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Catherine Mabel HILL, 1895-1987

First female employee of Sutherland Shire Council

Catherine (Kate) Mabel Hill was born in1895, the daughter of John Hill and his wife, Rose nee Harris. She was the tenth of thirteen children. At the time of her birth, the family were living in a house at the end of Wooloware Road near Port Hacking. Later they moved to an eight bedroom house named ‘Hillcrest’ on the corner of Hill Street and Wooloware Road. ‘Hillcrest’ was built on a block of land which Catherine’s  father had purchased in 1893 when there were only three other homes in the vicinity. Before the Church of England was built in Cronulla, Catherine and her siblings attended Sunday School once a month when a minister came to a family home such as the Hill’s home or the De Laurence residence.

 Catherine attended Burraneer Bay Public School on the corner of Burraneer Bay Road and Woolooware Road which opened in 1893 with principal Mr Coombes. When the school closed in 1907, she moved to Miranda School travelling each day by horse bus operated by the Simpson family. 

 

After Cronulla Public School was established in 1910 on the site of what is now Monro Park, Catherine was privately tutored for six months by Principal H L Tonkin who taught her bookkeeping. She then went to Stott & Underwood in Sydney where she learned shorthand and typing. This business training led to a job in 1912 as the first female employed by the Sutherland Shire Council working with three others including the first Shire Clerk (John Macfarlane). 

 

Their first office of the Council was behind the shopfront of a building owned by Mrs Lehane in the main street of Sutherland. In July 1915, when the office moved to the new Council Chambers on the corner of Princes Highway and Eton Street, Catherine was  still employed by the Council but, with male staff shortages during WW1, transferred later that year to the Sydney offices of the Railway Department until the end of the war.

 In 1937 Catherine was employed by the newly formed Sydenham-Bankstown Building Society which was one of the first such societies to be established. She worked there for thirty six years and, at times was acting secretary of the society. She retired after a business career of more that sixty years.

 During her lifetime Catherine Hill observed many developments in the growth of the Sutherland Shire and and often accompanied her father, during his tenure as a Council member, on official occasions such as the opening of the Woronora Bridge and the Salmon Haul wharf at South Cronulla.

In retirement Catherine lived with her sister Alice McHugh in Parramatta Street Cronulla. She died on 7 February 1987 while visiting relatives in Townsville, Queensland. A memorial service was held on 19 February in St Andrew’s Anglican Church Cronulla.

 Colleen Passfield 2020

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