People Australia

Rose Symonds, n.d.

Rose Symonds (sometimes referred to as Symons) (1875-1951) schoolteacher and trade union official. 

Birth: 31 July 1875 at Redhill, Reigate, Surrey, England, daughter of James Symonds (1840-1904) farmer, civil engineer and later public servant, and Emily Elizabeth, née King (1847-1922). Unmarried. Death: 24 August 1951 in her usual residence, Hermitage Road, West Ryde, Sydney, New South Wales. 

• Educated at Sydney Girls High School.
• Pupil teacher at North Sydney 1889; then to Burwood and Parramatta; to Hurlstone 1894, then to Fort Street, Sydney.
• After teaching briefly in country NSW, she was appointed first assistant at West Maitland Girls, then went to Wagga.
• Mistress at Darlington demonstration School for 21 years, then went to Haberfield.
• From 1915 to 1922 was a member of the Girls’ Mistresses’ Executive. In 1917 was women teachers’ representative on public school teachers’ Association.
• Helped form the NSW Teachers’ Federation in 1918. With Miss E. Fordyce she became a leading campaigner for improved salaries for women teachers.
• In 1920 was one of three women teachers on round table conference which produced ‘salary scheme’ delivering greater recognition to value of teachers’ work; also participated in salary schemes of 1923-1924. Attended Empire Conference on Education in London in 1924.
• Prominent in five-year campaign in NSW Industrial Commission beginning in 1927 to obtain a Men Teachers’ Award and Women Teachers’ Award, preparing women teachers log.
• Awarded King’s Medal about 1935. Retired in 1935.
• Her older sister Marguerite (Daisy) Symonds (1873-1951), was a Presbyterian missionary in India.
• Bertha Violet (Bertie) Knight, née Symonds ( (1877-1955), her younger sister, was sometime State president of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union.
• Cause of death: chronic interstitial nephritis, arteriosclerosis (some years), and senile dementia (2 years approximately).

Sources
Education, 6 December 1935, 17 April 1936.