Summary

Order of service for the opening and dedication of St Andrew's Church, Trentham, Presbyterian denomination, on Saturday, 19 March 1966 at 2.30pm.

In 1958 the Presbytery Architectural Committee advised that the building required either extensive repairs or rebuilding. With the encouragement of Mrs Cluny (Jessie) Macpherson, mother of Hope Black, the congregation moved to build a new brick veneer church.

Reference to Mrs Cluny (Jessie) Macpherson can be found on page three of the centrefold giving the history of the church contained in the Order of Service, under the heading 'A New Church Planned.'

Description of Content

Colour portrait of Hope Macpherson wearing a knitted top light olive green, collar edged in a lighter colour, pink bow in front on neck line, wearing glasses and not smiling. Image mounted on offwhite backing card that has some foxing.

Physical Description

A beige card folded into four pages, printed both sides in blue ink. Contains a smaller centrefold of beige paper folded into four pages, of which three are printed in blue ink. Centrefold was originally held in place by one staple on the fold.

Significance

The Hope (Macpherson) Black Collection is a significant addition to Museum Victoria's working lives collection, it reveals the journey of a woman from depression era Melbourne and illustrates the power of education. It also reveals the often discriminatory policies in place in Victoria before the equal opportunity developments of the late 20th century. In balance though it also exposes the somewhat free expression possible for empowered women in this period. Hope Macpherson clearly states that in her day to day work she never felt discrimination and believes she was given great opportunity to pursue her career and aspirations. However, on analysis her role was often shaped by her gender and its perceived strengths and weaknesses; she was dissuaded from applying to become a taxidermist as it was 'an unsuitable job for a woman', although part of the first group of female scientists allowed to travel to Macquarie Island they were not permitted to camp on land with the male crew for fear of inciting passions. And finally after a distinguished career she was forced to resign her tenure as Australia's first female Curator when she married late in life, as a consequence of the Marriage bar.

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