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Defence Society
Title : Defence Society Defence Society View More Images
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Source : Davies, Natalia, PRG 925/1/1
Date of creation : 1946
Format : Manuscript
Contributor : State Library catalogue
Catalogue record
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Donated by : Natalia Davies
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Description :

Typewritten document which describes the history, activities and achievements of the Defence Society, founded in South Australia in 1933 by Natalia Davies. Many of the members are named in the document and their work praised.


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
Region : Adelaide city
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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