours eventually came her way. The suburb of Taylor in Gungahlin, Canberra, is named for her, as is the library of the Master Builders Association. The Australian Institute of Metals has a Florence Taylor Medal, awarded for outstanding contributions by one of its members. The Master Builders Association awarded her with a Plaque of Honour for distinguished service to the science and practice of construction in Australia.[8] This plaque went on to be awarded to any member they wished to reward for distinguished service to the industry. She became an honorary member of the Australian Institute of Builders and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, London.

A headshot of Florence Mary Taylor. She is wearing a stylish hat with a feather.

Florence M. Taylor, ca.1935 (State Library of New South Wales).

Despite working largely in a man’s world, she remained feminine in her dress, contemporaries noting she wore long sweeping skirts and a picture hat decorated with ostrich feathers into the 1930s.[9] However, they also remembered her energy, determination and outspokenness.[10] Noted as an ‘inveterate founder and joiner’, she was closely associated with the Arts Club, Royal Aero Club of NSW, Society of Women Writers, NSW branch of the Australian Forest League, Australian-American Assn, Royal Empire Society and the Bush Book Club among others.[11]

Although Florence Taylor spent the majority of her extraordinary working life living in Sydney, Cremorne and Potts Point, we should claim her as a Parramattan as she spent her formative years at both school and work in this district. Parramatta was not big enough to contain the many exploits of this remarkable woman – she needed to be in the centre of Sydney for her work, particularly publishing and the many business meetings with which she was involved. Awarded the OBE in 1939, this was elevated to CBE in 1961. Florence Taylor retired at 81 and died on 13 February 1969 at the age of 89 years, a most remarkable yet little-known woman of Parramatta.[12]

References:

[1] English census, 1881.
[2] Christa Ludlow, ‘Taylor, Florence Mary (1879–1969)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/taylor-florence-mary-8754/text15337, published first in hardcopy 1990, accessed 19 March 2024.
[3] ‘Florence Mary Taylor: First Woman To Fly In Australia, First Female Australian Architect, Engineer – A Women’s Champion’, 2021, Pittwater Online News, https://www.pittwateronlinenews.com/Florence-Taylor-Flier-Architect-Womens-Advocate.php, accessed 19 March 2024.

[4] Robert Freestone and Bronwyn Hanna, Florence Taylor’s Hats: Designing, Building and Editing Sydney, Halstead Press, 2007.
[5] Women of Parramatta, Ladies Auxiliary, Parramatta Trust.
[6] Women of Parramatta, Ladies Auxiliary, Parramatta Trust.
[7] Numerous letters to the editors can be found in Trove during F.M. Taylor’s tenure as Secretary of the Town Planning Association.
[8] Women of Parramatta, Ladies Auxiliary, Parramatta Trust
[9] ‘Florence Mary Taylor’, Pittwater Online News.
[10] Sydney Morning Herald, 7 December 1936.
[11] Ludlow, ‘Taylor, Florence Mary’.
[12] Ludlow, ‘Taylor, Florence Mary’.

Updated: 30 January 2025.

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Fanny Durack (1889-1956) and Mina Wylie (1891-1984)

Fanny Durack (1889-1956) and Mina Wylie (1891-1984)

by | Mar 22, 2022 | Women’s History Month | 0 comments

Written by Elizabeth Heffernan, RAHS Volunteer

To celebrate Women’s History Month in 2022, the Royal Australian Historical Society will continue our work from previous years to highlight Australian women that have contributed to our history in various and meaningful ways. You can browse the women featured on our webpage, Women’s History Month.

110 years ago, Stockholm hosted the first-ever women’s Olympic swimming event. Women had been competing at the Olympic Games since Paris 1900, in such events as sailing, golf, and archery, but this was the first endurance-related sport held for women at the Olympic level since the Games began. [1]

Australian swimmers Fanny Durack and Mina Wylie played a major part in this historic event. Winning gold and silver in the 100m freestyle, they were the first Australian women to become Olympic champions. They were also the first women in the world to win Olympic medals in swimming—joined by England’s Jennie Fletcher, who placed bronze.

A black and white photograph of Australian swimmers Fanny Durack and Mina Wylie with British swimmer Jennie Fletcher at Stockholm in 1912.

AUSTRALIAN SWIMMERS FANNY DURACK AND MINA WYLIE WITH BRITISH SWIMMER JENNIE FLETCHER AT STOCKHOLM 1912. IMAGE COURTESY NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AUSTRALIA.

It was not an easy route to get there. The NSW Amateur Swimming Association, to which both Fanny and Mina belonged, did not believe women should appear in competitions where men were present. Australian officials also maintained there was only enough money to send male athletes to the 1912 Games. Only a significant outpouring of public support—and funding—ensured the Olympic campaign of both women. It was a decision which changed Fanny and Mina’s lives—and the world of women’s competitive swimming—forever. [2]

Fanny and Mina were born two years apart, raised in North Sydney. Fierce friends and rivals, they trained together at Wylie’s Baths in Coogee, built for Mina by her father in 1907. Though Fanny was the favourite for Olympic gold in 1912, Mina was still tipped for a medal. They lived up to expectations, Fanny bringing home a world record of 1:19.8 in the 100m freestyle along with the gold. [3]

Stockholm was the highlight of both Fanny and Mina’s careers. They faced difficulty navigating the Amateur Swimming Association’s rules for competitive swimming post-war, and only weeks prior to the 1920 Antwerp Games, Fanny suffered an appendectomy followed by typhoid and pneumonia, causing her to withdraw. She retired the following year. [4]

Mina continued to win titles and hold records in freestyle, breaststroke, and backstroke long after Fanny’s retirement. She then went on to teach swimming at the Presbyterian Ladies’ College in Pymble for over forty years. Both women were inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame at Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and are remembered for blazing the trail for later generations of Australian swimmers like Dawn Fraser and Emma McKeon. [5]

Today the women’s 100m freestyle record stands at 51.71, held by Sweden’s Sarah Sjöström—almost thirty seconds faster than Fanny’s 1912 time. But women today can train and compete in the same pools as men; in 1912, mixed bathing was still banned. As of Tokyo 2020, women can now compete in all the same distances as men; in 1912, only the 100m freestyle and the 4x100m freestyle relay were permitted. They can also compete wearing streamlined, speed-efficient swimsuits; a far cry from the heavy woollen costumes of Fanny and Mina’s time. [6]

Women in sport have come a long way since Stockholm 1912, but Fanny and Mina’s achievements are remarkable all the same. As the Sydney Barrier Miner newspaper wrote about Fanny in 1912:

If there is any athlete in Australasia who should go to the great contests, it is this young Sydney swimmer … If this formidable array [of titles] is not a record that Australia should be proud of in one of her daughters, then there is no such thing as national pride. [7]

References:

[1] John Lohn, ‘Women’s History Month: Aussie Fanny Durack a Pioneer in Olympic Women’s Swimming As The First Champion’, Swimming World Magazine, 1 March 2021, https://www.swimmingworldmagazine.com/news/womens-history-month-aussie-fanny-durack-a-pioneer-in-olympic-womens-swimming-as-the-first-champion/; Pete Smith, ‘A century before Cate Campbell there was Mina Wylie’, SBS, 8 August 2016, https://www.sbs.com.au/topics/zela/article/2016/08/08/century-cate-campbell-there-was-mina-wylie.

[2] Warwick Hirst, ‘Wylie, Wilhemina (Mina) (1891–1984)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/wylie-wilhemina-mina-15656/text26851, published first in hardcopy 2012, accessed online 26 March 2022; Helen King, ‘Durack, Sarah (Fanny) (1889–1956)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/durack-sarah-fanny-6063/text10375, published first in hardcopy 1981, accessed online 26 March 2022.

[3] Hirst, ‘Wylie, Wilhemina (Mina)’; King, ‘Durack, Sarah (Fanny)’.

[4] King, ‘Durack, Sarah (Fanny)’.

[5] Hirst, ‘Wylie, Wilhemina (Mina)’.

[6] ‘A picture in time: Fanny Durack and Mina Wylie at the 1912 Olympics’, The Guardian, 12 July 2021, https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/ng-interactive/2021/jul/12/a-picture-in-time-fanny-durack-and-mina-wylie-at-the-1912-olympics; ‘12 July 1912: Fanny Durack becomes the first female Olympic swimming champion’, Olympics.com, 12 July 2019, https://olympics.com/en/news/12-july-1912-fanny-durack-becomes-the-first-female-olympic-swimming-champion.

[7] ‘12 July 1912’.

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Olive Muriel Pink (1884-1975)

Olive Muriel Pink (1884-1975)

by | Feb 22, 2022 | Women’s History Month | 0 comments

Written by Elizabeth Heffernan, RAHS Volunteer

To celebrate Women’s History Month in 2022, the Royal Australian Historical Society will continue our work from previous years to highlight Australian women that have contributed to our history in various and meaningful ways. You can browse the women featured on our webpage, Women’s History Month.

Botanical artist, anthropologist, and Aboriginal rights activist Olive Muriel Pink lived a long and fascinating life that took her from her birthplace in Hobart all the way to Alice Springs. Today she is remembered as a controversial, even eccentric, figure in outback Australia during the twentieth century.

A photograph of Olive Pink in her garden.

OLIVE PINK IN HER GARDEN, UNDATED. IMAGE COURTESY OLIVE PINK BOTANIC GARDEN COLLECTION.

Born in 1884 in Hobart, Tasmania, Olive showed a keen interest in both arts and the environment from a young age. A friend of her father, A. T. Bell, gifted Olive A Handbook of the Plants of Tasmania in 1896, when she was twelve years old. Olive kept it with her the rest of her life. [1] She was similarly enchanted by her grandmother’s garden in Hobart, commenting on the abelia from the Himalayas, peonies from China, forget-me-not from the Alps, and tulips—her “favouritest” flower—from Turkey: “One’s garden would seem like travelling over the world!” [2]

Olive studied then taught art at Hobart Technical School before moving to Perth, then Sydney, with her mother. She worked for the Red Cross during the war while studying at Julian Ashton’s Sydney Art School, and in 1915 was employed as a tracer by NSW Government Railways and Tramways. Olive painted excursion posters and other graphics for the department until her retrenchment during the Great Depression. [3]

Olive had taken a trip to Ooldea in South Australia in 1926-27 to visit her friend Daisy Bates—at the time, a prominent anthropologist and welfare worker among the First Nations people there. On the train between Ooldea and Alice Springs, Olive “sketched flowers wherever railway workers reported them”. These 64 sketches are now held by the University of Tasmania. It was on this journey that Olive first became interested in the rights and welfare of Aboriginal people. [4]

This was an interest, and later a passion, that would dictate the rest of her life. Olive took courses in anthropology at the University of Sydney and received government grants in the 1930s to study the eastern Arrente of Alice Springs and Warlpiri of the Tanami region in the Northern Territory. Her decision not to publish her Warlpiri research out of respect for the secret rituals it relied upon effectively ended her anthropological career. [5] Some commentators have, however, critiqued the fact that she chose to publish two papers on the Arrente, despite similar secret knowledge disclosed. [6]

Olive returned to Alice Springs in 1942, seeking to establish a “secular sanctuary” for the Warlpiri. From 1946 she lived with some Warlpiri people for a time, before returning to Alice Springs to work as a cleaner at the courthouse, where she closely monitored how Aboriginal defendants were treated. This did not endear her to the local population. Unsuccessful in her petition for land for a museum, Olive turned part of her hut into a gallery, where luminaries such as Sidney Nolan visited, until trouble stirred with the locals and it was burned down. [7]

In 1956, Olive was finally granted land to establish the Australian Arid Regions Native Flora Reserve with the help of her gardener Johnny Jambijimba Yannarilyi, where she lived for the last twenty years of her life. Upon her death in 1975 it was renamed the Olive Pink Botanic Garden, and opened to the public in 1985. Today it contains over six hundred Central Australian plant species, forty of which are rare or threatened. [8]

“It was worth fighting for—to live at this site,” Olive wrote in 1959. “One looks at Mt Gillen—and the Todd ‘River’ Gums … I thought it so ‘heavenly’ a view.” She was buried at Alice Springs with her gravestone facing west, overlooking that very view. [9]

References:

[1] Gillian Ward, ‘Olive Pink as artist – a remarkable Tasmanian’, paper presented at a meeting of the Tasmanian Historical Research Association, 8 April 2014, in Papers and Proceedings 62, no. 1 (March 2015), p. 20.

[2] Olive Pink, quoted by Colleen O’Malley in Kieran Finnane, ‘A life in flowers: new account of the extraordinary Olive Pink’, Alice Springs News vol. 25, no. 3, May 2018, https://alicespringsnews.com.au/2018/05/08/a-life-in-flowers-new-account-of-the-extraordinary-olive-pink/.

[3] Julie Marcus, ‘Pink, Olive Muriel (1884–1975)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/pink-olive-muriel-11428/text20365, accessed 4 March 2022.

[4] Marcus, ‘Pink, Olive Muriel’; ‘Communities Tasmania – Olive Pink’, Department of Communities Tasmania, accessed 6 March 2022, https://www.communities.tas.gov.au/csr/information_and_resources/significant_tasmanian_women/significant_tasmanian_women_-_research_listing/olive_pink.

[5] Marcus, ‘Pink, Olive Muriel’.

[6] Janet McCalman, ‘Review of The Indomitable Miss Pink: A Life in Anthropology, by J. Marcus’, Isis vol. 95, no. 2 (2004), p. 329.

[7] Marcus, ‘Pink, Olive Muriel’.

[8] Marcus, ‘Pink, Olive Muriel’; Angela Heathcote, ‘Olive Pink is Australia’s very own Georgia O’Keeffe’, Australian Geographic, 30 November 2018.

[9] Olive Pink, letter to Dr William Crowther, 2 October 1959, quoted in Ward, ‘Olive Pink as artist’, p. 31-32.

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Women of the RAHS: An Anniversary

Women of the RAHS: An Anniversary

by | Mar 15, 2021 | Women’s History Month | 0 comments

Written by Elizabeth Heffernan, RAHS Intern

A charming and gracious personality, a shrewd and clever brain, a genius for friendship, hers were no mean gifts …

MINNIE AND HER HUSBAND ALFRED LEE, RAHS FOUNDER AND LATER VICE-PRESIDENT, UNDATED. [IMAGE COURTESY STATE LIBRARY OF NSW MLMSS 2903.]

So described the obituary for Mrs Minnie Lee née Dodds (1860-1938) in the Sydney Morning Herald in 1938. A tireless worker for the women’s movement in Sydney for forty years, Minnie was involved in a number of societies and organisations during her lifetime. These included the Australian Red Cross, the Society of Women Writers of NSW, the National Council of Women in Sydney, and the Victoria League for Commonwealth Friendship.

She was also the first female member of the Australian Historical Society, later the RAHS.

15 March is the 120th anniversary of the RAHS. On this day in 1901, ten curious, like-minded people attended the inaugural meeting of the Australian Historical Society. It would become the first of many, laying the foundation for the Royal Australian Historical Society as it stands today.

Over the 120 years of our society’s history, we have been joined by a series of remarkable historians with the same passion, drive, and ingenuity as those very first ten members.

Many of these remarkable people were women.

As an anniversary celebration, in conjunction with Women’s History Month, the RAHS wishes to highlight a selection of our earliest women members who broke ground in a society and a discipline traditionally dominated by men.

For a profile on our first woman councillor, Josephine Ethel Foster (1870-1955), visit her dedicated Women’s History Month page.

She grows lovely roses, is associated with the Royal Australian Historical Society, and is a frequent visitor to the city. –  ‘Reminiscences of Miss Elizabeth Betts’, Sydney Morning Herald, 1933

ELIZABETH BETTS, 1934. [RAHS COLLECTION.]

Miss Elizabeth Betts (1849-1937) joined the AHS in 1903. The granddaughter of Reverend Samuel Marsden, one-time principal chaplain in the colony of NSW, Elizabeth was a passionate local and family historian, and a member of the Genealogical Society in Sydney.

During her career, Elizabeth assisted in the publication of several books on Rev. Marsden and represented her family at the Marsden centenary celebrations at the Bay of Islands in 1914. She donated The letters and journals of Samuel Marsden to the RAHS in 1932. Also a keen city of Sydney historian, she supported such cultural events as the ‘Back to Parramatta’ carnival week of 1933.

Elizabeth was an RAHS councillor from 1917 to 1937, when she died at age 88. She was incredibly active in the society she saw flourish until the end. Her obituary noted: ‘At the Royal Australian Historical Society’s Christmas party two years ago she danced first a waltz and then a polka.’

Even at 86, Elizabeth was leading the way.

She was an ardent feminist in the days when feminism denoted daring, and was among the organisers of many of the women’s movements which sprang to life in the last decade of the nineteenth century. – Obituary for Margaret Windeyer, Sydney Morning Herald, 1939

MARGARET WINDEYER, 1938. [IMAGE COURTESY STATE LIBRARY OF NSW P1/2101.]

Like Elizabeth, Margaret Windeyer (1866-1939) joined the AHS in its early years. A member from 1905, Margaret quickly established herself within the society and became councillor in 1913 until 1916. She was only the second woman after Ethel Foster to hold the office.

The fifth daughter of suffragette Lady Mary Elizabeth Windeyer, it is no wonder that Margaret—or Margy, as she was known—was such a passionate voice in the Australian women’s movement. She belonged to Louisa Lawson’s famous Dawn Club and helped form the Women’s Literary Society, later the Womanhood Suffrage League. She was a member of the committee formed to establish the Women’s College at the University of Sydney and convened the meeting to create the National Council of Women of NSW, later serving as secretary. In 1893 she attended the World’s Congress of Representative Women in Chicago alongside such notable American feminists as Susan B. Anthony, Lucy Stone, and Frances Ellen Watkins Harper.

Margy’s greatest passion was library science. After completing a two-year course at New York State Library, she briefly worked for the library of Wells College in Aurora, NY, before returning home. Margy joined the Public Library of NSW as a cataloguer in July 1901. She later became assistant to the Mitchell Library collection in January 1910 but was passed over several times for the position of senior cataloguer. She retired in 1926 and donated to the RAHS The New South Wales handbook for returned soldiers and sailors in 1931.

‘An ardent feminist’ indeed.

Amongst those who have devoted themselves to the investigation of Early Australian History … I know of no one who has a larger fund of collected information or a greater facility in effectively utilising it. – Frank Bladen on Grace Hendy-Pooley, SLNSW MLMSS 1261/4

Another early woman member was Miss Grace Hendy-Pooley (1864-1947), who joined the AHS in 1902 until 1914. She wrote the first papers read before the society by a woman, including ‘Defenders and defences of Australia, with military reminiscences’ (1903), ‘Early history of Bathurst and surroundings’ (1905), ‘The history of Maitland’ (1908), and many more.

KEY TO OLD SITE AND NEW : DEVONSHIRE STREET RESUMPTIONS, AND SITE OF THE SYDNEY RAILWAY STATION, 1900 / GRACE HENDY-POOLEY. [IMAGE COURTESY STATE LIBRARY OF NSW V1/CEM/DEV ST/2.]

Throughout her career, Grace was a senior civil servant, journalist, and an early 20th century Sydney painter. She assisted Frank Bladen, editor, for nine years on the Historical Records of Australia (1892-1901), then found work in Canberra for the Commonwealth Parliamentary Library from 1913 to her retirement in 1929. Her published works included the Index to the Sydney gazettes 1803 to 1842 (1916) and the Key to Old site and New : Devonshire Street resumptions, and site of the Sydney railway station (1900).

The editor of the Illustrated Sydney News testified to Grace’s artistic skill as showing ‘care and descriptive power above the average’. Frank Bladen felt much the same about her historical prowess. A talented, passionate, and accomplished woman, Grace’s contributions to the RAHS and the history of Sydney in general remain unparalleled.

… her epitaph is, one feels, best expressed in the simple words which have already been quoted, ‘She was so kind’. – Obituary for Minnie Lee, Sydney Morning Herald, 1938

Passionate, intelligent, and independent, history best remembers Minnie Lee for her kindness. Yet she was also a staunch advocate for women’s rights—‘the heart and front’ of many a movement. A member of the RAHS since 1901, it is likely she witnessed the meteoric rise of women’s involvement—from 29 women members in 1915 to 90 only two years later—and smiled.

The Australian Historical Society allowed women to be admitted to Council in 1911, ten years after its founding. In 1927, Ethel Foster established the Women’s Auxiliary, for the purpose of furthering the quest for a permanent home for the society (later found in History House). She invited every woman member of the society to join.

What began as a rainy day gathering of men on 15 March 1901 is now 120 years of NSW history. The charming, daring, gracious, hard-working, pioneering women of the RAHS are half of that history.

Our society would not be the same without them.

References:

Grace Hendy-Pooley papers, ca. 1902-ca. 1940. State Library of New South Wales, MLMSS 1261/4, http://archival.sl.nsw.gov.au/Details/archive/110319819.

‘DEATH OF MISS MARGARET WINDEYER’, The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW: 1842-1954), 15 Aug 1939, p. 7, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/17599506.

‘FORTY YEARS’ WORK’, The Sun (Sydney, NSW: 1910-1954), 4 Mar 1928, p. 51, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/222012111.

‘HISTORIAN AND PHILANTHROPIST’, Western Age (Dubbo, NSW: 1914-1932), 2 May 1929, p. 1, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/137078608.

‘MISS ELIZABETH BETTS’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 19 Jul 1937, p. 10, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/17383588.

‘Retirement of Miss Pooley’, Canberra Times (ACT: 1926-1995), 5 February 1929, p. 2,  https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/996605.

‘SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD PARRAMATTA’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 25 Oct 1933, p. 7,  https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/17018486.

Beulah A. Bolton, ‘Obituary’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 30 Sep 1938, p. 16, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/17523654.

Eileen Chanin, ‘Cultural Philanthropy: David Scott Mitchell and the Mitchell Library’, PhD thesis, University of New South Wales, 2012.

Heather Radi, ‘Windeyer, Margaret (Margy) (1866-1939)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/windeyer-margaret-margy-1058, accessed 4 Mar 2021.

K.A. Johnson, ‘Dodds, Minnie (1860-1938)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/dodds-minnie-7751, accessed 4 Mar 2021.

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Jessie Street (1889-1970)

Jessie Street (1889-1970)

by | Mar 1, 2021 | Women’s History Month | 0 comments

Written by Elizabeth Heffernan, RAHS Intern

To celebrate Women’s History Month in 2021, the Royal Australian Historical Society will continue our work from previous years to highlight Australian women that have contributed to our history in various and meaningful ways. You can browse the women featured on our webpage, Women’s History Month.

Feminist, activist, and diplomat Lady Jessie Street was an instrumental figure in Australian and world politics during the twentieth century. Today the Jessie Street Trust provides funding for the causes she championed, including peace, disarmament, and Aboriginal and women’s rights. The Jessie Street National Women’s Library in Ultimo similarly ensures the preservation and promotion of our country’s female cultural heritage. [1]

Portrait of Jessie Street in her traditional wedding gown.

JESSIE STREET, NÉE LILLINGSTON, ON HER WEDDING DAY. [IMAGE COURTESY NATIONAL LIBRARY OF AUSTRALIA, NLA.OBJ-231550690-1.]

Born in Ranchi, India, in 1889, Jessie’s family moved to Yulgilbar station in New South Wales when she was seven. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Sydney in 1911. It was here she met her future husband, Lord Kenneth Street, with whom she would enjoy a lifetime of companionship shared amongst four children.

Jessie was a pivotal figure in university life, both during and after her degree. She was captain of the university’s women’s hockey team, the founding member and later president of the university’s Women’s Sports Association, a long-term councillor of Women’s College, and an executive-member and briefly president of the Feminist Club. This latter position led to her election as president of the United Associations of Women in 1930. She held office periodically for the next twenty years, giving her a platform to pursue such campaigns as women’s employment, marriage, and child endowment rights. [2] 

Jessie’s most significant achievements occurred during and after the Second World War. She organised the Australian Women’s Conference for Victory in War and Victory in Peace, whose stipulations for the political, social, and economic mobilisation of women post-war were codified in the 1943 Australian Women’s Charter. Inspired by a 1938 visit to the seemingly progressive USSR, she also spent much of the war organising Russian aid. This notably included her ‘Sheepskins for Russia’ appeal. [3] Though never a member of the Communist Party, Jessie’s Soviet sympathies persisted into the Cold War. She would later earn the moniker ‘Red Jessie’ in the right-wing Australian press. [4]

Photograph of Jessie Street representing Australia at the United Nation in 1945.

JESSIE STREET REPRESENTING AUSTRALIA AT THE UNITED NATIONS, C. 1945. [IMAGE COURTESY NATIONAL LIBRARY OF AUSTRALIA, NLA.OBJ-231553937.]

After the war, Jessie served as the only female advisor on the Australian delegation to the United Nations conference in San Francisco in 1945. There, she helped secure the inclusion of ‘sex’ in the anti-discrimination clause of the UN Charter. Jessie was also a staunch anti-nuclear activist after witnessing the devastation of Hiroshima on a visit in 1948. She became president of the NSW Peace Council and, later, an executive-member of the World Peace Council in London. While in Britain, Jessie joined the British Anti-Slavery Society. This would influence much of her politics in later life including her involvement in the landmark 1967 referendum. [5]

Jessie died in Paddington in 1970. A newspaper article written in 1945 described “Mrs Jessie Street—she took her Ironworkers’ union card and photos of her four grandchildren to the San Francisco Conference.” Such mementos remind us of the reasons why she worked “unsparingly” to change the world. [6]

The Jessie Street papers were inscribed into the UNESCO Australian Memory of the World Register on 26 February 2021. The Jessie Street papers covering 1914 to 1968 are held in the National Library of Australia. They document her personal and family life, political involvement in women’s issues and feminist activities, the peace movement and campaigns to ban nuclear weapons, the formation of the United Nations and the UN Status of Women Commission, relations between Australia and Russia, Aboriginal rights and race relations.

References:

[1] Maryanne Doyle, ‘Women’s Rights and the UN’, National Film and Sound Archive of Australia, https://www.nfsa.gov.au/latest/jessie-street, accessed 8 February 2021; Jessie Street National Women’s Library, accessed 11 February 2021, https://www.nationalwomenslibrary.org.au/.
[2] Heather Radi, ‘Street, Lady Jessie Mary (1889-1970)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/street-lady-jessie-mary-11789, accessed 8 February 2021.
[3] Radi, ‘Street, Lady Jessie Mary’; ‘Jessie Street’, Jessie Street Trust, https://www.jessiestreettrust.org.au/jessie, accessed 8 February 2021.
[4] Radi, ‘Street, Lady Jessie Mary’; ‘Jessie Street’.
[5] Doyle, ‘Women’s Rights and the UN’; Radi, ‘Street, Lady Jessie Mary’.
[6] Colin Simpson, ‘A Woman’s Hopes of UNCIO’, in Papers of Jessie Street, circa 1914-1968, National Library of Australia, http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-231547938, accessed 8 February 2021.

 

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Ruby Payne-Scott (1912-1981)

Ruby Payne-Scott (1912-1981)

by | Feb 22, 2021 | Women’s History Month | 0 comments

Written by Elizabeth Heffernan, RAHS Volunteer

To celebrate Women’s History Month in 2021, the Royal Australian Historical Society will continue our work from previous years to highlight Australian women that have contributed to our history in various and meaningful ways. You can browse the women featured on our webpage, Women’s History Month.

Ruby Payne-Scott was Australia’s first woman radio astronomer. Though relatively unknown during her lifetime, due to both the obscurity of her work and wartime confidentiality, today Ruby is recognised as a pioneer in solar radio astronomy. Seventy years after her retirement in 1951, her work remains foundational in a field that would not exist without her.

A black and white portrait of Ruby Payne Scott during her school years.

RUBY PAYNE-SCOTT DURING HER STUDENT YEARS. [IMAGE COURTESY BILL HALL FAMILY COLLECTION.]

Ruby was born in Grafton and attended Sydney Girl’s High School. She obtained a Bachelor of Science with first class honours from the University of Sydney in 1933, a Masters of Science specialising in radiation physics in 1936, and a Diploma of Education in 1938. At the time of her Bachelor’s she was only the third woman to receive a physics degree from the university. [1]

World War II marked the turning point for Ruby’s career. Like so many other women, she found work in a traditionally male-dominated career and, later, at an equal rate of pay. The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR, later the CSIRO) Radiophysics Laboratory employed Ruby in 1941. Her top-secret work involved enabling radar systems to track incoming Japanese fighter planes. Ruby became an expert.

Her career continued to flourish after the war. Along with Joseph Pawsey, she carried out the first radio astronomy experiment in the southern hemisphere at Sydney University, in 1944. [2] The following year she conducted pioneering solar radio astronomy observations at Dover Heights, near Bondi. Between 1945-47, Ruby helped discover three of five categories of solar bursts originating in the solar corona. She played a leading role in the design, construction, and use of a ‘swept lobe’ interferometer which enabled rapid imaging of the sun. Her most significant contribution was the development of the Fourier synthesis technique, giving radio astronomers a clearer understanding of space wave shape and frequency. Her method is still widely used today. [3]

A black and white photograph taken in 1948 of Ruby at work with Alec Little and Chris Christiansen at Potts Hill Reservoir.

RUBY AT WORK, PICTURED HERE WITH ALEC LITTLE AND CHRIS CHRISTIANSEN AT THE POTTS HILL RESERVOIR, LIKELY IN 1948. [IMAGE COURTESY CSIRO RADIO ASTRONOMY IMAGE ARCHIVE, B14315.]

Ruby was as passionate about women’s rights as she was about physics. She was a staunch advocate for equal pay as well as smaller, still significant issues. When women were expected to wear skirts to work, Ruby – wearing shorts – replied: “Well, this is absurd.” At a meeting to discuss the matter of men being allowed to smoke and women not, Ruby attended smoking a cigarette. [4] ASIO held an active file on Ruby between 1948 and 1959, identifying her as a member of the Communist Party of Australia. A memorandum from the director of the Sydney branch notes: “She is a queer girl … It’s thought that she is in a feminist group. I would not put anything beyond her.” [5]

Ruby married Bill Hall in 1944. Knowing she would legally be required to retire from the CSIRO, she kept their union hidden until 1950. When discovered, Ruby lost her permanent position and all her pension rights. She retired the following year at 39, pregnant with the first of two children. There was no such thing as maternity leave. In 2008 the CSIRO established the Ruby Payne-Scott Award to support researchers who have taken extended leave for parenting or other family duties. Ruby would be proud. [6]

It is astonishing to realise that Ruby’s career as a radio astronomer spanned less than a decade, for her contributions to the field are colossal. After a number of years spent at home Ruby returned to the workforce as a teacher, retiring for good in 1974. She died in 1981, three days before her 69th birthday. Ruby and Bill raised their family in Oatley, in a house they built with extra large doors. On clear nights they would take their bed outside to sleep in the open, looking up at the stars. [7]

References:

[1] Ragbir Bhathal, ‘Payne-Scott, Ruby’, in Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers, ed. Thomas Hockey, et al. (New York: Springer, 2014), https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-1-4419-9917-7_9332.
[2] W.M. Goss and Claire Hooker, ‘Payne-Scott, Ruby Violet (1912-1981)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/payne-scott-ruby-violet-15036, accessed 23 February 2021.
[3] Colin Ward, ‘Ruby Payne-Scott [1912-1981]’, CSIROpedia, 23 March 2011, https://csiropedia.csiro.au/payne-scott-ruby/; Rebecca Halleck, ‘Overlooked No More: Ruby Payne-Scott, Who Explored Space With Radio Waves’, New York Times, 29 August 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/29/obituaries/ruby-payne-scott-overlooked.html.
[4] Ward, ‘Ruby Payne-Scott’.
[5] Bhathal, ‘Payne-Scott, Ruby’; ‘Ruby Payne-Scott – Radio Astronomer’, Science Show, ABC Radio National, 14 February 2004, https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/scienceshow/ruby-payne-scott—radio-astronomer/3403336.
[6] Ward, ‘Ruby Payne-Scott’; Dorothy Erickson, ‘Payne-Scott, Ruby Violet’, Encyclopedia of Women and Leadership in Twentieth-Century Australia, https://www.womenaustralia.info/entries/payne-scott-ruby-violet/, accessed 23 February 2021.
[7] ‘Ruby Payne-Scott’, Science Show. 

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Faith Bandler (1918-2015)

Faith Bandler (1918-2015)

by | Feb 22, 2021 | Women’s History Month | 0 comments

Written by Elizabeth Heffernan, RAHS Volunteer

To celebrate Women’s History Month in 2021, the Royal Australian Historical Society will continue our work from previous years to highlight Australian women that have contributed to our history in various and meaningful ways. You can browse the women featured on our webpage, Women’s History Month.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are advised that this webpage contains the names of people who have passed away.

“My belief is in people,” said activist and author Faith Bandler in a 1993 interview. “I fixed my faith in people.” [1] Best known for her decade-long campaign towards the 1967 referendum, Faith – born Ida Faith Mussing – was also a staunch advocate for the rights of her own South Sea Islander people, and a woman who valued family above all else.

Faith was born in the tiny town of Tumbulgum in northern New South Wales. Her mother Ida was Australian-born, of Indian and Scottish descent. Her father Peter, born Wacvie Mussingkon, was a South Sea Islander who had been kidnapped from his Vanuatu home and enslaved on a Mackay sugar plantation when he was just thirteen, a practice known as ‘blackbirding’. Wacvie was one of more than 60 000 South Sea Islanders blackbirded into the Queensland sugar industry in the second half of the nineteenth century. He died when Faith was only five. [2]

Photograph of Faith Bandler on her way to Berlin in 1951. On her maiden voyage of Australia enroute to Berlin for the festival of Youth and Student t for Peace.

FAITH BANDLER ON HER WAY TO BERLIN IN 1951, PHOTOGRAPHED BY JOYCE EVANS. THE CAPTION READS: “FAITH BANDLER ON MAIDEN VOYAGE OF ‘AUSTRALIA’ ENROUTE TO BERLIN FESTIVAL OF YOUTH + STUDENTS FOR PEACE.” [IMAGE COURTESY NATIONAL LIBRARY OF AUSTRALIA, NLA.OBJ-153310621-1.]

As children, Faith and her siblings were avid followers of American civil rights. They listened to Paul Robeson and found inspiration in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), influences which would define the trajectory of Faith’s life and political career. The Second World War sprung Faith into action. She enlisted in the Women’s Land Army and spent three years picking fruit in rural NSW. Her brother Eddy died on the Burma-Thailand Railway in 1943. After the war Faith became involved in pacifism, attending the International Youth Congress in Berlin in 1951. [3] 

Influenced and aided by her contemporaries, notably Pearl Gibbs and Jessie Street, Faith became a significant advocate for Aboriginal rights from the 1950s to the 1970s. She helped form the Aboriginal-Australian Fellowship, which played a vital role in the 1967 referendum, and served on the Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders (FCAATSI) for several years. Yet the ‘yes’ vote Faith had worked so hard for did nothing to help the cause of her own people. Some 20 000 descendants of blackbirded South Sea Islanders were enduring the same discrimination as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, with none of the new legislative protections. Some claimed to be Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander simply to survive. [4]

Photograph of Faith Bandler sitting in a chair on her father’s island home “Ambrym” in 1975 being interviewed by Robin Hughes.

FAITH PHOTOGRAPHED BY BRUCE HOWARD, C. 1975. [IMAGE COURTESY NATIONAL LIBRARY OF AUSTRALIA, NLA.OBJ-147735863.]

Faith spent the next twenty years working to right this injustice. Her campaigning resulted in a 1994 government package of programs and funding for the South Sea Islander community. In the meantime Faith published a number of books including Wacvie and Warou, fictionalised retellings of her father and brother’s lives respectively. She visited Ambrym, her father’s island home, in 1975. “Just putting my feet on the soil was quite overwhelming,” she recalled in an interview with Robin Hughes. “I can’t describe it. It was the first time in my life I felt I really belonged.” [5]

Faith married Hans Bandler in 1952, a Jewish refugee from the war who had spent time in Dachau and Buchenwald. Their daughter, Lilon Gretl, was born in 1954. Faith has been characterised as a “gentle activist” by many, yet beneath that gentleness lay insurmountable strength. [6] Life, for Faith, was about “getting up and helping each other and doing the best we can to raise people out of their misery.” [7] 

Faith did just that.

References:

[1] Faith Bandler, dir. Frank Heimans, National Film and Sound Archive, 1993, https://video.alexanderstreet.com/watch/faith-bandler.
[2] Tony Stephens, ‘Bandler, Ida Lessing Faith (1918-2015)’, People Australia, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, https://peopleaustralia.anu.edu.au/biography/bandler-ida-lessing-faith-15982, accessed 24 February 2021; Tony Stephens, ‘Faith Bandler helped change a nation’s views on human rights and social justice’, Sydney Morning Herald, 14 February 2015, https://www.smh.com.au/national/faith-bandler-helped-change-a-nations-views-on-human-rights-and-social-justice-20150214-13epkb.html.
[3] Marilyn Lake, ‘Bandler, Faith’, Encyclopedia of Women and Leadership in Twentieth-Century Australia, https://www.womenaustralia.info/entries/bandler-faith-ida-lessing/, accessed 24 February 2021; Stephens, ‘Faith Bandler helped change a nation’s views’.
[4] Lake, ‘Bandler, Faith’; Stephens, ‘Bandler, Ida Lessing Faith’; Faith Bandler.
[5] Lake, ‘Bandler, Faith’; Clive R. Moore, ‘Bandler, Ida Lessing Faith (1918-2015)’, Pacific Islander Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, https://pib.anu.edu.au/biography/bandler-ida-lessing-faith-15982, accessed 24 February 2021, Faith Bandler.
[6] Gillian Whitlock, ‘Activist in White Gloves’, Australian Book Review no. 245 (October 2002): 12-13.
[7] Faith Bandler.

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Dawn O’Donnell (1927-2007)

Dawn O’Donnell (1927-2007)

by | Feb 14, 2021 | Women’s History Month | 0 comments

Written by Elizabeth Heffernan, RAHS Volunteer

To celebrate Women’s History Month in 2021, the Royal Australian Historical Society will continue our work from previous years to highlight Australian women that have contributed to our history in various and meaningful ways. You can browse the women featured on our webpage, Women’s History Month.

“Convent girl turned ice skater [who] became the godmother of Sydney’s Golden Mile”. [1] So begins the hour-long documentary on Dawn O’Donnell, Croc-A-Dyke Dundee, perfectly summarising the vibrant life and career of one of Australia’s most successful businesswomen, and a key figure in Sydney’s now iconic gay and lesbian nightclub scene. 

Photograph of Dawn O’Donnell in 1993 by Greg Barrett.

DAWN O’DONNELL PHOTOGRAPHED IN 1993 BY GREG BARRETT. [IMAGE COURTESY PETER WEISS COLLECTION OF PORTRAITS OF NOTABLE AUSTRALIANS, NATIONAL LIBRARY OF AUSTRALIA, NLA.OBJ-142843715]

Dawn was born in Paddington in 1927. Following an unruly childhood, she was sent to St Vincent’s College in Potts Point to “become a lady”. Dawn herself would later say it did not work. [2] It was at St Vincent’s and, later, St Benedict’s Business College, that Dawn discovered ice skating. Her pursuit of a professional career took her to London then Paris, where she entered into her first serious relationship with a woman, a dancer at the Folies Bergère. [3] The affair lasted the duration of Dawn’s Parisian stay and ended upon her return to London. So, too, did her ice-skating career following a training accident. 

Dawn returned to Sydney and a far more conservative existence than she had grown used to in Europe. Back inside the closet, in a country where homosexuality was illegal, she married butcher Des Irwin. Their union was extremely brief but even after the divorce Dawn continued in the butcher business. Her shop in Double Bay gave her the first intoxicating taste of financial success she would chase her whole career.

It was on Oxford Street that Dawn made her name and career. A year after opening her first gay bar in Ultimo in 1968, she established Capriccio’s, a gay nightclub that would become world famous for its drag shows. Dawn herself became well known for bailing out gay men and drag queens from police custody so they could continue to party. “It was all illegal,” Dawn recalled for an interview in Croc-A-Dyke Dundee, “but it was a lot more fun.” [4]

Alongside French restauranteur Roger-Claude Teyssedre, Dawn opened Jools on Crown Street in 1973. The venue attracted such international acts as the Supremes, Eartha Kitt, and the Village People. [5] The business partners then opened Patches, Flo’s, and Ruby Reds. The latter was Sydney’s first lesbian bar and where Dawn would later meet her wife, Dutch-born Aniek Baten. The couple married in Amsterdam in 1977, twenty-four years before same-sex marriage was legalised in the Netherlands. [6]

Photograph taken of Dawn with wife Aniek Baten fashion designer Jean-Paul Gaukter judging the 2000 Mardi Faith Bandler (1918-2015) Gras fashion parade.

DAWN WITH WIFE ANIEK BATEN AND DESIGNER JEAN-PAUL GAULTIER, JUDGING THE 2000 MARDI GRAS FASHION PARADE. [IMAGE COURTESY C. MOORE HARDY COLLECTION, CITY OF SYDNEY ARCHIVES, 061�61304.]

In the 1980s Dawn shifted her focus to Newtown. She purchased and rebranded the Imperial Hotel, now famous for its appearance in the 1994 classic film, Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. Director Stephan Elliot admits he was inspired by “Dawn’s world”. [7] At this time Dawn became involved in AIDs fundraising and the Sydney Mardi Gras, originally a celebration involving Oxford Street’s local businesses but which she later criticised as becoming too corporate.

Dawn passed away of ovarian cancer in 2007. Remembered by most as “a cutthroat businesswoman,” Dawn’s wife Aniek admitted that beneath the tough exterior “she was actually a pussycat really”. [8] An icon of the Sydney gay and lesbian scene, Dawn lived a wild, fruitful, exciting, extravagant, fulfilling life, and the city has not been the same since. 

References:

[1] Croc-A-Dyke Dundee: The Legend of Dawn O’Donnell, dir. Fiona Cunningham-Reid, 2014, https://fionacunninghamreid.com/croc-a-dyke-dundee/, accessed 17 February 2021.
[2] Croc-A-Dyke Dundee.
[3] Croc-A-Dyke Dundee; Tony Stephens, ‘A leading lady of Sydney’s gay club scene’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 13 June 2007, https://www.smh.com.au/national/a-leading-lady-of-sydneys-gay-club-scene-20070613-gdqdcx.html.
[4] Croc-A-Dyke Dundee; ‘A Brief History of The Imperial’s Journey To Now’, The Imperial Erskineville, https://imperialerskineville.com.au/a-brief-history/, accessed 17 February 2021; ‘Gay Sydney says goodbye to the one who made it so’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 16 June 2007, https://www.smh.com.au/national/gay-sydney-says-goodbye-to-one-who-made-it-so-20070616-gdqefl.html.
[5] ‘A leading lady’.
[6] Croc-A-Dyke Dundee; ‘A leading lady’.
[7] ‘A Brief History of The Imperial’s Journey’; Croc-A-Dyke Dundee.
[8] Croc-A-Dyke Dundee.

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Mary Jane Beattie (1839-1907)

Mary Jane Beattie (1839-1907)

by | Feb 14, 2020 | Women’s History Month | 0 comments

Written by Dr Catherine Bishop, Macquarie University

To celebrate Women’s History Month in 2020, the Royal Australian Historical Society will continue our work from last year to highlight Australian women that have contributed to our history in various and meaningful ways. You can browse the women featured on our webpage, Women’s History Month.

Among the pieces of furniture exuding appropriate historic ambience in RAHS’s History House in Macquarie Street is a magnificent sideboard. The silver plaque attached to the top acknowledges this as a woman’s piece of furniture, handed down to daughters, not sons, and then given to the RAHS in 1953 by Beatrice How, rather than to her only child, Robert. The plaque reads:

Mrs Margaret Doak, 1838
Passed to
Mary Jane Beattie, 1860–
Jessie Douglas McRae, 1907–
Beatrice Dorothy How, 1934–

Photograph of Margaret Doak’s middle class sideboard donated to History House in 1953. On the top of the sideboard is a photograph of a smart – looking woman. Identified as May Jane (Minnie) Beattie second owner of the sideboard.

Margaret Doak’s sideboard [History House, Macquaire Street, Sydney]

This emphatically middle-class sideboard was purchased by Margaret Doak in the 1870s from Joseph Newton, furniture maker and upholsterer in Wynyard Square. On top of the sideboard is a photograph of a smart-looking woman, identified in a caption as the second owner of the sideboard:

Mary Jane (Minnie) Beattie – nee Doak
3rd March 1839 – 6th August 1907
Married to James Beattie, 5th October 1858.

A photograph of Mary Jane ‘Minnie’ Beattie.

Photograph of Mary Jane ‘Minnie’ Beattie [History House, Macquarie Street, Sydney][History House, Macquarie Street, Sydney]

But this unremarkable, if beautiful, piece of domestic furniture hides a rich history: There was much more to Minnie Beattie than being ‘married to James Beattie’, a position she filled for a mere seven years of her long life. Widowed in 1864 at the age of 25, she was left with three young children to provide for, including a four-day-old son. She was fortunate in being able to do so.

Minnie Beattie was a second-generation dressmaker. When her husband died she joined the established business run by her mother, Margaret Doak, and her aunt, Rebecca Kerr. It is likely that she was already familiar with it, as her mother had been in business since before Minnie was born. Margaret Doak immigrated to Sydney in 1840 from Londonderry in Ireland with her husband, Anthony, and four children, including Minnie, as well as her father and several sisters. Margaret was already a businesswoman with a millinery and dressmaking business next door to her husband’s carpentry business in Londonderry’s Society Street.

Upon reaching Sydney, Anthony and Margaret Doak immediately went into partnership with one of Margaret’s sisters, Rebecca Kerr. ‘Doak and Kerr’ became an established firm in Sydney, patronised by city women as well as those from further afield. The diary of  squatter’s wife Mary Braidwood Mowle, on the Limestone Plains (now Canberra), then a remote bush outpost, noted that she had corresponded with Doak and Kerr in Sydney. The business survived financial difficulties in 1855 and the death of Anthony in 1857.

The company known as Doak and Kerr announced that it was closing in June 1859, but Mrs Doak continued to advertise as a milliner and dressmaker. The business was then known as ‘Mrs Doak’s’ until December 1873, when a small one-line advertisement advised, ‘Mesdames Doak and Beattie will resume Business on the 3rd January’. By this time the business was in Belmore House in fashionable Wynyard Square. The rest of the Square was home to the Post Office and Council Chambers, dentist, doctors and commission agents, as well as several boarding houses and two hotels, one of which, the Town Hall Family Hotel, was run by the Misses Eliza Jane and Isabella Horner. Widow Mrs Mary Saclier ran a ladies’ academy on the other side of the square, making the most of her French surname, although she was actually Irish. This was an unimpeachable location for a millinery business. The business was known as ‘Doak and Beattie’ until Margaret Doak’s death at the age of 80 in 1883. Although 11 years younger, her sister Rebecca, who seems to have lived with her, died a few months later.

Margaret Doak left her daughter an estate of about £2400 – including the sideboard as well as bank deposits, shares and a thriving business. Faced with increasing competition from department stores, Minnie went upmarket, trading as ‘Madame Beattie’ and becoming a very fashionable dressmaker. Her customers included Bessie Rouse of Rouse Hill Estate. In 1886 Bessie paid twelve guineas for a black lace satin ‘dressover’, a garment that survives in the Rouse Hill House & Farm museum. By this time Madame Beattie was specialising in ‘Wedding Trousseau, Ball, Demi and Visiting Toilets’ – and in 1889 her business was described as ‘an elite costume studio’. She opened a new department for tailor-made riding habits, mantles and Directoire jackets, which were elegant, tightly fitting garments. She also added to her staff and advertised the appointment of Monsieur Ryback, a ‘ladies’ tailor from the West End of London’. According to the ‘Society Gossip and Fashionable Fancies’ section of the Illustrated Sydney News, Madame Beattie had a reputation for style and ‘that hard-to-define effectiveness which the French term chic denotes’. Minnie remained in business until her death in 1907.

Margaret Doak, Rebecca Kerr and Minnie Beattie ran a 70-year-long business, moving across the world from Londonderry to Sydney and adapting to meet the demands of the colonial market with increasing competition from big business. Yet their story has been almost forgotten. Even their descendant Beatrice How did not think it an important story to tell when she donated the sideboard to the RAHS in 1953. One wonders, if it had been David Jones’ sideboard, would he have been described merely as ‘David Jones, husband of Jane Jones’? Probably not. Minnie, Rebecca and Margaret were just three of thousands of Australian businesswomen in the nineteenth century – their business was among the more long lasting – but all deserve recognition for the parts they played in the development of the Australian economy and society more generally.

For more information about these and other businesswomen across the world see: Catherine Bishop, Minding Her Own Business: Colonial Businesswomen in Sydney (New South Books, 2015) and Women Mean Business: Colonial Businesswomen in New Zealand (Otago University Press, 2019); Jennifer Aston and Catherine Bishop (eds), Female Entrepreneurs in the Long Nineteenth Century: A Global Perspective (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020).

 

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Fanny Balbuk Yooreel (1840-1907)

Fanny Balbuk Yooreel (1840-1907)

by | Feb 14, 2020 | Women’s History Month | 0 comments

Written by Elizabeth Heffernan, RAHS Volunteer

To celebrate Women’s History Month in 2020, the Royal Australian Historical Society will continue our work from last year to highlight Australian women that have contributed to our history in various and meaningful ways. You can browse the women featured on our webpage, Women’s History Month.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are advised that this webpage contains the images and names of people who have passed away.

In 2006, the Federal Court of Australia ruled that the Noongar people held Native Title rights over the city of Perth and its surrounds. This marked the first acknowledgment of Native Title in an Australian capital city. Without the contributions of land activist and Noongar woman Fanny Balbuk more than a century earlier, such a significant decision may never have been made. [1]

Fanny grew up in Matagarup, now known as Heirisson Island, in the fledgling Swan River colony, and was a descendant of Whadjuk Noongar leader and ‘King of Perth’ Yellagonga, who died in 1843. [2] Raised within her traditional culture, Fanny had likely never seen a house until the nearby Perth settlement began to grow. As a child, she spent her time gathering “the scarlet fruit of the zamia in its season … the many roots and fruits growing on the slopes of Karr’gata.” [3] She would do so along the same walking track, the bidi, into adulthood. For Noongar elder Noel Nannup, “That was her songline, her dreaming.” [4]

Photograph of Fanny Balbuk Yooreel between 1840 – 1907.

Fanny Balbuk Yooreel [Image courtesy State Library of Western Australia]

When white settlers began to erect fences and houses along Fanny’s walking track, she persevered. She would continue on in her straight line, over fences and through houses if they stood in her way: “She just kept going.” [5] Fanny rightfully saw such construction as the invasion of her home ground, and as a result she often took violent measures to remind the settlers of that – breaking down doors and fence -palings. She regularly picketed Perth’s new Government House because it had been built over her grandmother’s burial ground, and she could no longer get through. [6]

Anthropologist Daisy Bates took a keen interest in Fanny and her activities. Through Fanny, she studied the Noongar people, eventually publishing her findings in her 1938 book The Passing of the Aborigines. Though much of the work is today considered highly inappropriate and paternalistic, Bates’ book did help secure the Noongar Native Title claim in 2006. By extension, so did Fanny.  [7]

In 2017, for the hundred-and-tenth anniversary of Fanny’s death, the city of Perth partnered with the National Trust of Western Australia to honour her life. It included the publication of a walking trail brochure along the same path taken by Fanny all those years ago. [8]

Standing at a little over five feet and yet with the presence of a giant, Fanny was an incomparable and unforgettable figure in the history of Western Australia and the Aboriginal land rights movement. Upon hearing of her death, Fanny’s relatives uttered the phrase “goord-al-winja-ga.” Bates translated this as “her heart has ceased to heat.” [9] Fanny’s fire, her passion, and her determination carried her through her life, and went on to carry her legacy far beyond her lifetime. Wadjuk Ballardong elder Marie Taylor put it best: “People thought that she was a mischievous young woman … I have found she was a Noongar woman dedicated to her culture.” [10]

References:

[1] ‘FANNY BALBUK YOOREEL’, Nyoongar Tent Embassy, <https://www.nyoongartentembassy.com/fanny-balbuk-yooreel.html>, accessed 19 February 2020.
[2] ‘Death of the King of Perth’, Perth Gazette and Western Australian Journal, 10 June 1843, 2, <https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/644356>, accessed 19 February 2020.
[3] Daisy M. Bates, ‘FANNY BALBUK-YOOREEL: THE LAST SWAN RIVER (FEMALE) NATIVE’, Western Mail, 1 June 1907, 44, <https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/37393844>, accessed 19 February 2020.
[4] Leonard Collard and Tod Jones, ‘Fighting for families, country, rights and recognition: Aboriginal Heritage in the City of Perth after 1829’, City of Perth, <https://visitperth.com/-/media/Project/COP/COP/COP/Documents-and-Forms/Visit-Perth/Documents/Maps-and-Visitor-Guides/Fighting-for-families-country-rights-and-recognition.pdf>, accessed 19 February 2020.
[5] Collard and Jones, ‘Fighitng for families’.
[6] ‘Fanny Balbuk’, Western Australian Museum, <http://museum.wa.gov.au/explore/wetlands/aboriginal-context/fanny-balbuk>, accessed 19 February 2020.
[7] ‘FANNY BALBUL YOOREEL’.
[8] ‘Aboriginal culture’, City of Perth, <https://www.visitperth.com.au/getting-around/indigenous-culture>, accessed 19 February 2020.
[9] Bates, ‘FANNY BALBUK-YOOREEL’.
[10] Emma Wynne, ‘Fanny Balbuk Yooreel, the Aboriginal land activist you’ve probably never heard of’, ABC News, 19 May 2017, <https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-05-19/celebrating-fanny-balbuk-yooreel-110-years-later/8538688>, accessed 19 February 2020.

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Shirley Coleen Smith (1921-1998)

Shirley Coleen Smith (1921-1998)

by | Feb 14, 2020 | Women’s History Month | 0 comments

Written by Elizabeth Heffernan, RAHS Volunteer

To celebrate Women’s History Month in 2020, the Royal Australian Historical Society will continue our work from last year to highlight Australian women that have contributed to our history in various and meaningful ways. You can browse the women featured on our webpage, Women’s History Month.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are advised that this webpage contains the images and names of people who have passed away.

Known as Mum Shirl among the Aboriginal community, Shirley Coleen Smith was a fierce Wiradjuri activist and selfless caretaker throughout her lifetime.

Photograph of Mum Shirl (Mrs Shirley Smith) speaking at the Australia Day ceremony at the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in front of Old Parliament, Canberra, 26th January 1998.

Mum Shirl (Mrs Shirley Smith) speaking at the Australia Day ceremony at the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in front of Old Parliament House, Canberra, 26 January 1998 / Loui Seselja [Image courtesy National Library of Australia, NL38352]

Born on the Eramble Mission near Cowra, Shirley was raised by her paternal grandparents. Her grandfather had an “ethereal connection” to country and was an inspiration to Shirley well into her adult life – as a child, she had always been his favourite. [1]

Shirley suffered from epilepsy. When she was young there was no medication for it, and the illness severely impaired her access to a formal education. She was instead taught by her grandfather, and learned to speak sixteen different Aboriginal languages. She could not read or write much English, but this never stopped her. She would even go on to publish an autobiography in 1981, written with the assistance of Bobbi Sykes. [2]

Shirley moved to Sydney at a young age and spent most of her life in the city. It was there she met her husband, professional boxer Cecil Hazil known by his fighting name Darcy Smith. The couple had a daughter together, Beatrice. When Shirley was pregnant she moved to Kempsey on the NSW north coast with her husband’s family, but returned to Sydney soon afterwards when she discovered the local hospital was segregated. Shirley raised her daughter for a short time, but as her epilepsy made it hard to find and maintain a job, she later sent her to Kempsey to be raised by her father. [3]

Shirley was passionate about helping others. When her brother Laurie was imprisoned, she took to visiting him and his fellow inmates regularly. When Laurie was released, Shirley continued to make her visits, earning her the endearing nickname. Asked about her relationship to the prisoners she saw, Shirley famously replied: “I’m his mum.” The Department of Corrective Services acknowledged Shirley’s tireless voluntary work with a pass allowing her access to all its prisoners. The Child Welfare Department and Newtown police also began to rely on her help in court cases involving the Aboriginal community, for which she was given a small courtesy fee. [4]

It was in the 1970s that Shirley’s activism gained traction. She helped to establish the Aboriginal Legal Service, the Aboriginal Medical Service, the Aboriginal Black Theatre, the Aboriginal Tent Embassy, the Aboriginal Children’s Service, the Aboriginal Housing Company, and the Detoxification Centre. Shirley worked for the Aboriginal Medical Service for many years after its foundation. She also independently helped a number of Aboriginal Australians, providing food and shelter to those in need and friendship to all. Although her invalid pension was often the only income she had, Shirley readily shared it with the rest of the community. Though this often led to her power being cut off, Shirley never stopped giving to those who, in her eyes, needed it more. [5]

Alongside other Sydney Aboriginal activists, Shirley supported the Gurindji land rights claim, and spoke alongside Gough Whitlam at a campaign event for the Labor Party in 1972. She had learned about politics later in life but that never stopped her from becoming involved. For her efforts, Shirley was honoured as a Member of the British Empire in 1977 and a Member of the Order of Australia in 1985. At her MBE ceremony she experienced conflicting emotions: “As it was getting close to my turn, it was flashing into my mind the numbers of places where I couldn’t get served; how I had had to sit on the ground at the front of the picture theatre as a child in the roped off section that Blacks had to sit in … the camps and shacks that Blacks were having to live in all over this country that was, after all, ours – and here I was, standing up here with all these well-dressed and fashionable people”. [6]

Even with all her honours and awards, Shirley’s pass to visit prisoners was revoked after her MBE. In her later years, the Department of Aboriginal Services made it difficult for Shirley to continue her work with the Aboriginal Medical Service. She often felt frustrated at a system and society that, when one Aboriginal person committed a crime, most often as a result of discrimination and disadvantage, turned the blame on the Aboriginal community as a whole. [7]

Yet Mum Shirl never gave up. Throughout her lifetime she helped raise over sixty children in need of a home; improved the lives of countless homeless, disadvantaged, and at risk Aboriginal Australians; and raised awareness for the land rights struggle that remains ongoing. Of her awards, Shirley remarked: “They must be worth something in the end, mustn’t they?” [8] But it was Shirley herself who was worth something – who was worth everything, to those who truly needed her.

References:

[1] Shirley Coleen Smith, Mum Shirl: An Autobiography, with the assistance of Bobbi Sykes (Richmond, Victoria: Heinemann Publishers Australia Pty Ltd, 1981), 2-3, in ‘Biography – Shirley Coleen (Mum Shirl) Smith’, Indigenous Australia, <http://ia.anu.edu.au/biography/smith-shirley-coleen-mum-shirl-17817>, accessed 3 March 2020.
[2] Chrissie Crispin, ‘Significant Aboriginal women: Shirley Colleen Smith’, Research Services City of Parramatta Council, 10 July 2018, <http://arc.parracity.nsw.gov.au/blog/2018/07/10/significant-aboriginal-women-shirley-colleen-smith/>, accessed 3 March 2020.
[3] ‘Biography’.
[4] ‘Biography’.
[5] Clare Land, ‘MumShirl’, The Australian Women’s Register, 3 September 2002, <http://www.womenaustralia.info/biogs/IMP0092b.htm>, accessed 3 March 2020; ‘Shirley Smith’, Collaborating for Indigenous Rights, <https://indigenousrights.net.au/people/pagination/shirley_mumshirl_smith>, accessed 3 March 2020.
[6] Land, ‘MumShirl’.
[7] Land, ‘MumShirl’; Smith, Mum Shirl, pp. 7, 111, in ‘Biography’.
[8] Land, ‘MumShirl’.

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