Flora Mackay (1884-1961)

Women’s activist. Early HSV member.

Flora Mackay lived and worked in the United States and Canada as a stenographer for more than a decade in the 1910s. On her return to Australia in 1925, she worked as an accountant, and was the Staff Superintendent at Melbourne’s Myer Emporium. She served on the industrial committee of the Young Christian Women’s Association and was responsible for the establishment of the Business and Professional Women’s Club, of which Margaret Cuthbertson was also a member.

Margaret Cuthbertson (1864-1944) was a tireless and effective campaigner for improving the conditions of working women over many years and a committed volunteer for a number of charities devoted to the welfare of women and children. Following factory work and time as a telephone operator in the Postmaster-General’s Department, she was appointed to the new position of Female Factory Inspector at the Department of Labour in 1894, a role she held for many years. The first president of the Victorian Women’s Public Service Association in 1901, she became its representative on the National Council of Women in the following year. After her retirement in 1925 she took up numerous other volunteer roles.

Flora and Margaret joined the HSV on the same day in February 1932. Both were involved in the work of the National Council of Women’s Centenary History Committee, Flora serving as secretary, Margaret as convenor. Together they edited the more than 1,300 entries that were later published as the Records of the Pioneer Women of Victoria 1835-1860. It is a tangible memorial to a remarkable group of women.

Kaleidoscope exhibition text by Cheryl Griffin, February 2022. Full entry to follow.