Contributed by Hilary Silbert, Life Member of Graduate Women WA and former Member of St Catherine’s College Council.
Roberta Henrietta Margarita Stewart was born on 16 August 1872 and died on 6 March 1961. She led a remarkable life and significantly influenced several organisations and Australian society throughout her eighty-nine years. She was instrumental in the establishment of St Catherine’s College, the first women’s residential college in Australia, which continues to serve as a vibrant and inclusive community for higher education students.
Roberta Stewart was the second of four children born to Isabella Henrietta (née Fergusson) and Robert Stewart, a minister of the Free Church in Lisbon. She received her education in London and Scotland before returning to Portugal to care for her mother, who passed away in 1890 when Roberta was eighteen. Her father encouraged her to pursue her ambitions in medicine, following her older brother, who also attended Glasgow University. Women were barred from lectures meant for male students; instead, they attended Queen Margaret College and the Royal Infirmary. In 1890, eleven women were studying medicine. The previous year, female medical students had to attend lectures with a chaperone. By 1892, Queen Margaret College, Scotland’s first institution dedicated to the education of women, formally merged with the University of Glasgow.
Roberta graduated MB CM (Bachelor of Medicine and Master of Surgery) in 1896, having spent an extra year studying eye diseases. She made the significant decision to join her brother’s medical practice in Guildford, Western Australia.
In 1897, a year after her arrival, she joined the Karrakatta Club, the first women’s club in Australia. She played a pivotal role in enhancing the standards of women’s and infant health services in the state and advocated for social reform. In 1898, she was a founding member of the British Medical Association, Western Australian Branch. Her close associates included Edith Cowan and Lady Onslow. This group of well-connected women actively petitioned the government on women’s and social reform issues, establishing several organisations dedicated to social reform. Roberta Jull became a respected advocate for reform, with the education and health of women and children being paramount.
Regarding the Karrakatta Club, an interesting event that she participated in as a new member was a debate on the topic, “Does the Intellectual Life Unfit Women for being Wives and Mothers?” Edith Cowan and Miss Annie Nisbet took the affirmative side, while Madeleine Onslow and Roberta Stewart argued the negative. Guess who won? The negatives, of course!
In 1898, at the age of twenty-six, she married Martin Jull, Under Secretary for the Public Works Department, and later the state’s first Public Service Commissioner for Western Australia. They were to be married eighteen years before he died. Her only daughter, Henrietta Drake-Brockman, was an Australian novelist and playwright.
From 1909, she was a foundation member of the Children’s Protection Society and of the Women’s Service Guild, and from 1913, a member of the Western Australian National Council of Women. Roberta was devoted to the causes of child health and welfare, peace and disarmament, higher education and equality for women.
In 1913, two years after the formation of NCWWA, Roberta as the Karrakatta Club delegate had given four lectures on health issues such as venereal disease. She served as Home Secretary of NCWWA and wrote to the Women’s Service Guild, inviting them to join in a deputation to the Prime Minister to advocate for the establishment of a women’s hospital and a training school for midwives. Edith Cowan and Roberta Jull, both members of the Women’s Service Guild, were also involved in the debate over the amendment to the Health Act in 1915, which proved to be quite divisive. A story in itself. Roberta Jull wrote in her diary on 10 September 1915, “Mrs Cowan and I couldn’t make the majority see it as not the same as the old acts.”
In 1914, Roberta was elected to the Senate of the University of Western Australia, becoming only the third woman on the Senate of the state’s only university. She was to remain for some twenty-eight years. After World War I, she was to join Professors Walter Murdoch and Fred Alexander in setting up a Perth branch of the League of Nations to support the belief that humankind should strive to build a new world order based on peace and equality.
The West Australian newspaper dated October 18th, 1923, reported a National Council of Women meeting presided over by Edith Cowan. Dr Jull, the International Secretary, read an appeal to the women of the civilised world from the National Committee of Ukrainian women. This appeal described the struggle of the Ukrainian people for independence since 1919, their suffering from war and famine, and particularly the hardships which women and children had undergone and were still enduring. The people of the civilised world were entreated to send commissions to Ukraine to inquire into the circumstances, and to aid the inhabitants in their fight for independence and self-determination, a right they claimed to have had up to the eighteenth century.
Another enlightening piece in The Daily News reported on Dr Jull’s statement that it was almost impossible to detect differences between male and female brains, countering the popular belief that assumed female brains were inferior. During her Presidential Address at the Australian Federation of University Women meeting in Brisbane, Edith Cowan remarked, “Dr Jull speaks with authority. Nobody has ever been able to prove that women have an inferior brain to that of men… But women are not given a chance to prove their mental powers. There is no reason why they should not have an equal opportunity.” (The Daily News, Monday 4 June 1928).
Her association with Edith Dircksey Cowan was significant in that it contributed to Roberta Jull becoming a qualified medical doctor. It was not until Edith became Australia’s first woman parliamentarian that she was responsible for the Women’s Legal Status Bill in 1923. So Roberta was a qualified and practising doctor in Western Australia for twenty-seven years before women could study medicine and other professions.
In 1925 she joined the Western Australian Department of Public Health as Chief Medical Officer for schools. The government had decided to become involved in Infant Welfare work, so Roberta worked in Sydney and New Zealand and then returned to set up the Infant Welfare Scheme in W.A. She had an interest in teaching first aid and was accorded the honour of being admitted as a Serving Sister in the Order of St John of Jerusalem.
In 1923 she convened the initial meeting of the Western Australian Association of University Women and was the first President. She became the second Federal President of the Association of University Women at the Perth conference. She was the Warden of Convocation of the University of Western Australia, as well as a Senate representative on the Guild of Undergraduates’ Council.
In 1925, the Women’s Graduate Association raised the subject of equal pay and the status of women, and in 1942 became affiliated with the WA Joint Equal Pay Committee.
In 1928, she was a Foundation member and president of the Women’s University College Fund committee and worked for over thirty years towards the establishment of St Catherine’s College. During the long battle for a women’s college by Roberta Jull and the Western Australian Association of University Women, she is recorded as recommending the College to the Vice Chancellor, Professor Hubert Whitfield, in 1927. She was the first President of the Women’s College Fund Committee and was also responsible for supplying preliminary sketches. She was to witness long delays to reach the goal. March 1946 marked the beginning of the Women’s College, despite the adverse effects of depression and war.
Between 1946 and 1950 she was a member of the first Women’s College Council and in 1951 was the first Honorary Fellow of the College. A bas-relief bronze plaque in her honour was made by Edgar Steitz and displayed in the gallery, highlighting the Roberta Jull Room.
Her other achievements included being elected Honorary Life Member of the British Medical Association (WA Branch) in 1930; Honorary Life Associate for the Guild of Undergraduates at the University of Western Australia in 1938; advisor to the Royal Commission on the administration of Perth City; and being awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws by UWA in 1943.
Jull Place in the Canberra suburb of Chifley is named in her honour.
From 1945, her worsening deafness caused her to withdraw from public affairs. She passed away at Subiaco on 6 March 1961.
St Catherine’s College continues to honour Dr Roberta Jull’s extraordinary legacy as a pioneer in women’s education and social reform. As the first women’s residential College in Australia and now a thriving coeducational academic community, St Catherine’s remains committed to equity, inclusion and academic excellence.
