HASLUCK LIBRARY

This booklet is a memoir of the author's mother. It was given as an address on 23 June 1963 at the presentation of a sculpture, representing an early female student in academic robes, to St. Catherine's College, University of Western Australia. Evelyn Hill was one of the first woman students at Sydney University in 1890 and one of the first two country girls to go to University.

The memoir includes the education of Evelyn and the development of the Women's College at Sydney University opening in 1894. She received her degree in 1895. "Evelyn's mother came up to Sydney for the ceremony; her grandmother, now aged 90, had literally lived for the day. It was a far cry from when she herself had received no schooling at all to the day when her grand-daughter was a university woman."

Evelyn Hill moved to Perth and opened a Ladies' College which she ran until 1906 when she married John Darker. "When the University of Western Australia was formed in 1912 she was admitted ad eundem gradum and was present at the inaugural meeting of Convocation in 1913. ... When the Western Australian Association of University Women was formed, she became a foundation member. ... The building of St. Catherine's College had been achieved before she died in 1962, but she did not actually see it as she had gone blind." The author concludes, "I would like this statue to remind students that a university degree is always an achievement, not to be taken for granted; and that those who trod the pathway first helped to put it within their reach."

The sculpture by Heather Swain stands outside the front entrance to St. Catherine's College, University of Western Australia.