Ethel Osborne

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Dr Ethel Osborne

Ethel Elizabeth Osborne (née Goodson 30 January 1882 – 3 December 1968) was a British-born Australian doctor who was an expert in the field of hygiene and public health.

Biography[edit]

Osborne was born in Armley, a district of Leeds in England and studied at the University of Leeds, graduating in 1901. On the 10 December 1903 she married William Alexander Osborne and then travelled to Melbourne.[1]

In 1910 Osborne founded the Catalysts, a women's group in Victoria.[2] She also founded a Lyceum Club in Melbourne, and was elected vice-president during its first meeting on 21 March 1912.[3]

Osborne served for two years with the British Ministry of Munitions during World War II as a night welfare worker, where she performed research for the Health of Munition Workers' Committee and the Industrial Fatigue Research Board, publishing two reports, "Industrial Hygiene as Applied to Munition Workers" (1921)[4] and was the coauthor of "Study of Accident Causation" (1922).[5] Osborne also conducted inspections of the Women's Land Army training centres, taking her then three children with her.[6] In 1919 Osborne returned to Melbourne.[2]

Osborne had four children, Audrey Josephine in 1905, Gerard in 1908, Yrsa in 1913, and Charis in 1920.[7] Osborne retired in 1938. In 2008 she was inducted into the Victorian Honour Roll of Women.[8]

References[edit]

  1. ^ "Osborne, Ethel Elizabeth (1882-1968) - People and organisations". Trove - National Library of Australia.
  2. ^ a b Melbourne, National Foundation for Australian Women and The University of. "Osborne, Ethel Elizabeth - Woman - The Australian Women's Register". womenaustralia.info.
  3. ^ Langmore, Diane. "Osborne, Ethel Elizabeth (1882–1968)". Australian Dictionary of Biography. National Centre of Biography, Australian National University.
  4. ^ Osborne, Ethel E. (1921). "Industrial Hygiene as Applied to Munition Workers". Medical Journal of Australia. 2 (22): 473–481. doi:10.5694/j.1326-5377.1921.tb60787.x. ISSN 1326-5377. S2CID 204035525.
  5. ^ "Contributions to the Study of Accident Causation". The Lancet. 200 (5181): 1296. 16 December 1922. doi:10.1016/s0140-6736(01)17077-7. ISSN 0140-6736.
  6. ^ Mackinnon, Alison (28 January 1997). Love and freedom: professional women and the reshaping of personal life. Cambridge University Press. p. 197. ISBN 978-0521497619.
  7. ^ Flesch, Juliet (December 2012). "The ones that got away, Four women from the Department of Physiology and what they did next" (PDF). University of Melbourne Collections (11): 44–50.
  8. ^ Victorian Honour Roll For Women 2008 booklet (PDF). p. 25.