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Women climbing the steel ladder from the rear of the watching post
Title : Women climbing the steel ladder from the rear of the watching post Women climbing the steel ladder from the rear of the watching post
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Source : Davies, Natalia, PRG 925/13/32
Date of creation : ca. 1943
Format : Photograph
Contributor : State Library of South Australia
Catalogue record
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Description :

Four women, members of the Defence Society, climbing a steep steel ladder from the rear of the watching post on the Duncan Building, Franklin Street.


The Defence Society was founded in South Australia in 1933 by Natalia Davies. By the commencement of World War II, the Society had a membership of 130, mainly women.

'From 1940 ... evening classes on first aid, home nursing, motor engineering, elementary electrical work and fire drill [were held]. ... the society taught hundreds of women to shoot and maintain a rifle. In 1942, after Japan entered the war, classes extended to pistol shooting, map-reading and unarmed defence. Each night members went on duty at a roof-watching post in the city'.[Australian Dictionary of Biography Online: Davies, Natalia (Nat) (1907 - 1951)]

Subjects
Related names :

Defence Society (Adelaide, S. Aust.)

Period : 1939-1945
Place : Adelaide
Further reading :

Beaumont, Joan (ed.) Australia's war, 1939-1945, St. Leonards, N.S.W.: Allen & Unwin, 1996

Bolt, Andrew Our home front 1939-1945, Melbourne: Wilkinson Books, c1995

Clark, Rosemary The home front: life in Australia during World War II, Melbourne: Australia Post, 1991

The Home front family album: remembering Australia 1939-1945, introduction by Nancy Keesing, Sydney: Weldon, 1991

McKernan, Michael All in!: Australia during the second world war, Melbourne, Vic.: Nelson, 1983

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