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Shirley Aldythea Andrews - Scientist and activist: 6 Nov 1915 to 15 Sep 2001
This Obituary by Wendy Lowenstein was originally printed in The Melbourne Age, and is reproduced here with Wendy's permission.
On an October Sunday, 150 people gathered in Brunswick Town Hall to make music,
dance and sing, and to celebrate the life of a remarkable woman, Shirley Aldythea
Andrews.
Born of a single mother, a working journalist, during World War 1, she left her body to
science and had asked her friends not to mourn, but to have a party. Some who came knew
her as a scientist, others as a dancer and folklorist, a founding member of the
Melbourne University Ski Club or a social activist. She also had a great talent for
friendship.
In 1934 as Hitler got into his stride, this conservative young woman was impelled to
join the Council Against War and Fascism. She enjoyed telling of political awakening.
"Two of us were door-knocking in Kew, and at the very first door the woman ordered us
off the property with 'You're a lot of communists!'. I was absolutely amazed ... I
was really so very middle-class!" Later she did join the Communist Party and
passionately supported world peace, industrial health and women's issues. She left the
party in the mid-1950s, in protest at Stalin's violent move into Eastern Europe.
An early feminist, Shirley graduated in science when women students were barely
tolerated.
After working in the university's Veterinary Research Institute from 1939 to 1946, she
was for five years with CSIRO. As a senior biochemist at Royal Park Psychiatric Hospital
until her retirement in 1977, she worked with Dr John Cade to develop lithium as a new,
cheap and effective treatment for bipolar disorder, and also researched the damaging
effects of tranquillising bromureide drugs.
With a lifetime interest in dance, she performed with the visiting Colonel de Basil
Ballet and studied with Borovansky. As a contributor to the Victorian Folk Music Club
and the Folk Song and Dance Society, in 1994 she received the Order Of Australia for
her contribution to Australian dance.
She wrote two seminal books on dance, Take Your Partners and Two Hundred Years of
Dancing - the latter with Peter Ellis - and researched and organised dance programs
until her death.
However, it was in her work as an activist for Aboriginal rights, 1951 to 1968, that
she made her greatest contribution to Australian society, though her modesty led to her
work being greatly under-recognised.
In 1951 she joined the Victorian Council for Aboriginal Rights. Unlike other groups,
the council argued for political solutions, opposing handouts. In 195& she brought
together members of nine state-based Aboriginal advancement leagues to form the Federal
Council for Aboriginal Advancement, which later incorporated Torres Strait Islanders.
She was a leader in organising a national petition for a referendum to empower the
Commonwealth in Aboriginal affairs. More than 100,000 signed the petition, but it took
another five years before the 1967 referendum was held. Section 167 of the Constitution
omitting Aborigines from the census was repealed, and the government given power to pass
special laws for indigenous Australians.
Shirley was fearless and forthright, and although a strong unionist, did not flinch from
criticising unions who did not support the rights of Aboriginal workers, or from calling
international attention to Australian laws that discriminated against indigenous people.
When amendments to the Social Services Act made some Aborigines eligible for
benefits, the Commonwealth failed to inform them of these rights. Shirley took
action, with Rodney Hall's editorial assistance, to tell them herself.
Shirley understood earlier than most that "our national wealth is founded on
land we took from Aborigines".
More than 30 years later as she joined the Reconciliation march across the
Sydney Harbour Bridge, Shirley Andrews would have recognised - though she
claimed no credit for it - her contribution to a more tolerant, inclusive
Australia. May her spirit inspire us.
Wendy Lowenstein has been a lifelong friend of Shirley Andrews. She is also
author of Weevils in the Flour, Under the Hook and other oral histories of
working life in Australia.
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