Adrienne Clarke
Professor Adrienne Clarke is an Australian scientist whose research contribution to the field of plant genetics, and to commercial ventures that developed from that research, is recognised nationally and abroad.
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Gertrude Abbott
Using an inheritance from Woods, she established St Margaret’s, a non-denominational maternity home in 1893, and for the next 30 years was involved in its management, initially as president and later as matron.
Jessie Bicknell
Jessie Bicknell helped establish postgraduate and specialist training for nurses in New Zealand.
Dr Muriel Emma Bell
From the 1940s to the 1960s she advised the public to eat more fruit and vegetables and to cut down on sugar, fat and meat, while continuing her practical efforts to improve food quality. One of her successes was to produce better quality bread. Working with scientists, she educated bakers into using flour made by improved methods of extraction to increase its vitamin B1 content.
Thyra Talvase Bethell
During the First World War her strong personality and status as the chairman’s wife enabled her to establish a new kind of women’s leadership. Women’s voluntary work was in demand, and largely by use of the recently installed telephone system she organised Red Cross nursing at Hanmer Springs and supervised emergency measures in the influenza epidemic of November 1918. She was appointed an MBE in 1919. The Red Cross remained a lifelong interest: Thyra headed the Culverden sub-centre for over 50 years and was involved in the local and national organisation during the Second World War. She was made a councillor of honour of the New Zealand Red Cross Society in 1957.
Dr Cicely Williams
Jamaican physician Dr Cicely Delphine Williams, OM, CMG, FRCP was best known for her discovery of and research into kwashiorkor, a condition of advanced malnutrition, and her work against the use of sweetened condensed milk and other artificial baby milks as substitutes for human breast milk. One of the first women to graduate from Oxford University, Dr Williams was a key figure in advancing the field of maternal and child health in developing nations. In 1948, she became the first director of Mother and Child Health (MCH) at the newly created World Health Organization (WHO).
Anne Pattrick
After general nurse training at Christchurch Hospital from 1911 to 1914, Anne Pattrick took a four-month course at the Karitane-Harris Hospital for babies in Dunedin. It had been set up by Frederic Truby King in 1907 to train nurses for the Society for the Promotion of the Health of Women and Children (later the Royal New Zealand Plunket Society). Marked by King as having outstanding qualities, Pattrick was immediately appointed to the staff.
She served during the First World War, departing on the hospital ship Marama in 1915. While on active service she became engaged to be married to an Australian soldier, but he was to die in England in the 1918 influenza epidemic. During the war King had been invited by the British government to set up in London an infant welfare centre along Plunket lines, and he chose Pattrick to help him. Accordingly, she was released from army service in January 1918 and appointed matron of the Babies of the Empire Society’s new Mothercraft Training Centre, a position she held until 1920. This centre, subsequently named Cromwell House, grew to be an important model for infant welfare work in Britain.
Dr Antonia Novello
A dedicated public health advocate, Antonia Novello made history as the first female and first Hispanic U.S. Surgeon General in 1990. Novello has led several major public health campaigns in her efforts to improve health conditions and access to medical care, especially for women, children, and minority populations.
Ada Gertrude Paterson
After postgraduate study at Dublin University, around 1908 she commenced general practice in Picton.
There Paterson demonstrated her ability to command affection as well as respect from a wide range of individuals. A farewell social held for her in 1912 was ‘one of the most largely-attended and enthusiastic gatherings ever held in Picton’.
Ada Pilgrim
In 1909 or thereabouts the Pilgrims went to live in Palmerston North, where Ada Pilgrim was listed in directories as a ‘specialist’; then, some five years later, they moved to Auckland. She bought a handsome villa on Khyber Pass Road to which a constant stream of people came for treatment. Ada Pilgrim’s method of healing was a form of physiotherapy before that term was in general use. She was able to relieve complaints such as tic douloureux which were resistant to conventional treatment. Many of her patients were sent by medical practitioners, whose respect she had quickly gained. She continued to work as a healer after her husband’s death in 1926 and was practising well into her 80s. She believed that she had a gift, a kind of energy, which it was her duty to use. She was adept not only at relieving pain but also at giving reassurance and reconciling patients to that which could not be cured.