Gwenneth Lillian Roberts has been described as a “trailblazing ordination of women campaigner, mother of six, nurse and midwife, childbirth educator and social justice advocate.”
Roberts has been appointed a Member (AM) of the Order of Australia for “significant service to the Anglican Church of Australia, and to social justice.”
Roberts was a co-founder of the Movement for the Ordination of Women in Brisbane
“In 1984 she met Dr Patricia Brennan, founder of the National Movement for the Ordination of Women (MOW), a major life-changing experience, as she observed Patricia’s passion for justice and the leadership of women as deacons, priests and bishops in the Anglican Church of Australia,” Brisbane Priest Kate Ross wrote of Roberts in Anglican Focus on the occasion of “From Biscuits to Bishop” an exhibition she and Roberts opened in the Brisbane’s St John’s Anglican Cathedral in 2021. The exhibition, which ranges from missionaries to MOW is online here.
“Gwenneth went to university in her forties, which was a ‘sea change’ experience for her, leading to her entering public life and performing well academically, along with other similarly aged women. Her academic career was in the field of domestic and family violence. Her research into the presentation of victims of domestic and family violence in the emergency department of a major public hospital, the first in Australia, became the subject of her doctoral thesis. She was involved in research and training about domestic and family violence in Anglican, Uniting and Catholic Churches in the 1990s with Queensland Churches Together.”
In a review of a book “Gender Balanced Belief” by the late Mavis Rose, Roberts reveals somethingof her passion for recognising women in the church. “Women were largely written out of history for a time. German abbess and polymath Hildegard of Bingen (12th century) and English anchorite and theologian Julian of Norwich (13-14th century) were women of outstanding intelligence who have only recently been rediscovered.
“We note in our current Brisbane Diocese Anglican women’s history exhibition, From Biscuits to Bishops, that there is little record, text or photos of 19th century Anglican women who were fundraisers for new churches and were often unacknowledged.”
Gwenneth Lillian Roberts, AM, you have now been recognised.
Image: Gwenneth Roberts at the National MOW (Movement for the Ordination of Women) Conference and Art Exhibition at Halse Lodge, Noosa in 1992 Image from Anglican Focus.