Collection or topic
Notable Women of East Melbourne
This project is aimed at building a repository of short biographies of Notable Women of East Melbourne
There is other biographical information about other women of East Melbourne including biographies of nurses who served in WW1. They may be found here:
People of East Melbourne or here:
EMHS Catalogue
Everyone can participate by suggesting candidates for a biography and by gathering or documenting information:
- Photos, memorabilia and family records
- Stories in books, newspapers and on-line
- Search the wonderful resources of the State Library of Victoria
Contact EMHS
In this collection
25 records and collections
Person
AINSLIE, Margaret
The Ainslie family were natives of Gladsmuir, East Lothian, Scotland. [1] The family was made up of Margaret (nee Brodie), her husband James, and if the passenger list is to be believed, five children, although only four have been identified: Archibald, James Brodie, Anne Brodie...
Person
BERMAN, Margaret
Margaret (Peggy) Berman (1923-2002) Peggy Berman was a strong, intelligent and determined woman. She had a tough start to life, an illegitimate child at a Catholic Children’s Home in Broadmeadows. From there, she was taken in by her Irish grandparents and was sent to the Sisters...
Person
BRAHE, May
Mary (May) Hannah Brahe (née Dickson) was born at 23 George Street, East Melbourne (now part of Georgian Court B & B) on 6 November 1884. Her father was Richard Dickson, a Melbourne-born cordial manufacturer. Her mother died when May was 12 years old. She had, however already tau...
Person
BROCKELBANK, Lilla
Lilla Brockebank, cricketer and architect, was the fifth of the six daughters of Duncan Brockelbank, actuary and accountant, and his wife Bessy Jemima, née Westmore .[1] Lilla was born in Hackney, London in 1883.[2] The family left London for Australia in August 1885 aboard the M...
Person
BROOKS, Constance Jessie
Constance Jessie Brooks (1888–1966), who served with the Australian Army Nursing Service in India from 1917 to 1919, was the daughter of Yates and Emma Brooks (nee Mullen). Constance’s father Yates had come to Victoria at the age of 13 with his parents John and Eliza and five sib...
Person
Bladen Neill, Sarah Florentia
THE VICTORIAN LADIES’ SERICULTURE COMPANY ‘Contributions of mulberry leaves of the right kind would still be very welcome to Miss Anderson, at 6 Barkly-terrace, East Melbourne, where a portion of Mrs. Bladen Neill's sericultural operations are now being carried on.’ So stated The...
Person
CAMERON, Edith Clare
For many of the Great War nurses linked with East Melbourne, the connection was primarily a professional one, that is they trained or nursed in one of the suburb's hospitals. Some, however, were brought up and/or lived in East Melbourne for a number of years. Edith Clare Cameron...
Person
CHILDERS, Emily
Emily Childers (1827-1875), Diarist Emily Childers lived the conventional life of a woman of her background and class. She married at 23, emigrated with her husband to find a new life in Australia, had children, ran her household and led a busy social life. Her claim to fame rest...
Person
CLARKE, Janet Marion
Janet Marion Clarke was born on 4 June 1851 at Doogallook Station on the Goulburn River, Victoria, the eldest of nine children of the affluent landowner Peter Snodgrass and his wife Charlotte. In 1869 Janet became governess to the four children of the Hon. William Clarke the land...
Collection or topic
Catalogue
This is the East Melbourne Historical Society catalogue showing a brief summary of each item. For full details of an item click on the title link. To filter the list, select a Subject from the list, or enter terms in any of the other form fields and click "Apply". To return to th...
Person
DAVITT, Ellen
Ellen Davitt is best remembered as a pioneer educationalist in her role as the first superintendent of the Model School, East Melbourne, which once stood on the island site now occupied by the Royal College of Surgeons. She and her husband, Arthur, who held the senior position of...
Person
GALLIN, Alice Matilda
Introduction: three Gallin sisters AANS Alice Matilda Gallin was the first (and youngest) of three Gallin sisters to enlist in the Australian Army Nursing Service in the Great War. Her enrolment in 1915 preceded Eleanor’s by just weeks. Their eldest sister Mary Josephine joined i...
Person
GALLIN, Eleanor
Introduction: three Gallin sisters AANS Eleanor Gallin was the second of three Gallin sisters to enlist in the Australian Army Nursing Service in the Great War. Her enrolment in 1915 followed Alice’s by just weeks. Their eldest sister Mary Josephine joined in October 1917, soon a...
Person
GALLIN, Mary Josephine
Introduction: three Gallin sisters AANS Mary Josephine Gallin was the third of three Gallin sisters to enlist in the Australian Army Nursing Service in the Great War. Her younger sisters, Alice and Eleanor, enlisted in 1915. Their eldest sister Mary Josephine joined in October 19...
Person
LA TROBE, Sophie
Born Sophia de Montmollin, in Neuchâtel, a French speaking town in Switzerland, Sophie was the eighth of sixteen children. Sophie grew up in an imposing town house and M. Montmollin was active in public affairs as befitted his noble birth, the family having been prominent citizen...
Person
MAXWELL, May
From the time when Queen Victoria was proclaimed Empress of India to the landing on Mars – this was the span of the interesting life of May Maxwell, who died at the age of 100 in 1977 at 157 Wellington Parade South Jolimont, which had been her home for sixty years. May was born i...
Person
MOUCHETTE, Berthe
Berthe Mouchette, nee Lion, was born in 1846 at Forcalquier, Provence-Alpes-Cotes d’Azur, France. She studied painting, gained qualifications as an art teacher and developed into an admired artist in her own right, exhibiting regularly at the Salon. She arrived in Melbourne in Se...
Person
MURPHY, Agnes
Agnes Gillian Murphy was born in Ireland but that is as much as we know about her early life. She appears to have arrived in Melbourne about 1884 on a visit to her sister, Elizabeth (Lily), who was already living here. She was first employed transcribing legal documents but in 18...
Collection or topic
People of East Melbourne
This project started to commemorate the soldiers and nurses who went to Europe to serve in World War 1. But it has grown from there to cover biographies of any and all residents of note.
Person
ROBERTSON, Gertrude Muriel Norton
The life of Gertrude Muriel Norton Robertson encapsulates in many ways the development of Victoria as colony and state, and its ongoing links with the British Empire. Early colonial Melbourne, medical practice in the colony, its involvement in the Boer War, and pioneering veterin...
Person
SEARL, Alice
Their working lives brought Alice Searl and several of her siblings to East Melbourne in the first decades of the twentieth century. Alice and her sisters Mary Ann and Louisa (1101 and 1109 Hoddle St) were all nurses, and Matthew their brother (108 Powlett St) was a law clerk. Lo...
Person
TOVELL, Ada
ADA TOVELL – FIRST WOMAN DENTIST Michelle Calder has contacted us seeking information about her grand-mother’s maternal grand-mother, Ada Tovell (nee Fenton), who she said was the first woman in Australia to practise as a dentist. Ada Fenton had been a student at Ormiston College...
Person
WALLER, Louisa
Louisa Waller was born in Benalla, Victoria on 29 January 1887, the daughter of local storekeeper Charles Richard Waller (c1856-1932) and his wife Jane Matthews (1859-1936). She was the fourth of the couple’s fourteen children. Perhaps it was the death of several siblings as infa...
Person
WHITE, Jessie McHardie
Notes by Janet Scarfe additional to material below. The essay by Perdita McCarthy on Jessie McHardie White published in the Australian Dictionary of Biography is highly recommended (Perditta M. McCarthy, 'White, Jessie McHardy (1870–1957)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, Nat...