02/06/2026
Great post from Lainie Anderson about a former NCWSA State President, Adelaide Miethke OBE!
Introducing the amazing Adelaide Miethke, an education pioneer and champion of women's rights. I cannot believe I didn't know her name. Born in Manoora, near Clare in 1881, Adelaide's father was a Prussian-born schoolteacher. Here are just some of her achievements ...
📔 In 1914 she began a campaign to raise the status of female high school teachers, particularly new teachers facing classes of 60 or 70!
📔 In 1916 she became the first woman Vice-President of the South Australian Public School Teachers’ Union, winning small salary increases for teachers a few years later.
📔 In 1924 (after studying at night) she gained her BA and was appointed as the first female Inspector of High Schools.
📔 In 1934 she became state president of the National Council of Women, which included running the SA Women’s Centenary Council and organising events and activities to celebrate 100 years of white settlement in 1936. These included the Pageant of Empire, with 13,600 schoolchildren twice performing on Adelaide Oval in front of 40,000 spectators (Adelaide used a megaphone to keep the kids under control). The Women’s Centenary Council also raised £5000 for what became the Royal Flying Doctor Service SA/NT. They created the Pioneer Women’s Memorial Garden in Adelaide. And they produced an illustrated history of women in South Australia (the beautiful book I showed you a week or so back).
📔 From 1941 to 1945 Adelaide directed the Schools Patriotic Fund, raising over £400,000 for the war effort and other initiatives including the RFDS (she was now state president) and a city hostel for country girls.
📔 From 1941 to 1946 she edited the Children’s Hour, a magazine distributed monthly to SA school children (which is such a coincidence because just yesterday I went to Wakefield Press to buy HOURS TO REMEMBER, Heather Bonnin's book about the Children's Hour).
📔 And in 1950 (at 69 years of age) she conceived and established the world’s first School of the Air!
Adelaide was known to be a stickler for protocol, a formidable teacher and inspector, and highly organised. Most of all, she got things done! A household name in Adelaide, she was appointed OBE in 1937 and died at her Woodville home in 1962. She was buried at Cheltenham Cemetery. The Adelaide Miethke Kindergarten in Woodville South is named in her honour.
Adelaide, we salute you!
📷 National Council of Women in South Australia, courtesy History Trust of South Australia and the SA History Hub.
📕 History Trust of South Australia, and a great article by Dr Helen Jones, author of IN HER OWN NAME about the history of women in SA from 1836. https://tinyurl.com/2uah9e6v
📕 Royal Flying Doctor Service: https://tinyurl.com/mt5sdd9s
