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In 2003, a group of women in Gawler – Helen Hennessy, Jill Talbot, Naomi Arnold, Barbara Jamieson, Anna Saville, Jacqui Law – Smith and Judy Gillett – Ferguson came together under the auspices of the Zonta Club of Gawler and Barossa to redress the serious absence and acknowledgement of women’s contribution in the existing published histories of Gawler and to try to collect local women’s histories either written or oral and to eventually edit and collate them for a book and/or a website.
They called themselves ‘The Significant Women of Gawler Group’ and formed close links with Heidi Helbig, the editor of the local paper, ‘The Bunyip’ who undertook to actively support the project and publish the individual histories in the paper as they were completed. A logo was created by Judy Gillett Ferguson based on the old pioneer washbowl/drain board many women used in the late 19th/early 20th centuries made from a halved, opened out kerosene tin (see picture of logo below),
From the beginning the group received substantial and in-kind assistance from the Town of Gawler Council and its Mayor, Tony Piccolo. The town’s library set up a special historic archive to hold the various histories collected by the group.
Council assisted the group to run workshops and pay for the invaluable assistance of experienced freelance writer/community historian Elizabeth Mansutti to work with the group and run a workshop for the local community to assist and encourage them to write or record their own significant women’s histories themselves.
To date, the archive contains stories that have been edited by Elizabeth Mansutti and plans are in place to gain oral histories from local women migrants. This project has been sponsored by the current local Member for Light, Tony Piccolo.
Project Supporters.
The Zonta Club of Australia (Gawler Branch)
The Bunyip Newspaper
The Town of Gawler
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