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rise apartment building overlooking the City. Besides pharmacy, her passionate interests were art and languages. She was a fluent speaker of both French
and Spanish and in a voluntary capacity taught English as a second language to post-war immigrants in Brisbane. She was passionately interested in antiques and paintings; and left in her will her valuable collection of art and antique furniture to the Queensland Art Gallery. This latter bequest included the original The Annunciation by Jan Provost,
The Madonna and Child by Christian Siebold and The Lady Holding an Orange by the School of Peter Lely.3
Military career
Soon after the outbreak of the Second World War, a Women’s Voluntary National Register was established by
the (then) Major General Sir Thomas Blamey, as Chairman of the National Manpower Board. Subsequently, a Professional Branch was added to this and many professional women in the health disciplines registered to help in
the war effort4. Gwyneth Richardson served as a civilian pharmacist to the Army prior to her enlistment with the rank of Staff Sergeant in the AAMWS, on 16th December 1942. Her pay was 6/8d per day2. She was commissioned
as a provisional Lieutenant on 29th July 1944, and transferred to the Australian Army Medical Corps on 1st September 1944. Her appointment and commission as a Lieutenant AAMC was confirmed on 4th August 1944. She was appointed formally as the pharmacist to 2 Australian Women’s Hospital5, based in the beautiful heritage home, Rhyndarra, on the banks of the Brisbane River at Yeronga. She served there until March 1946. She was then posted to Port Moresby and Rabaul where she served as a military pharmacist until July 19462. After her return from the territory of Papua and New Guinea she was posted to 118 Australian General Hospital and took her final discharge on 1st April 1947. Lieutenant Richardson, QX57786, had served the Army loyally in this pioneering role for seven years.
By the end of 1944, two other women pharmacists, one other from Queensland, had enlisted and had joined the AAMC.
Perspective
An early 19th-century Dutch engraving portrayed ‘a rare glimpse of a woman pharmacist at work’.6 Women dispensers and pharmacists emigrated to Australia in
the post-convict era. Others established dispensaries with qualified pharmacists as principals. One such was Mary Challinor who arrived on the Chasely in 1849.
She inserted an advertisement in the Moreton Bay Courier (April 1849) ‘to inform the inhabitants of Ipswich and the surrounding districts that she intends commencing the Drug Business – and that stock will be selected by her nephew and the retail and dispensing departments will be discharged by her son.’ One of the earliest women to be registered (1899) after being indentured as an apprentice pharmacist in Australia was Mrs Sara Aloysia Murray (1859-1903) of Junee, 480 kilometres southwest of Sydney.7 The Southern Cross recorded this milestone in its April 1900 edition7. Miss Caroline Noble (1869-1952) was the first woman pharmacist registered in Queensland; and Mrs. Honoria Lyons was the first ‘lady chemist’ registered in Western Australia.
Military pharmacy existed in Australia from the time of the First Fleet. At
least one of several colonial pharmacies, used by garrison surgeons, has been documented.8 A pioneering Australian military pharmacist was the Sergeant Dispenser recruited in Hobart and listed on the Manning Table of 1 Casualty Clearing Station, when that new Unit was raised in 1914.9
Gender restrictions, involving both
men and women, were a feature of
the Defence Health Service within
the Australian Defence Force until
1972 when the first male nurse was appointed to the Royal Australian Army Nursing Corps. Women had been denied enlistment membership of the Australian Army Medical Corps until September 1940 – and then entry was permitted only for women medical practitioners and not for pharmacists, occupational therapists or medical scientists. Initially, professional women serving in the health disciplines joined the Australian Army Women’s Medical Service, a proud body which initially comprised doctors, scientists, enrolled nurses, physiotherapists and occupational therapists. Such also included (after 16th December 1942), uniformed members of the Voluntary Aid Detachments
who came from the ranks of those
who had held first aid and home nursing certificates, commissariat and quartermaster skills, catering, counselling and other support groups.10
Since that time, women pharmacists enjoyed opportunities, equal to those
of men, in the Royal Australian Army Medical Corps. In the 21st century,
they have served on operational and humanitarian deployments; and have contributed much to the treatment, convalescence and welfare of Australian troops, of United Nations service personnel and the civilian subjects whom they protect.
Major General John Pearn AM RFD MD and sometime Surgeon General
C/- Office of the Professor of Paediatrics & Child Health
Royal Children’s Hospital Brisbane, Queensland. 4029.
Radley West PhC MPS
Pharmaceutical Chemist and
Historian of Pharmacy
The Pharmaceutical Society of Australia (Qld Branch)
C/- 1322 Mount Cotton Road Burbank. Q. 4156.
References
1. Australian Archives. Women Officers
– Australian Army Medical Corps. Memorandum dealing with Women Officers of the AAMC, 1944. Australian War Memorial. War of 1939-45. Accon No 481/2/23. Indexed 88A/2. AMW File 422/7/803. Pharmacists:2.
2. National Archives of Australia. World War 2. Nominal Roll, Service Records, Pay Ledgers and History Card. Service Record of Richardson, Gwyneth Jane Service Number QX57786 [b. 1 May 1917]. http://www.ww2rollgovau/script/ veteranServiceID=A&VeteranID=55610. Also http://aanaagovau/scripts/ ItemDetailasm2M=O&R=4923981. Original archives viewed National Archives of Australia (Qld), Cannon Hill, Brisbane [2003].
3. Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths. Queensland Archives. Probated Will of Gwyneth Jane Hulsen [nee Richardson] of “Torbreck”, 182 Dornoch Terrace, Highgate Hill, Brisbane:1-4.
4. Hicks S. The Woman’s Voluntary National Register. Roy Hist Soc Qld J 1993;15:106-108.
5. Williams L. No Man’s Land. A History of the 2nd Australian Women’s Hospital. Brisbane, LM Williams [Univ of Qld Printers], 1997. Richardson:8.
6. Advertisement (Mrs James Challinor). The Moreton Bay Courier. Issue of April 1849; No. 147:1.
7. Miller G. A new profession for women! Pharmacy History 2003;19:1-2.
8. Pearn JH, Petrie A, Petrie G. An Early Colonial Pharmacopoeia. Med J Aust 1988;149:630-634.
9. Pearn JH. The Pivot. An analysis of the role of the Australian First Casualty Clearing Hospital at the Gallipoli beachhead – the first seven days. Med J Aust 1990;153:612-618.
10. Dawson Win. Voluntary Aid Detachments. J Roy Hist Soc Qld 1993;15:98-100.
volume 2 ■ no 24 ■ November 2004
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