Women's History Month Heritage Walk Civic Square, March 2022

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people should be aware that this Heritage Walk contains images and names of deceased people.

Ann Dalgarno (1909-1980)

Politician, Nurse and Community Advocate

Ann Dalgarno was the second woman to serve on the ACT Advisory Council. She served from 1959-1967 for the Liberal Party, then as an independent 1970-1974 – always as the only woman on the Council. She twice stood unsuccessfully for the A.C.T Seat in the House of Representatives; in 1958, as the Liberal Party Candidate, and 1966 as an Independent.

Born in England but living in Australia since 1925, Ann moved to Canberra in 1948 with her husband Kenneth and their two children. A triple-certificated nurse, from 1954 she operated her business, the Nursing Service Agency, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week from her Red Hill home. The agency placed nurses in homes of private patients.

Loneliness upon moving to Canberra led Ann to attend a meeting of a women’s branch of the Liberal Party which launched her interest in politics. She was the successful Liberal Party candidate for the Canberra Community Hospital Board, a position she held from 1955 to 1959. Ann was a major advocate for Canberra’s women, youth, the physically disabled, and the disadvantaged, She was also interested in municipal infrastructure and lobbied for a monorail on Northbourne Avenue and feeder bus services to the suburbs.

In 1965, in response to Prince Philip describing Canberra as “a city without a soul”, she publicly labelled his comment “regrettable” and rebutted, that “Canberra lacks many amenities which would make life more comfortable. But soul is not one of them.”

Ann was an active member of at least twenty-two community organisations including an inner south Progress Association, the ACT Branch of the Royal Australian Nursing Federation, the Canberra Debating Union, the Australian Local Government Women’s Association, the Wives and Widows of Public Servants and Servicemen’s Association, Zonta, Foundation for Youth and the League of Women Voters in the ACT. She lectured ANU students on ‘Sex and responsibility’ in 1969, and in 1972 was the author of the self-published children’s book The Bored Duck. In 1977 she was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire for valuable community services and was awarded a Silver Jubilee Medal.

Select Bibliography

The Australian Women’s Register

Australian Dictionary of Biography

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_{Header photograph: March by Women's Employment Rights Campaign from the ACT Health Authority to the CES building, 2 December 1977.  ACT Heritage Library, Canberra Times Collection, 006515}