In 1917 she began a pharmaceutical apprenticeship with Frank Brooks, studying by correspondence. Long hours worked during the 1918 influenza epidemic meant that her studies were put on hold until the emergency was over. In 1921 Ruth Webb passed her final examinations, reputedly achieving the top marks in New Zealand. Unable to register as a pharmacist until aged 21, she had to wait until March 1922 before she could officially use the letters MPS after her name.
On her retirement in 1951, after 35 years’ service, Stuart fought successfully to obtain the same retiring allowance – six months’ full pay – that men received, rather than the half-pay allowance usually given to women. The determination she displayed set an example for other women to follow; after a long campaign, equal pay was implemented by the Post Office in the early 1960s.
Bell is the author or editor of ten books, including several significant monographs on Australian Aboriginal culture and numerous articles and book chapters dealing with religion, land rights, law reform, art, history and social change.
Through her teaching and writing, she did a great deal to popularize knowledge about Australian flora, to encourage domestic gardeners to include native plants in their gardens and to persuade a wider audience of the need for conservation measures. She published twelve books about Australian plants and teaching nature studies between 1938 and 1980, and contributed widely to scientific journals and reference books including The Australian Naturalist, Australian Wild Life, Australian Encyclopaedia and Science Wonders of Australia. She was also editor, at various times, of New Horizons in Education, Australian Wildlife and Wildlife Research News.
In 1942 she was seconded to the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) Women’s Association to establish a department, a recognition of her organisational and leadership skills. In 1943 she joined the Australian Red Cross field force.
Throughout the war journalists reported on Leigh’s travels and work. She served for a year providing occupational therapy in the 2/9th Australian General Hospital, in New Guinea, before being sent to the United Kingdom with a Prisoner of War (POW) reception unit. Here she was also in charge of the club for the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) ex-POWs. In 1945 she became senior superintendent and joined a POW reception unit in Singapore.
In Melbourne she joined the Catholic Women’s Social Guild (CWSG) a feminist organisation encouraging Catholic lay women to become publicly active and work towards equal rights for women. She was a member of the CWSG central organizing committee for three years and secretary for one year, and was influential in its modernisation.
Sent to Melbourne as part of the first Victorian foundation she continued teaching, however visits to the homes of the poor convinced her of the need for a hospital similar to the one the sisters had founded in Sydney. Appointed Superior to the foundation in Melbourne in 1892 she was able to bring the hospital to fruition.
Her book outlining her child-rearing theories, Child Nature and Child Nurture, was published in 1927. She was also active in many women’s organisations: a member of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union and president in 1926; a member of the National Council of Women from the early 1920s, a convenor of its committee on equal moral standards in 1927-1931 and member of its committee for peace and arbitration from 1938-1950.
From 1991, she was a senior lecturer and later associate professor of Social Work at the University of Melbourne.
Ruby Hutchison (1892-1974) was a firebrand West Australian politician and community activist who was active in the early stages of the Australian Consumers’ Association (now Choice).