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Berna Jean MADILL

Born 30/12/1923

One of Aus­trali­a’s first female gynae­col­o­gists and obstetricians.

1960 — Com­plet­ed med­ical stud­ies, Mel­bourne University.Worked at McBrides Hos­pi­tal for Women and Alice…

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Mary WEAVING

Born 1921, Died 1963

1960 — First woman in Aus­tralia to obtain Sil­ver C award in glid­ing, and set an Aus­tralian wom­en’s alti­tude record of 10,200 feet.

Mary David ALLCHIN

Born 17/5/1913

Pio­neer of Cen­tral Aus­tralia. Arrived in Alice Springs in 1941, took her final vows with the Catholic Church in 1942 and helped estab­lish Arl­tun­ga mis­sion in 1942. Also worked on…

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Judith BLAKE

Born 6 September 1929, Died 11 August 2004

1984 — Award­ed Whyal­la’s Aus­tralia Day Cit­i­zen Award.
1988 — Received the Order of Aus­tralia, for ser­vice to youth.
1989 — Award­ed Life Mem­ber­ship of YWCA.
1994 — Award­ed Flinders…

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Mary Josephine O'KANE

Born 1954

1989 – 1993 — First Dean of Engi­neer­ing, Uni­ver­si­ty of Can­ber­ra, Aus­tralian Cap­i­tal Territory.
In Octo­ber 1996 she was the first woman, and pos­si­bly the youngest, appointed…

Sarah MADDOCK

Born 29/10/1860, Died 9/9/1955

Also known as: née Porter, Mrs E.A. Maddock

1893 — First Aus­tralian woman to achieve a long dis­tance cycle ride from Syd­ney to bega.
1894 — First woman to cycle from Syd­ney to Melbourne.

Ruby Beatrice LITCHFIELD

Born 5/9/1912, Died 14/8/2001

Also known as: née Skinner, Dame Ruby

First woman Board mem­ber of South Aus­tralia Hous­ing Trust and Ade­laide Fes­ti­val and Cen­tre Trust.
1932 – 1935 — South Aus­trali­a’s hard-court ten­nis champion.
1959 — Award­ed Officer…

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Evelyn Ruth SCOTT

Born 1935, Died 21 September 2017

Also known as: née Backo

1991 — First female chair­per­son of the Coun­cil for Abo­rig­i­nal Reconciliation.
2000 — Hon­orary doc­tor­ate award­ed by Uni­ver­si­ty of West­ern Sydney.

Abo­rig­i­nal rights…

Susan Grace BENNY

Born 4 October 1872, Died 5 November 1944

Also known as: Susan Grace Anderson

Susan Grace Ben­ny was Aus­trali­a’s first female mem­ber of a local gov­ern­ment, appoint­ed to the Sea­cliff ward of South Aus­trali­a’s Brighton Coun­cil on 22 Decem­ber 1919. She…

Margaret McDONALD

Born 1858, Died 27 August 1943

Also known as: née Lamb

Pio­neer of White Cliffs, New South Wales; Bro­ken Hill, New South Wales; and Nor­man­ton, Queensland.

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Glenys SIMPSON

1975 — First woman pro­mot­ed to Sergeant in North­ern Ter­ri­to­ry Police Force.

Annie May MOORE

Born 4/01/1881, Died 10/06/1931

Also known as: née Moore, May Moore

May Moore, and her sis­ter Mina Moore, were pro­fes­sion­al pho­tog­ra­phers. They began in Welling­ton, New Zealand, mov­ing to Syd­ney and Mel­bourne. May’s spe­cial­i­ty includ­ed famous…

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Ella Jane McNAMARA

Pio­neer of Black­wood dis­trict in South Australia.

Irene Maud LONGMAN

Born 24/4/1877, Died 29/7/1964

Also known as: née Bayley

1929 – 1932 — Was the first woman mem­ber of the Queens­land Assem­bly, rep­re­sent­ing Bulimba.

Jennifer Catherine LEARMONT

Head of Look­back Sec­tion, Red Cross, who dis­cov­ered the rea­son some suf­fer­ers of non-vir­u­lent strain of AIDS virus did not devel­op into full blown AIDS.


1996 — She was appointed…

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Robyn FOX

Mem­ber (Robyn Fox, Geor­gia Le Plas­tri­er, Jen­ny McKen­zie, Jo Van Son) of the first Aus­tralian all-female canoe team to make the full descent of the Yukon Riv­er (Unit­ed States).

Jean Fleming ARNOT

Born 23 April 1903, Died 27 September 1995

1965 — Award­ed Mem­ber of the Order of the British Empire (Civ­il), for com­mu­ni­ty ser­vices in Sydney.

1921 – 44 — Librar­i­an at Pub­lic Library of New South Wales.1944 – Public…

Beryl Edith BEAUREPAIRE

Born 24/9/1923

Also known as: Dame Beryl Beaurepaire née Bedggood

A pio­neer­ing Aus­tralian fem­i­nist, Beryl knew how to push boundaries.

Beryl’s first attempts to force accep­tance of equal­i­ty was dur­ing World War Two when she joined the Women’s…

Ruby Claudia Emily DAVY

Born 22 November 1883, Died 12 July 1949

Also known as: Dr Ruby Davy

1918 — Aus­trali­a’s first female Doc­tor of Music, she received her doc­tor­ate from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ade­laide in 1918 but was nev­er offered a per­ma­nent senior post at the University…

Emma Linda Palmer LITTLEJOHN

Born 11/12/1883, Died 21/3/1949

Also known as: née Teece, Linda Littlejohn, Emma Teece, Emma Tilden

Broad­cast­er and Pub­lic Speak­er 1929 — Found­ing mem­ber of ​‘Open Door Inter­na­tion­al’ to pro­mote women work­er’s rights.President of Equal Oppor­tu­ni­ty Rights International…

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Jill KNIGHT

Born 1946

Jill is the own­er of a motor craft cut­ter named Cooee. She has sailed solo around the Pacif­ic and Indi­an Oceans.

Jill wrote for sail­ing mag­a­zines to sup­port the…

Carol DEHN

Car­ol is a cap­tain for Qan­tas Link based in Mel­bourne. She has won many Aus­tralian Women Pilots Asso­ci­a­tion tro­phies. One of her most sat­is­fy­ing jobs has been fly­ing for the Air…

Mary Stuart SPENCER

Born 15/05/1871, Died 19/04/1940

Also known as: née Huntly, Eleanor Huntly, Mary Stuart Cosens, Senora Spencer

1906 — First woman pro­jec­tion­ist in Australia.

Bessie Mabel RISCHBIETH

Born 16/10/1874, Died 16/03/1967

Also known as: née Earle

1921 — Founder of the Aus­tralian Fed­er­a­tion of Wom­en’s Soci­eties (lat­er Voters)
OBE

Margaret SOMERVILLE

Born 24 September 1912

1991 — Mar­garet was the first Aus­tralian woman to be pre­sent­ed with the Bat­tle of Aus­tralia medallion.

1941 – 1965 — Pio­neer Methodist lay mis­sion­ary on Cro­ker Island, Northern…

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Kath BAIRD

1945 — Put her Girl Guide expe­ri­ence to work with British Girl Guides, Gov­ern­ment and Red Cross to help Euro­pean dis­placed peo­ple (main­ly chil­dren) to a bet­ter life. First Ger­man Girl…

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Bettina Mathilde WOODBURN

Born 6/12/1923, Died 1/1/2015

Also known as: née Bromley

Inau­gur­al win­ner of Seniors Card Get Up and Go award — aged 78 years.

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Valerie WOODRUFFE

Also known as: née Whitehall

About 1978 she trained and com­plet­ed as a dog­man [An assis­tant to a crane oper­a­tor, respon­si­ble for secur­ing the crane’s load and direct­ing the oper­a­tor.] work­ing at Goldsworthy…

Ronni KAHN

Born 1952

Ron­ni rev­o­lu­tionised the food waste sec­tor, deliv­er­ing 13,300 meals each day to the home­less and hun­gry through her OzHar­vest char­i­ty. Her work earned her the title of…

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Sylvia WILSON

Born 30 December 1918, Died 6 February 2012

Also known as: née Roach

1942 — Lieutenant/​Nurse Sylvia Roach was sta­tioned at Alice Springs, North­ern Territory.

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Rowie SCHULZ

2003 — First Ter­ri­to­ri­an to win the Aus­tralian Fit­ness Leader of the Year Award.

Owner/​manager of ​‘Essen­tial Fit­ness’ Fit­ness Club, Alice Springs, North­ern Territory.

Julia RITCHIE

2000 — First woman elect­ed onto the Aus­tralian Jock­ey Club Committee

Olive PINK

Born 1884, Died 1975

Olive Pink was one of Australia’s pio­neer­ing women anthro­pol­o­gists and the founder of what is now the Olive Pink Botan­ic Gar­dens on Tuncks Road, Alice Springs.
She was also a fierce…

Robyn ARCHER

Born 18/6/1948

Also known as: Robyn Smith

In 1998 and 2000, Robyn Archer became the first woman in Aus­tralia to direct a major State Fes­ti­val of the Arts. Robyn is the for­mer Artis­tic Direc­tor of the Nation­al Fes­ti­val of…

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Mary Carlisle RALSTON

Born 10/11/1900, Died 1/09/1990

Mar­ried World War I vet­er­an in Scot­land then sailed to Aus­tralia to take up sol­dier set­tle­ment block at Urange­line, near Bul­gan­dra, New South Wales. Was first woman on the settlement…

Adelaide Laetitia MIETHKE

Born 8/06/1881, Died 4/02/1962

Also known as: Addie

1916 — She was the first woman vice-pres­i­dent of the South Aus­tralian Pub­lic School Teacher’s Union.
1924 — Became the first female inspec­tor of high schools.
1937 — Miethke was…

Edna SAUNDERS

Also known as: née Bradley

Octo­ber 1957 — One of 26 women to take the inau­gur­al ​“women only” ten day tour to ​“Alice Springs and Beyond,” which was Uluru.

In her NPWHF file is a copy…

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Mary WILLIAMS

2006 — Nurse of the Year, Ten­nant Creek Hos­pi­tal Gen­er­al Manager.

Hope BLACK

Born 7 February 1919, Died 25 January 2018

Also known as: Jessica Hope Black née Macpherson

Hope Black was the first woman cura­tor (of Mol­lusks) at the Muse­um of Vic­to­ria (1947); and one of the first four women sci­en­tists to vis­it an Aus­tralian Antarc­tic base (Mac­quar­ie…

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E. J. M. MacKENZIE

1876 — First female Super­in­ten­dent of Chil­dren’s Hos­pi­tal, King William Street, Ade­laide South Australia.

Louisa Ann BAILES

Born 10/09/1859, Died 23/01/1922

Also known as: née Wellington, Louise

“Pri­or to com­ing to town, Hazel [GOLD­ER] had worked for Mrs Bailes at Bloods Creek, serv­ing meals to trav­ellers up the track.”

Daisy SHEARER

Also known as: née Swan

Writ­ten on the back of the draw­ing: Excel­lent cook. Hus­band in gov­ern­ment ser­vice. Mrs Shear­er was a for­mer sis­ter at the hospital.Came to Alice Springs after war to wok as nursing…

Melinda Kim BRENNAN

Born 1967

Also known as: née Brennan, Mel

1990 – 1991 — First female Qan­tas Cadet.
1991 – 1993 — Gen­er­al Avi­a­tion pilot.
1993 – 2000 — First female Army pilot Aus­tralia and first female mil­i­tary heli­copter pilot Aus­tralia (grad­u­at­ed…

Sylvia Jessie Catherine BIRDSEYE

Born 26/01/1902, Died 9/08/1962

Also known as: née Merell

Pio­neer of trans­port ser­vices in South Aus­tralia. First woman in South Aus­tralia to gain a Com­mer­cial Dri­ving Licence (1923). Memo­r­i­al cairn on Eyre High­way; Bird­s­eye High­way — first…

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Joyce POLSON

Died 16 April 2019

Rev­erend Joyce was admit­ted to the Order of Dea­coness­es in 1955, the only min­istry open to women at that time. She was made dea­con in 1986 and ordained priest in 1992, with the first…

Caroline Emily CLARK

Born 6 September 1825, Died 18 November 1911

In 1887 Car­o­line was appoint­ed to the new­ly-cre­at­ed State Chil­dren’s Coun­cil and in the 1890’s helped to win such reforms as the estab­lish­ment of the Chil­dren’s Court in…

Adele Viola PURVIS

A pas­toral matri­ach from Wood­green Sta­tion, Adele was the first per­son to donate a box of papers to the Alice Springs office of the North­ern Ter­ri­to­ry Archives when it opened in 2003.…

Kate LYNCH

Born 1882

First all girl tim­ber cut­ting team in Queensland.

In 1900 the Lynch fam­i­ly faced ruin when their cat­tle were wiped out by fever. Cor­nelius then taught his daugh­ters the art…

Rhoda WATKINS

Born March 1894, Died 1975

Mis­sion­ary nurse.

1922 — She was a Church of Eng­land mis­sion­ary nurse in the Church Mis­sion­ary Soci­eties ​“Way of Life” Hos­pi­tal, Kweilin, China.1924 — Sis­ter Watkins…

Barbara ABLEY AM

Bar­bara Abley was elect­ed in March 2001 to the Coun­cil of the City of Greater Gee­long (Vic­to­ria) before becom­ing elect­ed as Deputy May­or lat­er that year.

In 2002 she became the first…