For king and empire: Australian women and nascent town planning

Planning Perspectives

Volumn 20, Issue 2, 2005, Pages 121-145

  Gatley, Julia ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF TASMANIA   (Australia)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

GENDER ROLE; TOWN PLANNING;

AUSTRALASIA; AUSTRALIA; EASTERN HEMISPHERE; WORLD;

EID: 17744399305     PISSN: 02665433     EISSN: 14664518     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/02665430500031688     Document Type: Review

References (124)

1. Official Volume of Proceedings of the First Australian Town Planning and Housing Conference and Exhibition, Adelaide, 17-24 October 1917. Adelaide: South Australian Executive of the Australian Town Planning Conference and Exhibition, 1918.
2. Volume of Proceedings of the Second Australian Town Planning Conference and Exbibition. Brisbane, Queensland, 30th July to 6th Aug. 1918. Brisbane: Government Printer, 1918.
3. First Australian interstate town planning conference. Architecture 2, 6 (December 1917) 147.
4. A. Hutchings, Conscious purposes, in A. Hutchings and R. Bunker (eds) With Conscious Purpose: A History of Town Planning in South Australia Netley, SA: Wakefield Press in association with Royal Australian Planning Institute, South Australian Division, 1986, p. 4.
5. C. Garnaut, Towards metropolitan organisation: town planning and the garden city idea, in S. Hamnett and R. Freestone (eds) The Australian Metropolis: A Planning History. St Leonards, NSW: Allen and Unwin, 2000, p. 52. Note: Garnaut's brackets.
6. The proceedings from the Adelaide event list the names of 15 women delegates (nine from South Australia, three from New South Wales, two from Western Australia and one from Victoria). But the Western Australian contingent of ten men and two women did not make it to the conference as the new rail link between Perth and Adelaide was not completed in time, hence the number 13 given here. See Official Volume of Proceedings, op. cit. [1]. The proceedings from the Brisbane event list the names of 29 women delegates (14 from Queensland, nine from New South Wales, five from South Australia and one from Victoria). Two more local women were later identified as delegates, hence the total of 31 given here. See Volume of Proceedings, op. cit. [2]; and Letter, F. B. Harris, Brisbane, to Mr Chuter, Hon. Director, Town Planning Conference, Brisbane, 2 August 1918. PRV 8636-1-2, Queensland State Archives, Brisbane. A larger number of local women, 27 at Adelaide and 32 at Brisbane, contributed to the organization of the two events.
7. For a recent literature review and analysis of the exporting and importing of planning ideas and practices, see J. Nasr and M. Volait, Introduction: transporting planning, in J. Nasr and M. Volait (eds) Urbanism: Imported or Exported? Native Aspirations and Foreign Plans. Chichester: Wiley-Academy, 2003, pp. xi-xxxviii.
8. There is an increasing body of literature on women's contribution to nascent town planning and city-building in a range of countries. See, for example, D. Spain, How Women Saved the City. Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, 2001;
9. C. H. Greed, Women and Planning: Creating Gendered Realities. London and New York: Routledge, 1994;
10. and R. Freestone, Women in the Australian town planning movement 1900-1950. Planning Perspectives 10 (1995) 259-77. Texts on women's contribution to nascent town planning and city-building generally consider ideas about 'race-building' and 'racial improvement', but they tend to do so within national frameworks rather than pursuing international or imperial links and/or exchanges.
11. See, for example, C. Midgley (ed.), Gender and Imperialism. Studies in Imperialism Series. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1998.
12. One text on British women imperialists that does make some reference to women's interest and involvement in town planning is J. Bush, Edwardian Ladies and Imperial Power. London and New York: Leicester University Press, 2000.
13. For a historical survey of Australian women town planning advocates, see R. Freestone, op. cit. [8]. Of the women Freestone discusses in this survey, two have an established place within Australian planning historiography: Sydney architect, writer and publisher Florence Taylor and the American architect Marion Mahony Griffin who was resident in Australia from 1914.
14. For an overview of the development town planning in Australia, see S. Hamnett and R. Freestone (eds), op. cit. [5].
15. See K. F. Fischer, Canberra: Myths and Models; Forces at Work in the Formation of the Australian Capital. Hamburg: Institute of Asian Affairs, 1984;
16. and P. Reid, Canberra Following Griffin: A Design History of Australia's National Capital. Canberra: National Archives of Australia, 2002.
17. See R. Freestone, An imperial aspect: the Australasian town planning tour of 1914-15. Australian Journal of Politics and History 44 2 (1998) 159-76.
18. For information on Reade, see C. Garnaut, Model and maker: Colonel Light Gardens and Charles Reade. PhD thesis, University of South Australia, Adelaide, 1997;
19. and C. Garnaut, Charles Reade and the international diffusion of town planning ideas. Cities of Tomorrow, the 10th International Planning History Conference, University of Westminster, London, and Letchworth Garden City, 2002.
20. For a more detailed analysis of the 1917 and 1918 conferences, see J. Gatley, Sex and the slum: imperialism and gender in nascent town planning, Australia and New Zealand, 1914-1919. PhD thesis, University of Melbourne, 2003.
21. A Victorian town planning conference, i.e. a state conference rather than a national one, was held in 1919. Robert Freestone has identified the Victorian conference as 'the last significant gathering of town planning advocates before the 1951 Canberra congress which led to the formation of the Australian Planning Institute'. See R. Freestone, The early twentieth century: images of the formative years. Australian Planner 26, 3 (September 1988) 14.
22. See H. Jones, In Her Own Name: Women in South Australian History. Kent Town, SA: Wakefield Press, 1986.
23. See G. Reekie (ed.), On the Edge: Women's Experiences in Queensland St Lucia, Qld: University of Queensland Press, 1994.
24. S. Magarey, Passions of the First Wave Feminists. Sydney: University of New South Wales Press, 2001, p. 139.
25. Ibid., pp. 86-91.
26. A. Davin, Imperialism and motherhood, first published 1978, republished in F. Cooper and A. L. Stoler (eds) Tensions of Empire: Colonial Cultures in a Bourgeois World. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1997, p. 90.
27. See S. Magarey, op. cit. [19], pp. 113-15.
28. In addition to S. Magarey, op. cit. [19],
29. see P. Grimshaw, M. Lake, A. McGrath and M. Quartly, Creating a Nation. Ringwood, Vic: Penguin 1996 [1994].
30. For information on the developments taking place in women's domestic sphere in late nineteenth and early twentieth century Australia, see K. M. Reiger, The Disenchantment of the Home: Modernizing the Australian Family, 1880-1940. Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1985, pp. 32-55.
31. Home building section: men make houses but women make homes; men in the home. Building 6, 69 (12 May 1913) 129.
32. J. D. Fitzgerald, Sydney slums: picturesque and pestilential. Lone Hand 1, 5 (September 1907) 562-63.
33. A. Mayne, The Imagined Slum: Newspaper Representation in Three Cities, 1870-1914. Leicester, London and New York: Leicester University Press, 1993, p. 1.
34. Ibid., pp. 106-7.
35. Ibid., p. 137.
36. P. Morton, After Light: A History of the City of Adelaide and its Council, 1878-1928. Kent Town, SA: Wakefield Press, 1996, p. 200.
37. Where are the slums: Mr Reade on garden cities. Register (9 October 1914) 7.
38. Note: my brackets. See also Town planning; Mr C. C. Reade's mission, Register (10 October 1914) 12;
39. Quoted in K. M. Reiger, op. cit. [24], p. 49. Reiger refers to Ivy Brooks Papers, MS 1924, Series 38, Australian National Library, Canberra.
40. C. H. Greed, op. cit. [8], pp. 7, 108.
41. See Official Volume of Proceedings, op. cit. [1]. The proceedings generally give initials and surnames rather than Christian names and surnames. Christian names have been determined through research. Florence Taylor did not attend the Adelaide conference. Architect Marion Mahony Griffin did attend, but with her husband, Walter Burley Griffin, and was not identified as a conference delegate herself.
42. See Letters, M. M. Griffin, Melbourne, to Robins, 29 October 1917, and M. M. Griffin, Melbourne, to G. Lippincott, 29 October 1917. Both reproduced in M. M. Griffin, The Magic of America. Section II. New York: New York Historical Society, n.d., c.. 1949, pp. 201-3.
43. The unmarried South Australian women conference delegates were Muriel Farr, Kate Finlayson, Dr Gertrude Halley, Annie Hornabrook, Lydia Longmore and Amy Tomkinson; the married ones were Jessie Freebairn, Lucy Morice and Jeanne Young.
44. K. Holmes, 'Spinsters Indispensable': feminists, single women and the critique of marriage, 1890-1920. Australian Historical Studies 29, 110 (April 1998) 78.
45. A small number of women were working as architects in early twentieth century Australia. See J. Willis and B. Hanna, Women Architects in Australia, 1900-1950. Red Hill, ACT: Royal Australian Institute of Architects, 2002 [20011, pp. 5-16.
46. E. Kwan, Halley, Ida Gertrude Margaret (1867-1939), in B. Nairn and G. Serle (eds) Australian Dictionary of Biography (ADB), Volume 9, 1891-1939. Carlton, Vic: Melbourne University Press, 1983, pp. 170-1.
47. E. Kwan, Longmore, Lydia (1874-1967), in B. Nairn and G. Serle (eds) ADB, Volume 10, 1891-1939. Carlton, Vic: Melbourne University Press, 1986, pp. 140-1.
48. H. Jones, Morice, Louise (Lucy) (1859-1951), in B. Nairn and G. Serle (eds), ibid., pp. 587-8.
49. See Volume of Proceedings, op. cit. [2]. Again, the proceedings generally give initials and surnames rather than Christian names and surnames and some of the Christian names have been determined through research. Neither Florence Taylor nor Marion Mahony Griffin attended the Brisbane event.
50. Only three of the Queensland women delegates - Josephine Bedford, E. J. Bourne and Marcella Clarke - were unmarried. A much larger number, 13, were married.
51. For biographical information on Bedford, see L. M. Williams, No Easy Path: The Life and Times of Lilian Violet Cooper MD, FRACS (1861-1947), Australia's First Woman Surgeon. Brisbane: Department of Child Health, University of Queensland, and Royal Children's Hospital, 1991.
52. A. Ravetz, A view from the interior, in J. Attfield and P. Kirkham (eds) A View from the Interior: Feminism, Women and Design. London: Women's Press, 1989, p. 200.
53. Ibid., p. 200.
54. The session comprised three papers: Major T. H. Smeaton, 'Housing of Returned Soldiers'; E. Robertson and F. E. T. Cobb, 'Housing, Health, and Vital Statistics of Victoria'; and a paper by Florence Taylor's husband George titled 'Town Planning and Housing'. Despite their expertise in matters pertaining to the home, no women were invited to give papers on housing and none joined (perhaps none were invited to join) the committees that curated the housing exhibits.
55. See Lady Contributor, Townplanning: woman's point of view. Register (25 October 1917) 8.
56. The author is likely to have been one of the nine local women delegates, possibly edited or submitted to the Register by one of the three women on the conference Publicity Committee: Muriel Farr, a freelance journalist; Miss Robin, who worked for the local newspaper, the Mail or Winnifred Scott, who had also had written work published previously.
57. Lady Contributor, op. cit.[47] 8.
58. I b i d.
59. The two papers were by Frank Stapley, 'Housing';
60. and A. B. Wilson, 'Domestic Architecture for Tropical and Subtropical Queensland'.
61. E. Young, Comments, Volume of Proceedings, op. cit. [2], p. 138.
62. Ibid., p. 137.
63. Ibid., p. 138.
64. For a more detailed account of the completion of these playgrounds, see J. Frawley, 'Haunts of the Street Bully': social reform and the Queensland children's playground movement. History of Education Review 29, 1 2000) 32-45;
65. and J. Gatley, Giant strides: the formation of supervised playgrounds in Adelaide and Brisbane. Journal of the Historical Society of South Australia 29 (2001) 34-46.
66. Official Volume of Proceedings, op. cit. [1], p. 26. The committee was chaired by Alderman Moulden of the Adelaide City Council but he seems to have been more a figurehead than an active worker.
67. E. Kwan, op. cit. [38], p. 170;
68. and E. Kwan, op. cit. [39], p. 140.
69. Letter, G. Charlton, Deputy Director of Education, South Australia, to Town Clerk, Adelaide City Council, 18 September 1924, SPF 0471:01, Adelaide City Archives, Adelaide.
70. See J. Frawley, op. cit. [55] 32-45;
71. and Pauline Smith, Parts 1-4 of the history of the Playground and Recreation Association of Queensland in The Playground and Recreation Association of Queensland: Annual Report and Financial Statement for 1987, 1988, 1989 and 1991.
72. The Playground Association then opened the Valley Playground in Fortitude Valley (1922) and the Spring Hill Playground (1927). The Ithaca Playground was also known as the Paddington Playground and is now known as the Neal Macrossan Playground; the Valley Playground has been demolished; and the Spring Hill Playground is now known as the Bedford Playground in recognition of Josephine Bedford's contribution. The Playground Association's work inspired the city's local authorities to build other playgrounds, with Brisbane City said to have been responsible for eight by 1938. See Entry on Bedford Playground, File No. 601787, Queensland Heritage Register, Queensland Environment Planning Division, Brisbane.
73. See Children's playgrounds in South Australia: a statement of policy by the South Australian Town Planning Association, Official Volume of Proceedings, op. cit. [1], p. 159.
74. Cary Goodman, Choosing Sides: Playground and Street Life on the Lower East Side. New York: Schocken Books, 1979, p. 76.
75. George Newman, Annual Report for 1909 of the Chief Medical Officer of the Board of Education. London: HMSO, 1910, p. 172.
76. See G. R. Searle, The Quest for National Efficiency: A Study in British Politics and Thought, 1899-1914. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1971.
77. Dr Gertrude Halley quoted in P. Morton, op. cit. [30], p. 176.
78. The exhibition, Official Volume of Proceedings, op. cit. [1], p. 37.
79. D. J. Murphy, Goold-Adams, Sir Hamilton John (1858-1920), in B. Nairn and G. Serle (eds), op. cit. [38], p. 50.
80. Comfort in the home: studies for hot climates; health and recreation, Brisbane Courier (6 August 1918) 6.
81. Children's playground: notable event at Ithaca, Telegraph (Brisbane) (6 August 1918) 3.
82. The exhibition, Official Volume of Proceedings, op. cit. [1], p. 37.
83. D. Kirk and B. Spiller, Schooling for docility-utility: drill, gymnastics and the problem of the body in Victorian elementary schools, in D. Meredyth and D. Tyler (eds) Child and Citizen: Genealogies of Schooling and Subjectivity. Brisbane: Institute of Cultural Policy Studies, Griffith University, 1993, p. 118.
84. Children's playground ..., op. cit. [69].
85. J. Eddy, Nationalism and nation-making from federation to Gallipoli, in J. Eddy and D. Schreuder (eds) The Rise of Colonial Nationalism. North Sydney, NSW: Allen and Unwin, 1988, p. 135.
86. See S. Alomes, A Nation at Last? The Changing Character of Australian Nationalism 1880-1988. North Ryde, NSW: Angus and Robertson Publishers, 1988, pp. 40, 48.
87. See G. Souter, Lion and Kangaroo: The Initiation of Australia. Melbourne: Text Publishing Company, 2000 [1976], pp. 309-10;
88. and S. Alomes, ibid., p. 56.
89. See, for example, J. Eddy, op. cit. [73];
90. S. Alomes, ibid.;
91. G. Souter, ibid.;
92. Geoffrey Serle, The Creative Spirit in Australia: A Cultural History Melbourne: Heinemann, 1987 [1973];
93. Noel McLachlan, Waiting for the Revolution: A History of Australian Nationalism. Ringwood, Vic: Penguin, 1989;
94. and Stephen Alomes and Catherine Jones, Australian Nationalism: A Documentary History. North Ryde, NSW: Angus and Robertson Publishers, 1991.
95. N. McLachlan, ibid., p. 198.
96. M. Lake, Getting Equal: the History of Australian Feminism. St Leonards, NSW: Allen and Unwin, 1999, p. 63.
97. Members of the League of Loyal Women included delegates Muriel Farr, Kate Finlayson, Dr Gertrude Halley and Lucy Morice and conference committee members Lady Butler, Edith Devitt, Mrs I. Isaacs, Mrs Lendon, Dr Helen Mayo, Edith Osborn and Harriet Stirling. See Minutes of the League of Loyal Women, SRC 684/1 Vol. 1, Mortlock Library, Adelaide.
98. Members of the South Australian Branch of the British Science Guild included delegates Dr Gertrude Halley, Annie Hornabrook, Lucy Morice and Amy Tomkinson and conference committee members Edith Devitt, Dr Helen Mayo and Harriet Stirling. See Minutes of General Meetings of the British Science Guild, South Australian Branch, SRG 28; and List of Members (July 1919), SRG 28, Box 2, Mortlock Library, Adelaide.
99. Constitution of the League of Loyal Women, 1915, SRC 684/1 Vol. 1, Mortlock Library, Adelaide.
100. I b i d.
101. Lady Galway founded the South Australian Branch of the Red Cross Society, initiated a Belgian Relief Fund and put her name to the Lady Galway Belgium Book, a book of patriotic essays published in 1916 to raise money for the Belgian fund. For information on Sir Henry and Lady Galway, see P. A. Howell, More Varieties of Vice-Regal Life. Journal of the Historical Society of South Australia 9 (1981) 1-53.
102. See Objects and Constitution, in Minutes of General Meetings of the British Science Guild, South Australian Branch, SRG 28, Mortlock Library, Adelaide.
103. Syllabus: Referred to in Report of Committee on Moral Education (nd, c. 1912), in Minutes of General Meetings of the British Science Guild, South Australian Branch, SRG 28, Mortlock Library, Adelaide. The Branch also published a pamphlet titled Race-Building in 1918.
104. In a slightly different vein, the South Australian Wattle Day League, represented at the conference by Jeanne Young, was the women's section of the Australian Natives Association, an association for Australian-born whites. Young's patriotism was such that it alienated her from her husband and she left him in 1917. See H. Jones, Young, Sarah Jane (Jeanne) (1866-1955), in John Ritchie (ed.) ADB, Volume 12, 1891-1939. Carlton, Vic: Melbourne University Press, 1990, p. 598.
105. Members of the Women's Non-Party Political Association included delegates Dr Gertrude Halley, Annie Hornabrook, Lydia Longmore, Lucy Morice, Annie Tomkinson and Jeanne Young and conference committee members Hilda Burdon, Edith Devitt, Dr Helen Mayo, Edith Osborn, Miss Robin, Winnifred Scott, Harriet Stirling, Evelyn Vaughan and Helèna Maud Vaughan. See Minutes 1909-22, Records of the League of Women Voters, SRG 116 Series 1/1, Mortlock Library, Adelaide.
106. League of Women Voters Golden Jubilee pamphlet, 1959, quoted in V. Szekeres, A History of the League of Women Voters in South Australia 1909-1976. BA thesis, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, 1976, p. 3. See also Constitution of the League of Women Voters. Copy held in ibid. Appendix.
107. National Council of Women of Queensland, The First Fifty Years in the History of the National Council of Women of Queensland. Brisbane: Self-published, 1956, pp. 17-18.
108. In addition to Bedford, conference committee women who were members of the Queensland Electoral League included Bedford's lifelong companion, Dr Lilian Cooper, as well as Elizabeth Exley and Irene Longman. See P. Young, Proud to be a Rebel: The Life and Times of Emma Miller. St Lucia, Q1d: University of Queensland Press, 1991, pp. 123-4, 217-19. Members were described as 'strawberries and cream ladies' by Brisbane socialist Emma Miller. See ibid., p. 127.
109. L. M. Williams, op. cit. [43], pp. 51-73.
110. A brief biography of Helen Huxham is included in P. Young, op. cit. [90], pp. 239-40.
111. H. Jones, op cit. [40], pp. 587-8.
112. M. Roe, Nine Australian Progressives: Vitalism in Bourgeois Social Thought, 1890-1960. St Lucia, Qld: University of Queensland Press, 1984, p. 319.
113. See, for example, Official Volume of Proceedings, op. cit. [1], pp. 16, 35, 40, 92.
114. See, for example, Volume of Proceedings, op. cit. [2], pp. 21, 23, 35, 54, 82, 184.
115. Women and national glory. Building 3, 39 (12 November 1910) 81.
116. E. K. Teather, Fascism and Australian town planning propagandists: some implications. Australian Journal of Politics and History 40, 3 (1994) 335-50.
117. Following an about-face iD 1922, George Taylor became 'an advocate of pacifism and domesticity'. See M. Roe, Taylor, George Augustine (1872-1928), in J. Ritchie (ed.), op. cit. [86], pp. 178-9.
118. E. K. Teather, op. cit. [98] 336.
119. British Empire Exhibition, 1924: Housing and Town Planning Exhibits, 1920-24, HLG 52/897, Public Record Office, Kew, London.
120. H. Vivian, Comment, Report of the Proceedings of the Imperial Health Conferences held at the Imperial Institute, London, May 18th to 21st, 1914. London: Victoria League, 1914, p. 28.
121. In contrast to the high praise that the Adelaide conference received in most media reports, Marion Mahony Griffin described it as 'a scandalous piece of business', 'a Sunday school picnic' and 'a disgraceful business ... carried with a high hand'. See Letters, M. M. Griffin, Melbourne, to Robins, 29 October 1917, and M. M. Griffin, Melbourne, to G. Lippincott, 29 October 1917, op. cit. [34]. My thanks to David Nichols for drawing these references to my attention. Mahony Griffin's comments followed the 1916 Royal Commission on Federal Capital Administration, established to consider allegations that Walter Burley Griffin's work at Canberra was extravagant. The Commission found in Burley Griffin's favour but ill feeling remained. The difficulties are outlined in K. F. Fischer, op. cit. [121, p. 34.
122. The various statutes enacted by each state were the New South Wales Local Government Act 1919, the South Australian Town Planning and Development Act 1920, the Western Australian Town Planning and Development Act 1928, Queensland's City of Mackay and Other Town Planning Schemes Approval Act 1934 and its Local Government Act 1936, and Victoria and Tasmania's Town and Country Planning Acts, both of 1944.
123. Freestone has identified a small number of women who participated in Australian town planning activities in the 1920s but none of them were employed as local authority town planners. See R. Freestone, op. cit. [8] 265-9.
124. Women who had trained in architecture and then entered Australian municipal planning practice in the 1940s included Rosette Edmunds and Margaret Feilman. See R. Freestone, ibid., 270-1.