Society suggests Scantlebury statue

MINDFUL of the lack of memorials dedicated to significant women in their town and beyond, Linton & District Historical Society is advocating for a new statue in the local Avenue of Honour precinct.

The Society’s president Jill Wheeler said one particular person would be the perfect subject for a new public artwork.

“Dr Vera Scantlebury was born in Linton in 1889. Her father was a local GP in Linton, and her mother was a post mistress here,” Ms Wheeler said.

“Vera became a doctor when not many women did medicine at the University of Melbourne.

“She was one of a about five female graduates and started her career at a time when opportunities for female doctors were very thin on the ground.”

Women doctors were not accepted to serve with the Australian Army in the First World War, but Dr Scantlebury found another way to contribute, travelling to England on her own and serving the British Army.

“She worked in a London military hospital which was entirely run by women, treating soldiers who would have been sent over from France,” Ms Wheeler said.

Returning home to Australia, not much had progressed in the profession.

Dr Scantlebury found it difficult to get a job in a hospital as a woman doctor, so she took the initiative to establish the “ground-breaking” Victorian Infant Welfare Program, which still exists today.

She worked in this space for the rest of her career, and along the way, got married and had two children.

Ms Wheeler said the Linton Avenue of Honour is a “terrific” memorial to the area’s servicemen, but there is certainly room to acknowledge significant women too.

“If we could commemorate Vera in some way in that space, with some sort of statue that people can relate to, that would be a lovely thing to do at some stage,” she said.

“There are many plaques, honour boards and memorials everywhere to men in Linton, but there are no memorials to women at all.

“Some sort of representation of Vera’s contribution would be a way of placing a spotlight on the valuable work of Victorian women in the First World War, and not just nurses, but doctors, which were rarer.”