Harris worked with the Australian kindergarten movement, joining the committee of the Collingwood Creche/Kindergarten in 1920, and becoming a member of the executive committee of the Free Kindergarten Union in 1933, assuming the vice-presidency from 1947-50. She was also a member of the Women’s Hospital Committee, and president from 1945-8, when the hospital was challenged by the coincidence of the post-war baby boom and a shortage of materials for redevelopment.
Ann Marshall lectured in geography at the University of Adelaide for over thirty years. She was heavily involved in successful campaigns against inner-city freeways in Adelaide.
She taught girls’ sport and was Olympic champion Shirley Strickland de la Hunty’s first coach. Knowles was called ‘the hyphen’ as she was seen to be crossing boundaries between men’s and women’s teaching roles. In 1944 she was promoted to principal-mistress at Perth Modern School which made her the top woman in secondary teaching. Then she went to the Kent Street High School where, because as it was a practising school, her salary was £10 per year higher. In 1955 she was headmistress of Girdlestone Girls High School before returning to Perth Girls High School as headmistress.
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.
Writer whose reminiscences vividly illustrate the lives of colonial women
Irish educator, social worker, and religious foundress
American author of Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm,
British philanthropist and social leader
American philanthropist, and leader in religious and educational work.
American educator, suffragist and penologist