People Australia

Eleanor Clara Masters, or Eleanor Claire Masters (1912-1997) clerk, trade unionist, and women’s rights campaigner

Birth: 13 June 1912 at Walhalla, Victoria, daughter of George Frederick Masters (1888-1975), grocer, and Violet Amelia, née Lennard (1880-1975). Both parents were born in Victoria — George at Laanecoorie, and Violet at Walhalla. Unmarried. Death: 7 August 1997 at Cotham Private Hospital, Kew, Melbourne, Victoria. 

• She was probably the “Eleanor Claire Masters”, who was a postal worker in Melbourne, a left-wing union activist and feminist, one of the first women to stand for election to the executive of the Australian Postal Workers Union.
• During later 1940s contributed short articles and poetry to union journal, Mail Branch News.
• Campaigned against displacement of women from paid employment after World War II and for permanency for women postal workers in early to mid-1950s.
• Equal pay campaigner throughout 1950s and 1960s. Wrote letters to the press on this and on other progressive issues. Lived at Brunswick West, Melbourne, until her retirement.

Sources
Eleanor Masters collection, Melbourne University Archives; Kay Daniels, Mary Murnane and Anne Picot (eds), Women in Australia: an annotated guide to records (1977), p 80.