1910 - 1919

Courtesy: State Library of Queensland (53952)

1911

Gladys Lillian Moncrieff (1892 – 1976)

Gladys Moncrieff’s career in the performing arts began at just six years of age at the Queen’s Theatre in her home town of Bundaberg. Frequent performances throughout Queensland earned her the name ‘Little Gladys – The Australian Wonder Child’. In 1911, she successfully secured the role of a chorus girl in the JC Williamson Company. She soon became a household name Australia-wide and was affectionately referred to as ‘Our Glad’. In 1926, she left to work in London and, although well-received by audiences, she soon returned to Australia suffering homesickness. Back home, she enjoyed continued popularity, recording many records and performing overseas for Australian troops during the First and Second World Wars and the Korean War. Following a four-year farewell tour, Gladys retired from singing in 1962.

Source: Brasch, N 1997, Great Australian women in performing arts, Heinemann Library, Port Melbourne.

Photograph of Evelyn’s book – S’pose I Die

1912

Evelyn Evans Maunsell (1888-1977)

A young Evelyn Evans left England on a ‘round-the-world’ adventure and instead found love and a new life in Australia in 1912. She married property manager, Charles Maunsell, and they lived together at Mulgrave Station near Mareeba. Contrary to the soft grey of England, life in the Atherton Tablelands was hot, wet and isolated. Despite striking up friendships with local Aboriginal children and running a small school for them on the property, white settlers had a poor reputation in the area and Evelyn occasionally had to hide under her bed to escape tribal Aborigines. Later, she and Charles retired to Brisbane where Evelyn became involved with the Country Women’s Association. The book, S’pose I Die was based on Evelyn’s diaries and her conversations with author, Hector Holthouse.

Source: The State of Queensland (Office for Women), 2009, Evelyn Maunsell (1888 – 1977), viewed 16 January 2009, <http://www.women.qld.gov.au/leadership-and-community/centenary-of-suffrage/audio-resources/documents/evelyn-maunsell.pdf (PDF 69 KB)>.

Courtesy: State Library of Queensland (86511)

1912

Emma Miller (1839 - 1917)

Influenced by her father at a young age to challenge existing social order, Emma Miller was never destined to remain a quiet Queensland seamstress. In the 1890s, she helped create a female workers’ union, marched in street labour strikes, and became the first female member of the Brisbane Workers Political Organisation. She went on to found the Women’s Equal Franchise Association which fought for equal pay, opportunities and conditions for women. The Brisbane General Strike of 1912 (for the right to trade unionism) came to a head on the second of February - known as Black Friday - when 73 year-old Emma led a group of women in a peaceful protest at Parliament House. The women were confronted by mounted police and officers carrying batons and bayonets, and had to defend themselves with umbrellas and hatpins.

The flag at Brisbane’s Trades Hall was flown at half-mast when Emma passed away in January of 1917 and she is memorialised by a bronze statue in King George Square.

Source: Pam Young, ‘Miller, Emma (1839 – 1917)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography Online 2006, accessed 15 January 2009, <http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A100497b.htm>.

Courtesy: State Library of Queensland (68916)

1912

Vida Lahey MBE (1882 - 1968)

Born Frances Vida Lahey in Pimpama on 26 August 1882, Vida’s art studies commenced at the Brisbane Technical College in 1903. In 1912, her piece Monday Morning launched her career when it was exhibited at the Queensland Art Society’s annual exhibition. Throughout the 1940s, she devoted her time to fundraising, art education, and teaching children’s art classes at the Queensland Art Gallery. Vida was appointed a Member of the British Empire (MBE) in 1958 in recognition of her services to art in Queensland. Further recognition came in 1996 when her painting Beach Umbrellas was featured on the $1.20 postage stamp for Australia Day.

Courtesy: State Library of Queensland (152196)

1912

Introduction of the Maternity Allowance Scheme

The Maternity Allowance Scheme, introduced across Australia in 1912, provided a lump sum payment of £5 to a mother upon the birth of her child. Payment of this allowance was legislated by the Maternity Allowance Act 1912 (Commonwealth) but, unfortunately, eligibility for this allowance was restricted to “…women, other than 'Asiatics' or 'Aboriginal natives' of Australia, Papua or the Islands of the Pacific, who were residents or who intended to settle in Australia”.

Source: Commonwealth of Australia, Department of Families, Housing, Community Service and Indigenous Affairs, 2006, Occasional Paper 12: Maternity Allowance, viewed 24 November 2008, <http://www.facsia.gov.au/research/op12/sec4.htm>.

Courtesy: State Library of Queensland (194417)

1914

Jose Bytheway

Ipswich-born Jose Bytheway was one of the most talented singers of the early 1900s. With little formal musical training, Jose won the solo Eisteddfod in 1899. She undertook voice training in New South Wales and England and by 1914, she had established an impressive reputation across Europe. She was often described by the English press as “the Australian Nightingale”. In 1950, Jose returned to Ipswich, where she married and raised her family.

Source: Buchanan, R 2004, Ipswich in the 20^th century, Ipswich City Council, Queensland..

Class of 1914. Courtesy: The Women’s College

1914

The Women’s College

In 1914, the first residential college for women in Queensland – The Women’s College – was officially opened at Kangaroo Point in Brisbane. Ivy Ada Lee, who was studying pharmacy, became the College’s first resident on 16 March 1914. In 1958, the college relocated to its present site at the University of Queensland at St Lucia. Today, the Women’s College is a non-denominational college which provides accommodation for 190 female students of the University of Queensland and other tertiary institutions in Brisbane. The College’s alumni association is named after Chislehurst, the first house the College occupied in 1914.

Reproduced with permission from the collection of the Supreme Court of Queensland Library

1915

Agnes McWhinney (1891 - 1987)

Following the introduction of the Legal Practitioners Act of 1905, Agnes McWhinney became the first Queensland woman to be admitted as a legal practitioner in 1915. Agnes was not only the first female barrister to practice in Queensland, but in the whole of Australia. Despite working as an associate at a Townsville law firm, Agnes was initially paid the same rate as the office assistant, prompting her to pursue pay equal to that of her male counterparts. Agnes was successful in increasing her weekly wage and is respected for paving the way for other female legal practitioners.

Source: Purdon, S & Rahemtula, A (eds) 2005, A woman's place: 100 years of Queensland women lawyers, Supreme Court of Queensland Library, Brisbane.

Elections Act 1915 (PDF 5.7 MB)

1915

Women obtain the right to be elected into Queensland Parliament

Queensland women achieved the right to be elected into State Parliament in 1915. Established under the Elections Act 1915, it took 14 years before Queensland elected its first female parliamentarian, Irene Longman in 1929.

Courtesy: Mae Frame, personal collection

1915

Mavis Parkinson (1915 - 1942)

Mavis Parkinson's short but remarkable life began when she was born in Ipswich in 1915.

Mavis attended the Ipswich Girls’ Grammar School. She was a dedicated worshipper and Sunday School Teacher at St Paul's Anglican Church and from an early age wanted to be a missionary. She completed her Teacher Training in Brisbane and in 1940 was appointed to teach at the Anglican Mission School at Gona in New Guinea.

In 1942, the Japanese invaded New Guinea. Mavis and fellow missionaries, May Hayman and Father James Benson, fled into the jungle.

The end of their story is detailed in the Webb Report, an inquiry carried out after the war. The missionaries joined a group of soldiers heading towards Port Moresby but the party was fired on and in the confusion the two women became separated from the group. They were captured by the Japanese and were taken to an abandoned coffee house near Popondetta - bayonetted and their bodies thrown into a shallow grave. They are now buried at Old Sangara Mission.

On 26 February 2009, and in recognition of Mavis’ service to others, Her Excellency Ms Penelope Wensley AO officially opened the Mavis Parkinson Junior School Centre, Ipswich Girls' Grammar School.

Buchanan R, 2004, Ipswich in the 20th century, Ipswich City Council, Queensland.

Rudd Residence, Rockhampton
Courtesy: Prof M Keniger, personal collection

1916

Beatrice May Hutton

Beatrice May Hutton was born in 1893 and educated at Rockhampton Grammar School. Like many of the women who attempted to enter the male domain of architecture at the time, Beatrice Hutton came from a family with associations in the field. Her father, Falconer West Hutton, was a surveyor and she initially wanted to pursue a career in surveying but had to ‘accept architecture as the nearest feasible alternative’.

In October 1916, Beatrice became the first female architect to be admitted to the Queensland Institute of Architects. Later that year, she moved to Sydney to broaden her experience. From April 1917 she worked for expatriate Queensland architect Claude William Chambers, becoming a junior partner from 1931-1933 and it may be that Beatrice was the only woman practising as a principal in Sydney at the time. She returned to Rockhampton in 1934 to care for her elderly parents, effectively ending her architectural career. After her father died, Beatrice moved to Brisbane with her mother in 1936 and opened an art studio in the Colonial Mutual Life Building in Queen Street where she exhibited and sold her wood carvings.

The Rudd Residence (located in the suburb of the Range, Rockhampton's ‘premier residential area’) is one of the last surviving intact examples of her work.

Houses were Hutton's particular interest and like other early women architects, she felt that women had a significant role in designing houses that were suitable for the climate and that utilised labour saving features.

Queensland Environmental Protection Agency, 2009, Cultural Heritage – Rudd Residence, viewed 3 April 2009, <http://www.epa.qld.gov.au/chims/placeDetail.html?siteId=16659>

Courtesy: Australian War Memorial (P00156.071)

1917

Sister Mary Jane Derrer MM (1917)

World War One was the first time in Australian history that women were able to join active military service and make a major contribution to the war effort outside of their own country. Sister Mary Jane Derrer of Homebush, Queensland, served as an Army nurse in the 2nd Australian Causality Clearing Station, near Steenwerck in France. After a German raid on the Western Front in 1917, she and several other nurses risked their lives to rescue patients trapped in burning buildings. For her courageous effort and bravery, she was awarded one of the first Military Medals ever presented to an Australian woman.

Source: Commonwealth of Australia, Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts, Women in action – nurses and serving women, viewed 15 January 2009, <http://www.cultureandrecreation.gov.au/articles/womeninaction/>.

Courtesy: Courtesy: Brisbane Images, Brisbane City Council (BCC-B120-30647)

1918

First baby clinic opened in 1918 in Fortitude Valley

On 18 March 1918, Queensland’s first Baby Clinic was opened in a small rented cottage on Brunswick Street in Fortitude Valley. Matron Florence Chatfield was a supervisor and organiser of the clinic as well as other clinics subsequently opened across the state.