To celebrate the achievements of women, this week the Advertiser dedicates its International Women’s Day celebrations to women who helped put Phillip Island on the map.

From the earliest settler Georgianna McHaffie, and her renowned diary of island life, through to Florence Oswin Roberts, whose name is synonymous with the care of koalas and their habitat.

Historical books often overlook the contribution of women, but on the island they have been crucial to establishing many organisations, the backbone of groups, including Warley Hospital, schools, kindergartens, and sporting clubs.

Florence Oswin Roberts

Today the Oswin Roberts Reserve is one of the last remaining remnant bushland areas on Phillip Island, on Harbison Road.

The reserve is a testament to the legacy of Florence Oswin Roberts, who not only gave the 150 acres to the people of Victoria, but also cared for scores of koalas burnt in bushfires.

Most famously of all, she was the only private individual legally permitted to keep a koala, Edward (actually a female), with the beloved animal stuffed upon its death and now on display at the Phillip Island Heritage Centre.

Edward spent nights in a favoured tree near Mrs Oswin Roberts’ home, the guesthouse Broadwater. The tree is no longer standing, but in its place is another gum featuring a plaque dedicated to the unique human-animal relationship: “Edward’s Tree - 1936-44 - in memory of a loved and world famed pet koala”.

Florence was born in 1875 and in 1912 – with a background in hospitality – she bought Broadwater, on 2.5 acres on the corner of Dunsmore Road and Lovers Walk, a home which had been built in the 1890s.

Better known as Zing to family and friends, Florence became a passionate conservationist and drove a small grey car called the Beetle, according to a new book by Christine Grayden, to be released in late March, called Women in Conservation on Phillip Island.

Many a farmer, about to cut down a tree looked both ways to make sure the Beetle with Zing at the wheel was not approaching in a cloud of dust along a dirt road to catch him in the act of this vandalism.

She had the courage of her convictions and was not afraid to intervene to save a tree.

Following bushfires in Victoria in 1939, Zing rescued burnt and starving koalas, with Broadwater becoming a koala hospital with hammocks set up in the guest rooms.

When she found a dead female with a koala in her pouch, Zing took the baby home and reared the orphan, despite it being illegal for an individual to keep a koala in captivity.

Through her conservation contacts, a special bill was passed through the Victorian Parliament allowing Zing custody of the orphan, Edward, with the koala resisting later attempts to release her in the wild.

Edward became famous during the war, making appearances with Zing at functions in Melbourne for the war effort.

Outside her conservation work, Zing gave generously to charities, including housing disadvantaged children at Broadwater.

She was also instrumental in establishing the Phillip Branch of the Country Women’s Association, with a meeting of ladies called at Broadwater in 1935, when Mrs F Oswin Roberts became the first president, according to CWA minutes.

Eliza Coghlan

Coghlan Road on the outskirts of Cowes is now a busy thoroughfare leading from farm land near the Phillip Island Road, to Western Port at Silverleaves.

The road is named after Eliza Coghlan, known as ‘old Eliza’ to early island settlers because she lived to 113 years of age, with incredible stamina and hardiness.

Eliza was born in 1791 in West Meath Ireland and died in 1910 and was believed to be the oldest subject of the British Empire at the time of her death, and the oldest resident to live on the island.

According to Joshua Gliddon, author of Phillip Island In Picture and Story, Eliza was the housekeeper of James Duffus, who selected block number 142 in 1873.

“She was probably 30 years her employer’s senior and had served his parents and the Duffus family since her early girlhood,” Gliddon writes.

He writes that Eliza spent an active life, and thought nothing of walking to Cowes, at five miles distant, carrying a load of turkeys or other produce for sale.

“When asked why she walked the journey, she replied: “The servant must not drive with the master.”

One day, she was out catching a horse when she fell and broke a leg.

Yet reports at the time say she immediately set about crawling through bush and paddocks a half mile to the house.

Her death was reported in The Argus on February 11, 1910: “Eliza Coghlan has died at Cowes….The old lady was in full possession of her faculties, except hearing, until the last.”

Georgiana McHaffie

Drive past St Philip’s Anglican Church on the corner of Thompson Avenue and Church Street in Cowes, and one of the most eye-catching images on the mural of the church hall depicts a stern woman in colonial black dress.

The woman is Georgiana McHaffie (1830 – 1885), pioneer settler who also held the first Anglican services in her home at Ventnor, making her the founder of the church on the island.

The McHaffie brothers – John and William – occupied Phillip Island under a license from the admiralty in 1842 and farmed it as a sheep run, the first official settlers on the island, (although seven sealers were living here when they arrived).

The brothers paid 10 pounds a year for a licence to occupy the whole of the island, which in those days of course was hard to reach, with uncertain water supply and not considered good arable land.

In 1861, John married Georgiana (nee Henderson), daughter of a captain in the Royal Navy, and they continued to farm the island until the sale by ballot of much of Phillip Island’s land in 1868-69.

From 1862 to 1883 Georgiana kept a diary, recognised as the best and most reliable source of information on the lives of the first settlers, telling of hardships endured and courage on the new frontier.

Joshua Gliddon, author of Phillip Island In Picture and Story, says the gilt-edged, leather covered diaries “reveal a robust and capable woman of wide knowledge and varied interests”.

“She nursed her family, and members of staff through various epidemics,” Joshua writes, “and also cared for cases of accident.

“She was an efficient housekeeper, pianist, and keen gardener, cultivating both flowers and vegetables, baked bread for the station, made large quantities of jam, could set up a cask of homemade sherry, was a dressmaker, and apparently thought nothing of riding for the mail 12 miles distant, shooting game, mustering sheep, or tending ewes during the lambing season.”

As a hobby, she kept silkworms, sold the silk and gave the money together with other sums to hospitals and institutions.

Today shipping in Western Port avoids the large buoy that marks McHaffies Reef, but back in 1862 the only navigation aid in the area was a small wooden beacon supporting a lamp on the high land behind the reef, with the lamp tended by Georgiana.

Some of her diary entries include:

Friday 10 January, 1862: “Bathed in the sea – dreadfully hot”; Thursday 16 January, 1862 “So cold as to have a fire.”

In that same year she reports a whale on back beach, and on another day “drove out and killed two snakes”, “went to Nobbies; killed 2 kangaroos, 1 plover”.

On November 24, 1878, Georgiana reports that “everybody gathering mutton bird eggs”, and the following year in December “still cutting peas. Millions of caterpillars”.

An indicator of how much the island has changed over the centuries, on October 25, 1880, “grand deer hunt. Mr Harbison gave a fine luncheon – no deer to be had”.

Entries in 1882 included: “sowing the croquet lawn”, “plenty of strawberries” and “came home very tired”.

Joshua Gliddon writes that in later years Georgiana suffered from arthritis, with her handwriting reflecting the affliction, with black spaces in her diary beginning to appear, with nothing written after 1883.

At the time of settlement, the McHaffies had 10,000 sheep on the island.