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Defence Society members practice shooting at Carrick Hill
Title : Defence Society members practice shooting at Carrick Hill Defence Society members practice shooting at Carrick Hill
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Source : Davies, Natalia, PRG 925/13/19
Date of creation : ca. 1943
Format : Photograph
Contributor : State Library catalogue
Catalogue record
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Description :

Four women, all members of the Defence Society, at shooting practice at Carrick Hill.


With considerable foresight, the Defence Society in Adelaide was founded in February 1933 by schoolteacher and union activist Natalia Davies. By the commencement of World War II, the Society with Davies as President 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 : Springfield
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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