Ricky BURGES

Ricky Burges was the first woman to head the Perth Zoo, when she became the Zoo’s chief exec­u­tive offi­cer between 1995 – 1998.

In 1997, Ricky was the West­ern Australian…

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Nancy Helen McPHEE

Born 1912, Died 28 August 2016

Also known as: Helen

1935 — First woman called to bar in Tasmania.

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June Rosalie BAKER

Born 27 June 1937

The first and only WRANS Offi­cer to attend Roy­al Naval Staff Col­lege in Green­wich, Eng­land — 1976 – 1977 -


The only WRANS offi­cer to serve an exchange post­ing with the RN.
The…

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Robin SMITH

Pos­si­bly youngest female solo glid­er pilot (aged 16) in Aus­tralia (Alice Springs Glid­ing Club, North­ern Territory).

Edith Frances ROBINSON

Born 24 September 1906, Died 7 October 2000

Also known as: Edie, Edie Payne

Raelene BOYLE

Born 24/6/1951

Rae­lene Boyle was an Olympic cham­pi­on sprint­er. She won the Sil­ver Medal at the Mex­i­co Olympics (1968) at 16 yrs of age — which, at the time, was the youngest Aus­tralian medal winner.…

Fanny Kate Boadicea COCKS

Born 5 May 1875, Died 20 August 1954

Also known as: Kate

South Aus­trali­a’s first female pro­ba­tion offi­cer for juve­nile offend­ers in 1906. She was appoint­ed to the South Aus­tralia Police Force with Annie Ross in 1915, the first police…

Margret ROADKNIGHT

Born 07/1943

First singer added to the Montsal­vat Jazz Fes­ti­val Hon­our Roll. 1998 — ​‘Artist Of The Year’ at the Port Fairy Folk Festival.
Life­time Achieve­ment Award win­ner at the…

Isabella Theresa GOLDING

Born 25 November 1864, Died 11 December 1940

Also known as: Belle

1900 — First female inspec­tor under the ear­ly Clos­ing Act.

1913 — Became a senior woman inspec­tor under the Fac­to­ries and Shops Act.

Lead­ing suf­frag­ist and labour movement…

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Elizabeth ETHERINGTON

1986 – 1987 — First woman local gov­ern­ment may­or in New South Wales rur­al area (Cen­tral West).

Meredith Anne BURGMANN

Born 26 July 1947

Also known as: Hon Dr Meredith Burgmann

Mered­ith Burgmann was the first woman Pres­i­dent of the Aca­d­e­mics Union of New South Wales. She was also the co-founder of the Nation­al Pay Equi­ty Coali­tion (1988) and of the Ernie…

Dorothy Christine SOMERVILLE

Born 12/5/1897, Died 24/9/1992

Also known as: Dumps

With Mary Teni­son Woods she estab­lished Aus­trali­a’s first female legal part­ner­ship in 1925. She was also the first female mem­ber of South Aus­trali­a’s Law Soci­ety and in 1937…

Hayley Jane LEWIS

Born 2 March 1974

1990 — Gold Medal­ist, Auck­land Com­mon­wealth Games — Swim­ming — 200m and 400m Freestyle, 200m But­ter­fly, 4 x 200m Relay.
1992 — Bronze Medal­ist, Barcelona Olympic Games — Swimming -…

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Barbara JAMES

Born 8 November 1943, Died 2003

Also known as: née Johnson

His­to­ri­an of the North­ern Territory.
1999- Chief Min­is­ter’s Wom­en’s Achieve­ment Award for her con­tri­bu­tion to the North­ern Ter­ri­to­ry as a jour­nal­ist, his­to­ri­an, author,…

Pauline Margaret EDSER

Also known as: née Macadam

Writ­ten on the back of the draw­ing: Held office in 19??

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Olga TARLING

1960 — First Aus­tralian female Air Traf­fic Con­troller appoint­ed to a posi­tion at Bris­bane Airport.
Was an Air Traf­fic Con­troller for 25 years.

1981 — Pres­i­dent of the…

Madge Irene CONNOR

Born 14 November 1874, Died 12 October 1952

Also known as: née McCarthy

1917: First female police agent in Victoria.
As ear­ly as 1920, led dep­u­ta­tions to Chief Sec­re­tary about increas­ing wages for women in the police force. Her lob­by­ing meant that equal…

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…

Michelle HILL

2000 – First female Pres­i­dent of a club in the Riv­er Mur­ray Foot­ball League (South Australia).
2019 — Michelle is first and only female to receive Riv­er Mur­ray Foot­ball League (RMFL)…

Samantha Joy MOSTYN

Also known as: Sam

2005 — First woman to be appoint­ed as mem­ber of Aus­tralian Foot­ball League Commission.

She began her career in law work­ing for for­mer high court judge Michael Kir­by. After…

Emilie DAVIS

Also known as: Babs

Writ­ten on the back of the draw­ing: Short-term member.

Tania VERSTAK

Also known as: née Verstak

1962 — First and only Aus­tralian to win Miss Inter­na­tion­al Beau­ty competition.

1962 — Crowned Miss New South Wales.1962 — Crowned Miss Australia.

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Margaret Gwen HARDY

Born 5 August 1926, Died 7 December 2001

Also known as: née Sutcliffe

First woman shire pres­i­dent of Lily­dale, Victoria.
First and only woman com­mis­sion­er of the then Mel­bourne Met­ro­pol­i­tan Board of Works, Victoria.

1977 — Award­ed the Queen’s…

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Irene Selina DEAN-WILLIAMS

Born 12/7/1903, Died 3/7/1946

Also known as: née Schmidt, Selina Irene Schmidt, Rene

1932 — Flew her Gip­sy Moth from Perth to Syd­ney via Ade­laide and Mel­bourne, and returned to Perth, becom­ing the first avi­a­trix to fly across Aus­tralia East to West. She set the…

Louise Nellie LOVELY

Born 28 February 1895, Died 19 March 1980

Also known as: née Alberti, Louise Alberti (maiden name), Louise Carbasse (stage name), Louise Cowan (married name), Louise Lovely (stage name), Louise Welch (former married name)

She is cred­it­ed by film his­to­ri­ans for being the first Aus­tralian actress to have a suc­cess­ful career in Hol­ly­wood. She made 55 motion pic­tures between 1911 – 1922, most in Hollywood…

Beatrice Mary BRUMBY

Born 8 January 1915, Died 31 March 2012

Also known as: née Lennon

Pio­neer of Cen­tral Aus­tralia and north South Australia.

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Rayleen BROWN

Also known as: née Howard

2000 — Cre­ator, man­ag­er, and oper­a­tor of Kun­ga’s Can Cook, Alice Springs, North­ern Territory.2011 — North­ern Ter­ri­to­ry Research and Inno­va­tion Award co-recip­i­ent of Desert…

Kate GRENVILLE

Born 14/10/1950

Also known as: Katherine Gee

Kate Grenville is an Aus­tralian author. She has pub­lished wide­ly , includ­ing fic­tion, non-fic­tion, biog­ra­phy, and books about the writ­ing process.

Her books have been award­ed many…

Nancy Tyson BURBIDGE

Born 5 August 1912, Died 4 March 1977

1960 — Founder and sec­ond pres­i­dent, Nation­al Parks Asso­ci­a­tion of the Aus­tralian Cap­i­tal Ter­ri­to­ry (NPA ACT).

1961 — First woman to receive a Doc­tor of Sci­ence) (D Sc) from…

Joan Mary DEANS

Born 10 February 1920, Died 29 December 2006

Also known as: née Learoyd

Joan was an Eng­lish nurse ​“in the Queen Alexan­dria Army Nurs­ing Ser­vice on loan from the Roy­al Navy, and worked in mil­i­tary hos­pi­tals at Bonegilla and oth­er mil­i­tary hos­pi­tals in” New…

Bertha Martha ANDREW

Born 16/3/1882, Died 8/11/1963

Also known as: nee Cook

Worked the land with hus­band. Bertha and her hus­band, with their four chil­dren, depart­ed Port Lin­coln, South Aus­tralia, in 1933 and trav­elled over­land to Alice Springs. The journey…

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Maxine MacDONALD

Also known as: née Darrow, Mrs Mac

The dri­ving force behind the Kim­ber­ley’s Fos­sil Downs Sta­tion. When her hus­band Bill died in 1963, she car­ried on sin­gle­hand­ed­ly man­ag­ing the station.

Before marriage,…

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Edith WEISBERG

Also known as: Dr Edith Weisberg

Devel­oped Fam­i­ly Plan­ning Asso­ci­a­tions first Sex and Rela­tion­ships Coun­selling Pro­gram in Syd­ney Cen­tre for Repro­duc­tive Health.

Dorothy Helena HERBERT

Born 24 September 1922, Died 27 August 2014

Dorothy Her­bert start­ed with the Roy­al Fly­ing Doc­tor Ser­vice in 1961, locat­ed at Charleville, Queens­land. She worked 20 years for them, flew all over the out­back, and attend­ed outback…

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Carmen GRECH

Born 20 August 1947, Died 5 March 2008

Pio­neer in pro­vi­sion of dis­abil­i­ty ser­vices. Estab­lished and man­aged Bin­di Cen­tre and Cen­tral Aus­tralian Sup­port­ed Accom­mo­da­tion (CASA), Cen­tral Aus­tralia, Inc.

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Emma Mary WITHNELL

Born 19/12/1842, Died 16/05/1928

Also known as: née Hancock

One of the first women in West­ern Aus­tralia to be made a Jus­tice of the Peace.

Set­tled near Mt Wel­come in 1864. Her son, James, found the gold bear­ing stone which start­ed the…

Margaret HEWITT

2009 — Togeth­er with David HEWITT, both received the Order of Aus­tralia Medal for their work on bush com­mu­ni­ties and record­ing oral his­to­ries of indige­nous people.

Helen Australia GREGORY

Born 10 December 1863, Died 22 October 1950

Also known as: née Gregory, Nellie, Helen Australia Donnan

8 March 1886 — Bendi­go, Vic­to­ria — The first offi­cial organ­ised women’s crick­et match was cap­tained by sis­ters Lily and Nel­lie GRE­GO­RY at a match in Syd­ney, which includ­ed player…

Marlene KONG

1997 – 1998 — Mar­lene and her twin sis­ter Mar­i­lyn were the first Indige­nous women to grad­u­ate with a Bach­e­lor of Med­i­cine from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Sydney.

1993 — Inau­gur­al win­ner of the…

Jacqueline Marie KELLY

Born 18/2/1964

Also known as: Jackie

2000 — First serv­ing Fed­er­al Min­is­ter to give birth while in office.

Bach­e­lor of Law, Uni­ver­si­ty of Queensland.
1996 — Entered Parliament.1998 — She was elect­ed MHR (Lib) for…

Martha Patricia PROUDLOVE

Died 13/10/1997

Also known as: Patti, Pattie

1930s — First woman to hold a bus dri­ver’s licence in West­ern Australia.

Ran a pub­lic and tourist bus ser­vice with hus­band and fam­i­ly from Den­mark to Albany, Western…

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Elsie ELIAS

First Hon­orary Sec­re­tary of the Daw­son High­way Briga­low Set­tler’s Association.

Pio­neer of cen­tral Queens­land on cat­tle prop­er­ty at Moura, Queensland.

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Jane Hamilton MATHEWS

Born 19 December 1940, Died 31 August 2019

Also known as: née Matthews, The Honourable Justice Jane Matthews

1978 — First woman to hold posi­tion of Crown Prosecutor.
1980 — First woman to be appoint­ed Judge of Dis­trict Court of New South Wales.
1987 — First woman to be appoint­ed a Judge of…

Fiona Caroline GRAHAM

Also known as: Dr Fiona Graham, Sayuki

2007 — First for­eign geisha in Japan.

Social anthro­pol­o­gist; doc­u­men­tary film mak­er; author; and finan­cial journalist.

Elizabeth Nesta MARKS

Born 28 April 1918, Died 25 October 2002

Also known as: Pat, Patricia

An Aus­tralian ento­mol­o­gist who described 38 new mos­qui­to species, as well as new species of fruit flies, bugs, cock­roach­es, and ticks.

1938 — Bach­e­lor of Sci­ence in Zoology,…

Mary CLARK

Died 1960

Writ­ten on the back of the draw­ing: Long­stand­ing mem­ber, died 1960. Car­ri­er and wood merchant.

May Emmeline WIRTH

Born 6 June 1894, Died 18 October 1978

Also known as: May

1963 — Induct­ed in the Cir­cus Hall of Fame as a bare­back rider

Pio­neer bare­back ricer cir­cus per­former and equestri­enne. In 1912, began work­ing with Bar­num and Bai­ley Circus…

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Margaret CRAVEN

Also known as: née Craven

One of the first women police in the North­ern Ter­ri­to­ry. All com­menced their recruit train­ing (with a num­ber of men) in Feb­ru­ary 1961, and the course ​“passed out” on 10…

Lauren Elizabeth JACKSON

Born 11/5/1981

Also known as: Jacko, LJ, Loz

Regard­ed as Aus­trali­a’s great­est ever female bas­ket­ball play­er. Led the team to four Olympic sil­ver medals. Cho­sen to car­ry the Aus­tralian flag in the 2012 Olympics.…

Mary Alice HOLMAN

Born 18 July 1893, Died 20 March 1939

Also known as: May

Aus­trali­a’s first female Labor Par­lia­men­tar­i­an (West­ern Aus­tralia) who served more than ten years.