Page 21 - Luce 2020

Develop ment

Friends and Society Gathering Welcoming Kay Attali

This year’s Friends and Society event explained to us, women were given a
took the form of a hot soup and rank for salary purposes only; officially,
sandwich lunch on a cold afternoon they did not hold a commission and
in August when the atmosphere in were not permitted to wear the badges
Henderson House was especially warm, of their rank. The Australian Army
not just as a result of good heating and Medical Corps did not make a similar
food, but also thanks to all the affection offer to Australian women doctors and
and good cheer in the room. their service is virtually unrecorded in
the National Archives of WW1.
Ms Welsford
welcomed Vera had graduated from the University The College is pleased to announce the
the group of a of Melbourne in 1913, one of only four appointment of Kay Attali to the position
dozen alumnae women in her class of 57 students. of Development Associate, focusing on
who were By 1917 she was Senior Medical the coordination of gifts and bequests to
delighted on Officer at the Melbourne Children’s the College.
this occasion to Hospital and obtained a position as an
be joined by Dr assistant surgeon at the 500-bed Endell Kay grew up in the Mitta Mitta valley
Heather Sheard Street Military Hospital in London. In in Victoria’s high country, went to
(pictured), co- February 1917 she sailed to England boarding school in Melbourne from
author, with Dr Ruth Lee, of Women to (paying her own passage) to take up her age ten, studied for a BA at Monash
the Front: the Extraordinary Australian appointment and served there tirelessly University and continued on to Russian
Women Doctors in the Great War. with the ex-officio rank of lieutenant postgraduate studies in London.
until January 1919.
In Women to the Having enjoyed a long and varied
Front the authors Another JCH alumna, Dr Hilda Bull career spanning journalism, television
examine and (Esson 1907), arrived in London with (as Channel 9’s first female news
celebrate individual playwright husband Louis Esson in reporter), teaching, and fourteen years
contributions made 1917 and served in the Women’s Army in swimsuit manufacturing, Kay also
by many remarkable Auxiliary Corps until 1918. brings with her a wealth of experience
Australian women who in the field of advancement. For ten
worked with wounded Summing up her gruelling work at Endell years she was Director of Development
soldiers and civilians Street Hospital, Vera Scantlebury Brown at St Catherine’s in Melbourne, the first
during WW1. wrote in her diary on 26 April 1918: such appointment at a girls’ school. In
2004 she moved to Dalian (a city of 4
For Heather’s presentation the group ‘These wounds do make one feel ill million in Liaoning Province, China) to
was joined by history tutor James Carey from the very uselessness and waste of it teach English for a year at the Lushun
and some keen JCH history students all besides the agony and the suffering.’ University of International Business and
who, along with the JCH alumnae, were Economics.
fascinated to hear of the work of these
pioneering medical women – and were In 2005, upon her return to Australia,
also appalled to learn of their struggle for Kay joined the Advancement team at our
support, opportunity and recognition. neighbouring Trinity College, where she
worked until 2018, primarily on building
In 1914, the acceptance of women into the scholarship base and supporting
the medical profession was tenuous, indigenous students.
with the first medical women having
graduated in Australia in 1891, and most
practising within the field of women’s Living overseas
and children’s health. and want to support
Janet Clarke Hall?
Dr Vera Scantlebury Brown (1908) We know that there are many JCH
was determined to contribute her alumni spread across the globe!
professional skills to the war effort, Your donations to the College
despite an initial and unequivocal ‘no’
to all women doctors from military would be greatly appreciated and
officialdom in the UK and Australia. can be made securely and tax-
By mid-1916, however, the need for effectively online.
doctors was so great that the Royal Army Vera in uniform with her brother Dr Cliff
Medical Corps accepted women doctors Scantlebury.He was two years younger For details, please visit:
on a purely contractual basis, not in the than Vera and, unlike her, is wearing all www.alumni.unimelb.edu.au/give/
form of official enlistment. As Heather the regalia of his rank
giving-overseas
J anet Clarke Hall 21