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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2022-07-06 Daily Xml
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Miethke, Ms A.

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK (16:19): I wish to speak today about Adelaide Miethke OBE, who was born on 8 June 1881 at Manoora, the daughter of Prussian-born schoolteacher Carl Miethke and his wife, Emma (nee Schultze). After attending country schools and Woodville Public School, she became a pupil teacher in 1889 and studied at the University Training College for teachers. She began her sustained interest in teachers' conditions while teaching at Le Fevre Peninsula Primary School. In 1915, she was appointed to Woodville High School, becoming senior mistress of the girls' section in 1920.

From 1914, Adelaide led a campaign to raise the status of female teachers and in 1915 she presided at the Women's Teachers Association conference, which focused on the plight of new teachers facing classes of 60 or 70 students. The director of education gradually began making better use of women's talents. Confident, highly organised and a stickler for protocol, Adelaide Miethke became the first woman vice-president of the South Australian Public School Teachers' Union and at its 1919 annual conference she criticised government inaction, moving urgently for salary increases to meet the rising cost of living.

She attended evening lectures part time and gained a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1924. In November of that year, she was appointed the first female inspector of high schools. Her brief included inspection of domestic arts classes, girls' homemaking schools (later girls' central schools), mainly teaching domestic subjects but increasingly offering commercial ones. She believed that girls needed domestic skills and a broad general knowledge as well as special training for a career.

As inspector she was both welcomed and feared, for she could be formidable, checking every detail of work including classrooms and courses. Her guidance helped girls into careers in office work and, during the Second World War, in the armed forces and auxiliaries. Other girls became dressmakers or milliners, but almost all had gained household skills. From 1930, Adelaide was responsible for many thousands of schoolchildren entering and exhibiting their work before South Australian industries and manufacturers. She was made a life member of the Royal Agricultural and Horticultural Society of South Australia in 1936—only the third woman to do so.

From 1925 to 1939 she was the commissioner of Girl Guides schools division. She was also state president of the National Council of Women from 1934 to 1940 and national president from 1936 to 1942. She presided over the South Australian Women's Centenary Council, comprising representatives of many women's organisations. She designed and organised the dramatic Pageant of Empire and martialled, through a megaphone, 13,600 schoolchildren, who gave performances at Adelaide Oval on 27 and 28 November 1936, supported by numerous committees and 600 volunteer helpers. Each performance attracted 40,000 spectators, and I will place some amazing pictures on my socials.

Through her work she became widely known and was awarded an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1937. She raised money to establish the Alice Springs base of the Australian Aerial Medical Service, later known as the Royal Flying Doctor Service. The creation of the Pioneer Women's Memorial Garden on King William Street was made possible from the Centenary Council.

She resigned from the education department in 1941 and directed the schools patriotic fund, which raised over £400,000. Some of this went towards a city hostel for country girl students and after the war to the Royal Flying Doctor Service, of which she was state president. She edited the Children's Hour publication for schoolchildren. In her role as president of the Royal Flying Doctor Service she created the world's first school of the air, which began operating as a branch of the Flying Doctor Service in Alice Springs in 1950. She was founding president of the Woodville District Child Welfare Association, which established four preschools.

I would like to thank the National Council of Women for providing these details but also for their event on 8 June at which a number of us attended her gravesite, which is at Woodville and has been restored by the Adelaide Cemeteries Authority—I believe with some funding from the City of Charles Sturt.

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