2025 AGM

HOW WOMEN CAME TO BE IN THE ROYAL AUSTRALIAN NAVY

Justin Holmwood from  the Australian National Maritime Museum (ANMM) will be speaking about “From Wives and Sweethearts to Comrades in Arms”. The presentation will show how the commencement of recruitment of women into the Royal Australian Navy that began in World War 2 was not an event ‘out of the blue’. It turns out there were precedents going back centuries that, cumulatively, were enough to persuade the relevant authorities in 1942 that having women in the Navy was an idea whose time had come.

Today, of course, women perform practically every role available in the Navy and it is hard to imagine a time when the present situation could ever have been otherwise. But in the not too distant past it was and the story of how that changed demonstrates the consequential nature of history. One thing almost always leads to another and the women of Australia have always shown themselves to be enthusiastic supporters of ‘sea changes’ for the better. Come and hear about some of the highs and lows of that struggle.