Kathleen Commins

Last updated

Kathleen Mary Commins (1909 - 2003) was an Australian journalist, the first female editor of Australia's oldest literary journal, Hermes (in 1931). Kathleen joined the Sydney Morning Herald in 1934 and became the first female sports writer in Australia, then became the first female executive at the Sydney Morning Herald, as Assistant to the Chief of Staff from 1948 - 1969. [1] [2] [3]

Contents

Biography

Kathleen Commins was the daughter of Frances Bede Commins, and Nola Commins, and was born in Parkes, New South Wales, Australia. [4] Her brother was Jack Commins, who became the head of the ABC Bureau in Canberra. Her father served Australia in World War I, and was a casualty of the War in 1917. [1] After her father's death, her mother moved the family to Sydney. [1] Kathleen attended St Vincent's College, then enrolled as a student of the University of Sydney, and graduated with a Bacherlor of Arts in 1931 and a Bachelor of Economics in 1934. [5] [6]

Commins was an avid sportswoman, and captained and managed the New South Wales Women's cricket team and represented New South Wales in the junior division of the Australian lawn tennis championships. [1] She died in 2003, in Killara, a suburb of Sydney, Australia. [1]

Career

Commins was a junior tennis player and played in the 1930 Australian championships. She also played cricket, and in 1936 was player/manager with the NSW women's cricket team during its Queensland tour. [7]

In 1931, while enrolled in her Bachelor of Arts at the University of Sydney, Kathleen Commins became the first women to be editor of the University of Sydney publication Hermes. [3] Commins was also secretary and president of the Women Evening Students' Association, a member of the students' representative council and director of the University Women's Union. [8]

Commins began working for the Sydney Morning Herald in 1934, while still enrolled at the University of Sydney, and she began her journalism career writing about sport. [1] [9] [10] It is believed that she was Australia's first female sports writer. [11] In this role, she, Ruth Preddey, and Gwendoline Varley are credited with increasing public awareness of Australian women's sport and providing advice to young women that were interested in improving their game. [12] Commins also wrote for The Home: An Australian Quarterly between 1939 and 1941. During World War II, Commins began to report on politics, as well as reporting on the war efforts retaining her role as a sports journalist. [1] [4]

In 1948 she was promoted to the role of Assistant to the Chief of Staff, a role that she held for 21 years, and was the only woman in an executive position working outside of the women's pages at the Sydney Morning Herald. [4] She formally retired from this role in 1969, but later returned to the Sydney Morning Herald as cadet counsellor, a role she held until 1974 when she retired. [1] As cadet counsellor, she had an influential role on the careers of many prominent Australian authors and journalists, including Craig McGregor and Col Allan. [13] [14]

Publications

Related Research Articles

Penny Sharpe

Penelope Gail Sharpe is an Australian politician. She has served as a member of the New South Wales Legislative Council since 2005, representing the Labor Party. Since June 2021, Sharpe is the leader of the opposition in the Legislative Council.

Pru Goward Australian politician

Prudence Jane Goward, an Australian politician, was a Liberal member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly from 2007 to 2019, representing the seat of Goulburn.

St Vincents College, Potts Point School in Australia

St Vincent's College, is an independent Roman Catholic single-sex secondary day and boarding school for girls, located in Victoria Street, Potts Point, an inner-city suburb of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.

Rose Jackson Australian politician

Rose Jackson MLC is an Australian Labor Party politician serving as a Member of the New South Wales Legislative Council since 8 May 2019. She is a former Secretary of the New South Wales Labor Left faction and the former Assistant General Secretary of NSW Labor. Jackson is a left member of NSW Labor calling on the party to legalise cannabis and drug law reform. Jackson has also called for strong industrial relations reform, like criminalising wage theft, and criminal justice reform in NSW.

Margaret Peden Australian cricketer

Margaret Elizabeth Maynard Peden was an Australian cricketer. She played six women's test matches for the Australia women's cricket team in the 1930s, and was the first Australian women's Test captain.

Kate Leigh

Kathleen Mary Josephine Leigh was an Australian underworld figure who rose to prominence as an madam, illegal trader of alcohol and cocaine, and running betting/gambling syndicates from her home in Surry Hills, Sydney, Australia during the first half of the twentieth century. Kate Leigh was a leading figure in the notorious Sydney razor gang wars. She was known for her continuing feud with fellow vice regal underworld figure Tilly Devine, a madam based at Woolloomooloo, as well as her acts of generosity for the unemployed during a repressive era and her wartime patriotism

Ellyse Perry Australian cricketer and former footballer

Ellyse Alexandra Perry is an Australian sportswoman who has represented her country in cricket and association football. Having made her debut for both the national cricket team and the national soccer team at the age of 16, Perry is the youngest Australian to play international cricket and the first to have appeared in both ICC and FIFA World Cups. Gradually becoming a single-sport professional athlete from 2014 onward, Perry's acclaimed cricket career has continued to flourish and she is now widely considered to be one of the greatest female players ever.

Margaret Joan Beazley, is an Australian jurist who is the 39th and current Governor of New South Wales, serving since 2 May 2019. She was the president of the New South Wales Court of Appeal, the first woman to hold the office, from 2013 until February 2019.

Hermes is the annual literary journal published by the University of Sydney Union. It is the oldest such journal in Australasia.

Luke Foley Australian Labor Party politician

Luke Aquinas Foley is a former Australian Labor Party politician who served as the Leader of the Opposition in the Parliament of New South Wales from 2015 to 2018. Foley was a member of the New South Wales Legislative Council since 19 June 2010 until his resignation to contest the Legislative Assembly seat of Auburn at the 2015 New South Wales election. Foley resigned after it was alleged that he had indecently assaulted an ABC journalist. Foley denies the allegations.

Lucy Gullett Australian medical practitioner and philanthropist

Lucy Edith Gullett was an Australian medical practitioner and philanthropist.

Dora Birtles

Dora Birtles, was an Australian novelist, short-story writer, poet and travel writer. She was the daughter of Albert Toll, founder of Toll Holdings, Australia's largest logistics company.

Sydney Thunder (WBBL)

The Sydney Thunder (WBBL) are an Australian women's Twenty20 cricket team based in Sydney Olympic Park, New South Wales. They are one of two teams from Sydney to compete in the Women's Big Bash League, the other being the Sydney Sixers. The Thunder have claimed two WBBL titles, winning the league's inaugural championship and the 2020–21 title.

Sarah (Sally) Hynes was a Polish-born, Australian botanist and teacher.

Elisabeth MacIntyre Australian childrens writer and illustrator

Elisabeth MacIntyre(born Elisabeth Innes MacIntyre, also spelled Elizabeth MacIntyre; 1916–2004) was an Australian writer and illustrator. She mainly produced children's picture books and cartoon strips, but also created cartoon strips for adults and novels for young adults. She is recognised as "a staunch advocate of promoting Australian animals and surrounds in an era when the majority of children's books were imported from England". Her picture books appealed for their lively, bright illustrations and "irresistible", "infectious", stories, which used line and words economically and effectively. She was successful in the Australian, American and British markets, and some of her novels were also translated into German and Japanese. Her best known works are Ambrose Kangaroo, Susan, Who Lives in Australia, and Hugh's Zoo, for which she won the Australian Children's Book of the Year Award: Picture Book in 1965.

Agnes Louisa Storrie was an Australian poet, writer and one of the founders of the Wattle Day League. She wrote as Agnes L. Storrie, but was also known by her married name, Agnes L. Kettlewell.

Kathleen Vellacott-Jones (1907–1972) was a British-Canadian journalist and photographer who reported for British and Australian news services and published articles and photographs on behalf of the Territory of Papua New Guinea.

Jessie Urquhart Australian journalist, novelist and short-story writer

Jessie Urquhart was an Australian journalist, novelist and short-story writer.

Kathleen M. Butler Project manager for Sydney Harbour Bridge

Kathleen M. Butler was nicknamed the “Godmother of Sydney Harbour Bridge”. As the first person appointed to Chief Engineer J.J.C, Bradfield’s team, as his Confidential Secretary,, she managed the international tendering process and oversaw the development of the technical plans, travelling to London in 1924 to supervise the project in the offices of Dornan’s, the company which won the tender. At the time it was built, Sydney Harbour Bridge was the largest arch bridge in the world, with the build expected to take six years to complete. Her unusual role garnered much interest in the press in Australia and Britain.

Caroline Tennant-Kelly (1899–1989) was an Australian theatre producer, Aboriginal rights activist and anthropologist.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Lawson, Valerie (2003-02-15). "Most of the power, little of the glory". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 2019-05-01.
  2. ↑ "Hermes 1931 Volume 37 Michaelmas Term". University of Sydney Library. Retrieved 2019-05-01.
  3. 1 2 "Women in the World". The Australian Women's Mirror. 16 June 1931. Retrieved 2019-05-01.
  4. 1 2 3 Encyclopedia.com. "Commins, Kathleen (1909–2003)". www.encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 2019-05-01.
  5. ↑ Archives and Records Management. "Early women students - ARMS - The University of Sydney". sydney.edu.au. Retrieved 2019-05-01.
  6. ↑ "SEVERAL OF THE SUCCESSFUL STUDENTS IN THE RECENT UNIVERSITY FINAL EXAMINATIONS". Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954). 1931-03-14. p. 16. Retrieved 2019-05-01.
  7. ↑ National Library of Australia. "Sydney Morning Herald employee Kathleen Commins, Sydney, 14 March 1931". National Library of Australia Catalogue. Retrieved 2020-09-14.
  8. ↑ Croom, Alannah (2019). "Commins, Kathleen Mary (1909 - 2003)". The Australian Women's Register. Retrieved 2020-09-13.
  9. ↑ Howell, P. A. (2014). "Lois Quarrell: A notable mid-20th-century journalist and her impact". Journal of the Historical Society of South Australia. 42: 29–42 – via Informit.
  10. ↑ Baker, Jeannine (2015). Australian Women War Reporters: Boer War to Vietnam. Sydney, NSW: NewSouth Publishing. ISBN   9781742234519.
  11. ↑ State Library of South Australia (2014-11-03), SA Newspapers : Journalists : P-Q, State Library of South Australia, retrieved 2019-05-01
  12. ↑ Australian Women's Archives Project. "She's Game: Women Making Australian Sporting History - Lois Quarrell". www.womenaustralia.info. The University of Melbourne. Retrieved 2019-05-01.
  13. ↑ Lawson, Valerie (2013-06-21). "Taking the road less travelled". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 2019-05-15.
  14. ↑ Davidson, Darren; Mitchell, Jake (2016-04-18). "Fairfax missed a well-suited Col Allan". The Australian Business Review. Retrieved 2019-05-15.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.