Somerville House’s most outstanding alumni
Swimmer Lisa Curry Kenny went there, but that’s only the start of the illustrious alumni of Somerville House.
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From one of Australia’s greatest artists to one of its finest swimmers, to a member of the NASA team that landed a rover on Mars, and a pioneering marine biologist who now has a coral reef named after her, Somerville House has been producing talented women for a century.
MARGARET OLLEY (artist)
Regarded as one of Australia’s greatest artists, Olley attended Somerville House in the 1930s.
She was so focused on art she dropped one French class in order to take another art lesson with teacher and artist Caroline Barker.
In 1941, she enrolled at Brisbane Central Technical College before moving to Sydney two years later to undertake an Art Diploma course at East Sydney Technical College.
Known for her still lifes, in 1991 she was made an Officer of the Order of Australia and in 2006 was awarded Australia’s highest civilian honour, the Companion of the Order.
She was twice the subject of an Archibald Prize winning painting — the first by William Dobell in 1948 and again in 2011 by Ben Quilty.
She was also the subject of many of her artist friends, including Russell Drysdale.
Olley died just before her last exhibition of 27 paintings at Sotheby’s in Wollahra in 2012.
LISA CURRY (swimmer, entrepreneur)
By the age of 12, one of Queensland’s golden girls of the pool was already considered among the fastest swimmers of her age in the world.
From 1977 to 1992, she represented Australia 15 times. She won 15 national long course
open titles and competed in World Championships in 1978 and 1982.
Over the course of her career, Curry Kenny won 15 gold, seven silver and 8 bronze international swimming medals and is the only Australian swimmer to have held Commonwealth and Australian records in every stroke except backstroke.
After retiring from swimming, she competed in surf boat rowing competitions and outrigger
canoe events, and her team won the World Championship Outrigger Canoe event in 1997.
Lisa chaired the National Australia Day Council from 2000 to 2008.
She has been made a Member of the Order of the British Empire (1982), was presented a Medal of the Order of Australia (1994), Australian Sports Medal (2000), Centenary Medal (2001) and was named an Officer of the Order of Australia (2008).
In 1985, she was inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame and in 2009 the Queensland
Sport Hall of Fame.
She had a famous marriage to ironman Grant Kenny and at one stage their aviation company owned 60 aircraft.
JACQUELINE FRENCH (author)
Remarkably for an author who has written more than 170 fiction and nonfiction books over a 25-year writing career, French is also dyslexic and a strong advocate for the rights of children with learning difficulties.
She wrote I spy a great reader to help teachers identify children with learning difficulties.
Her works include the iconic Diary of a Wombat and To the Moon and Back.
Her books have been published in 36 languages and she is considered one of Australia’s most popular and awarded children’s authors, writing across a number of children’s genres including picture books, history, fantasy and history fiction.
French, who changed her name from Ffrench, is also an author of numerous books on ecology, gardening, pest control, wombats, other wildlife and hens as well as fiction for adults.
She was presented with the Magpie Award, the symbol of the Laureate, in November 2014.
In 2015 she was also awarded Senior Australian of the Year.
DR ABIGAIL ALLWOOD (astrobiologist)
Few careers are truly as stellar as Dr Allwood’s.
After graduating with a doctorate in Earth Science at Macquarie University, she went on to study the most remote wilderness on earth in search of microscopic fingerprints of life by using a tool called the PIXL, which she invented as a postdoctoral student.
It fires an x-ray beam at rock, potentially revealing the past presence of microbes.
The first female and first Australian principal science investigator on NASA’s 2020
Mars Rover mission, Dr Allwood has been based in Los Angeles since 2006.
In 2013, she was awarded NASA’s Lew Allen Award for significant individual accomplishment and leadership in scientific research and technological innovation for her part in developing an instrument used by the rover to analyse soil and rock.
DR ISOBEL BENNET (marine biologist)
At a time when it was rare for women to excel in academia, Isobel Bennett became a pioneering marine biologist and university lecturer.
Born in 1909, she left Somerville at 16 and went to business college before working as a secretary for a number of years.
In early 1933 she met Professor William Dakin and his wife on board a cruise to Norfolk Island.
He was impressed with her attitude and abilities and offered her some work at the Mitchell Library in Sydney where she plotted ship’s masters logged positions of whales in the Southern Oceans for his later book.
In May that year she received a formal offer of a temporary position at the University of Sydney Zoology Department. It was the start of 40 years at the university.
As a temporary Associate Professor at Stanford University she travelled across the Pacific on the twin-masted schooner Te Vega lecturing to students.
She and her assistant were members of the first, four-woman team of scientists to visit Macquarie Island, in 1959.
This also opened the way for many more women to be accepted onto such expeditions.
She worked on the Great Barrier Reef between 1948 and 1970 and in 1971 The Great Barrier Reef was published. It became a bible for many reef researchers.
One genus and five species of marine animals were named after her.
She made many world trips, expeditions and one highlight was while on a trip to Japan in 1967 when she was asked to an audience with the Emperor of Japan (who was also a marine biologist).
Dr Bennet was made an Officer of the Order of Australia in 1984 for her services to marine biology.
As a final honour, Isobel Bennett Reef 21-505 was formally named after her in 2008.
MARION GRASBY (journalist, cook)
Born in Darwin, Ms Grasby moved to Brisbane where she boarded at Somerville House.
She went on to study journalism at QUT and worked for the ABC as reporter for a range of radio and online services, including The World Today, AM and ABC Rural.
She also worked as a producer for Stateline.
But in 2008 she embarked on a new career that was to make her a household name.
Ms Grasby went back to university to study for a Masters of Gastronomy at the University of Adelaide and, in 2010, auditioned for MasterChef Australia (season 2).
Her creative flair with Asian flavours and her skill with classic European technique impressed the judges and celebrity chef guests.
Following MasterChef, she started her own food company to help home cooks produce genuine Asian cuisine.
She has also released two cookbooks and featured in a television cooking show, Marion’s Thailand.
LINDY MORRISON (musician)
A drummer with the seminal Brisbane band The Go-Betweens, Morrison attended Somerville
during the 1960s and went on to study a Bachelor of Social Work at the University of Queensland.
Her family was very interested in music and musical theatre, and the school had a music
program, but Morrison attributed her interest in playing music to the time she was in a sharehouse.
Then unknown musicians such as Stuart Matchett and Frank Millwood would drop around to rehearse in the music room and actors including Geoffrey Rush, Trevor Stuart and Billie Brown would rehearse Shakespeare or devise plays on an upturned table.
By the late ‘70s, she was living in Petrie Terrace and playing in a predominantly female punk band called Zero, about the same time Robert Forster and Grant McLennan from The Go-Betweens were on the Brisbane music scene.
Brisbane was still considered small town and musicians would all rehearse in the same
rooms in the Valley.
Eventually Morrison joined the Go-Betweens, a band which created nine albums and released
19 singles until they split up in 1989.
After becoming a mother Morrison moved into community music, directing various shows with many communities around the country.
She took an interest in copyright and contracts and began to teach, later gaining a Masters in Legal Studies from the University of New South Wales.
In 2010, Brisbane City Council named the bridge linking West End and Milton after The Go-Betweens.
“People may mock me, but having the bridge named after the band meant a lot to me,”
she said.
ANTHE PHILIPPIDES (judge)
Educated at Somerville House in the 1970s, she gained first class honours in arts/law from the University of Queensland in 1982 and was awarded the University Medal in Law.
She was the first law graduate from the University of Queensland to obtain a British Council
Commonwealth Scholarship to read Law at Cambridge.
In 1984, she was admitted as a barrister of the Supreme Court of Queensland and took silk in
1999. She was also admitted as a barrister of the Supreme Courts of NSW and the Solomon Islands.
She established and taught the first maritime law course offered at a Queensland university.
In 2000, she was appointed a Supreme Court judge and has served as the president of the Land Appeal Court of Queensland and as president of the Queensland Mental Health Court.
In 2014, she was appointed to the Queensland Court of Appeal.
LIBBY TRICKETT (swimmer)
Trickett came to attention in both Australian and world swimming in 2003, winning the 50m freestyle and making her international debut with the 100m freestyle event at the inaugural Duel in the Pool against the United States.
She then collected two bronze medals at the FINA championships in Barcelona.
At the 2004 Olympic trials, Libby led four women under the 25-second barrier for the 50m freestyle with her time of 24.7 seconds and setting a world record of 53.66 seconds for the 100m freestyle.
At the Athens Olympic Games later that year, Trickett led her 4×100m freestyle relay team to a gold medal in a world record time of 3 minutes, 35.94 seconds, as well as earning an individual bronze in the 50m freestyle.
After Athens, Trickett proceeded to win a total of 18 gold, 4 silver, and 2 bronze medals in five major international meets, twice lowering the 100m short course world record and anchoring Australian 4×100m medley relay teams to short course and long course global marks.
HON JANE AARGAARD (politician)
Born in Melbourne, Ms Aargaard moved to Brisbane in 1963 and after graduating from Somerville House went on to study a business degree in management and public relations at (what is now) QUT.
In 1986 she accepted a position with the Northern Territory government where she founded the Brolga Awards and Northern Territory Sports Awards.
She was elected to the seat of Nightcliff in 2001, with an unexpected swing to her of 11.7 per cent, part of the six-seat swing to Labor which defeated the Country Liberal Party for the first time in 27 years.
Ms Aargaard served as the Health Minister from 2001 to 2003 and was appointed Speaker in 2005.
But she did not contest the 2012 election due to health reasons, prematurely ending her political career.
PROF SUSAN BAMBRICK (RUSSELL) (academic)
One of the first married female PhD students at the Australian National University, Prof Bambrick became a specialist in economics and industrial organisation.
She was awarded an OBE for service to education, particularly in the field of mineral and energy economics.
Cambridge University Press selected her to edit the Cambridge Encyclopaedia of Australia.
She was also the first Australian Scholar-in-Residence to the United States, headquartered at Pennsylvania State University.
Prof Bambrick has served on the Council of the National Library of Australia, the Trade Development Council, the CSIRO Advisory Council and the Uranium Advisory Council.
A Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic) at the University of Southern Queensland, she has held numerous board and academic roles.
DR ALICE CHANG (ophthalmologist)
It was while she was still studying medicine at James Cook University in Townsville that Dr Alice Chang’s life took a sharp turn.
She volunteered for development work in East Timor, Indonesia, India and Africa and went on to become a Youth Ambassador to the Fred Hollows Foundation, where she has helped set up blindness prevention programs in China.
Awarded Young Queenslander of the Year, she also won a John Monash Scholarship and the
Gates Cambridge Scholarship.
In 2008, she started Young Visionaries, a not-for-profit organisation that empowers communities worldwide to improve eye health and eliminate preventable blindness.
Dr Chang is now a Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist in Cairns, and is passionate about health
and wellbeing of Indigenous children and young people in regional and rural communities.
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