Kathleen Maisey Curtis
Kathleen Maisey Curtis, who later became Lady Rigg, was an exemplary scientist who specialised in mycology and botany and was a founder of plant pathology in New Zealand.
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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.
Nancy Mary Adams
Nancy Adams was a botanist, botanical artist and museum curator whose significant contributions to botany included the illustrations for more than 40 publications on New Zealand’s native plants, alpine areas, and common trees, shrubs and flowers, and her 1994 work Seaweeds of New Zealand: an illustrated guide.
Pérrine Moncrieff
In 1925 Pérrine wrote New Zealand birds and how to identify them. Although she intended her book for the untrained bird-lover, it influenced scientists as well as lay people and ran to five editions.
Sarah Salmond
Sarah Salmond’s interest in astronomy transcended the boundaries of a mere hobby. In December 1874 several American scientists had come to Queenstown to observe the transit of Venus across the solar disc. Sarah Salmond, convinced that this event should be remembered, lobbied for years to have a plaque erected on the site of the observation.
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.
Averil Margaret Lysaght
From an early age she developed an interest in natural history. At 15 she discovered a new species of a noctuid moth on Mt Egmont, which was described in 1921 by the entomologist G. V. Hudson as Melanchra averilla in her honour. In 1923 Lysaght commenced studies at Victoria University College, Wellington. She graduated BSc in 1928 and MSc in 1929 with second-class honours in zoology; her thesis in entomology was on the biology of Eucolaspis.
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.