Clare Stevenson
Clare Grant Stevenson, AM, MBE was the inaugural Director of the Women’s Auxiliary Australian Air Force from May 1941 to March 1946. The WAAAF was the first uniformed women’s branch of an armed service in Australia, predating similar organisations in the Army and Navy. Stevenson was an executive with the Berlei company when she was appointed Director.
About Clare Stevenson in brief
Clare Grant Stevenson, AM, MBE was the inaugural Director of the Women’s Auxiliary Australian Air Force from May 1941 to March 1946. The WAAAF was the first uniformed women’s branch of an armed service in Australia, predating similar organisations in the Army and Navy. In her role as Director, Stevenson was responsible for training, morale and welfare of all staff, regardless of gender and social background. She was described in 2001 as ‘the most significant woman in the history of the Air Force’ Stevenson was an executive with the Berlei company when she was appointed Director. She resumed her civilian career following her discharge in 1946. She helped form aid organisations including the Carers Association of New South Wales after retiring in 1960. Stevenson was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire and a member of the order of Australia for her services to the community and to female veterans. She died in Melbourne in 1998. She is survived by her husband, Robert Grant Stevenson and their four children, including two step-grandchildren and a step-great-granddaughter. She also leaves behind a son, Peter, and a daughter, Clare Grant Stevenson-Smith, who was a teacher at the University of Melbourne and later worked for the YWCA in Queensland. Stevenson is buried in Essendon, Victoria, where she was born and grew up in Wangaratta. She attended Winstow Girls’ Grammar School and Essendon High School, completing her intermediate and leaving certificates.
In 1922, she entered the Faculty of Science at Melbourne, but switched to education after failing chemistry in her final year. She became President of the Committee of Melbourne University Women, and graduated in 1925 with a Diploma of Education. In 1932 she took up a position as a training and research officer at Berleo, and from 1935 to 1939 represented the company in London as a senior executive. She returned to Australia and was based in Sydney, supervising Berlee’s product research and the training of sales staff, at the outbreak of World War II. In 1940 she was nominated to be the first director of the planned Women’s auxiliary air force. Although keen to support the war effort in some capacity, she refused owing to the administrative and social obstacles she foresaw in the role. Despite her misgivings, Stevenson felt she had no choice but to accept the appointment, which took effect on 9 June 1941. Established on 25 March 1941 in response to lobbying by women wanting to serve in the war, and to free more male ground crew for overseas postings. Fewer than two hundred personnel had been recruited when Stevenson became Director in June; this number would grow to around a thousand by the end of the year. For the first three months of its existence the WAAaf had been under the temporary command of Flight Officer Mary Bell, wife of an RAAF group captain and former Australian Commandant of the women’s Air Training Corps.
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This page is based on the article Clare Stevenson published in Wikipedia (as of Oct. 29, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
