In architecture, Ellison Harvie went first

It was 1966 when the marriage bar was lifted. Before this monumental year, the law had ensured that any Australian woman who married promptly resigned from her job. Wifedom was a full-time role that prevented one from holding another position. Those women desperate to remain in the paid workforce were limited only to temporary work — the type of work that wouldn’t come with a promotion. The type of work that didn’t foster independence or self-actualisation.

The short professional lifespan of a woman in the first half of the twentieth century discouraged many from entering years of higher education. It was considered unwise for a woman to spend countless years studying to enter an industry they would soon depart. But Edyth Ellison Harvie chose to anyway. The woman many now view as the most successful early woman architect in Australia chose architecture over everything else. She never became a wife but she did become many other things — the first Australian woman to graduate with a Diploma of Architectural Design; the first woman elected to the Australian Architectural Institute Council; the first female fellow of the Royal Victorian Institute of Architects; and the first Australian woman to become partner of a major architectural firm.

Edyth Ellison Harvie, known affectionately to most as Ellison Harvie, was born in Prahran, Melbourne in 1902. Her father, Robert William Harvie, was a photographer with his own accolades; so when his daughter developed a fascination with architecture, he encouraged and supported her in this relatively unusual pursuit. After attending Warwick, an all-girls school in East Malvern, Ellison applied to become an articled assistant across many Melbourne practices. She received rejection after rejection, so enrolled at Swinburne Technical College instead. It was 1920 and she took architecture courses for the next three years.

Harvie’s life changed when she met her lecturer, Sir Arthur Stephenson. The highly-regarded architect had recently established a new practice where he invited Harvie to serve articles. She became his first articled student in 1921 and would work for Stephenson for the rest of her professional life. Harvie officially joined Stephenson & Meldrum — which later became Stephenson & Turner — in 1925 and undertook a further four years of study at the University of Melbourne’s Architectural Atelier. After passing her exams and being registered with the Royal Victorian Institute of Architects in 1928, Harvie was appointed architect in charge of a major project — the Jessie MacPherson wing of the Queen Victoria Hospital in Lonsdale Street, Melbourne. Outsiders observed that this was a ‘meteoric rise for an architect who had begun her training in 1920’. But perhaps it wasn’t so surprising for the woman who had won the President’s Prize for best student work at the University of Melbourne one year earlier.

(L) Portrait taken by her father c1917. (R) Ellison and her sister Jean c1909.
Image credits: Photographer Robert Harvie, courtesy of Museums Victoria

Over the following three decades, Harvie developed her expertise in hospital architecture, working on large and complex projects including St Vincent’s Hospital, The Royal Prince Alfred’s Hospital, The Royal Melbourne Hospital and Melbourne’s Mercy Hospital in East Melbourne. She played a part in every hospital project for the firm throughout the ‘30s, ‘40s and into the ‘50s, developing seniority along the way. During World War II, as men were sent into battle, Harvie was left to essentially run the practice. She mastered office administration and accounting in addition to her technical skillset. She kept the firm afloat. And in 1946, she was recognised for this work. Stephenson made Harvie a partner of the firm, and she became the first woman to become partner of a major architectural firm in Australia. That same year, she was elected as a fellow of the Royal Victorian Institute of Architects and acquired another first.

The architect was never forced to deal with the consequences of the marriage bar, but she was deeply passionate about gender equity and women’s professional development. While hospital buildings were her forte, she designed two buildings specifically for women — one being the Lyceum Club, a place for professional women to connect. Ellison also served as the club’s President for many years in the early ‘60s. While the trailblazer’s foothold in the industry inspired many young women coming through the ranks, she wasn’t a role model to everyone. In the late ‘50s, while addressing a university cohort, many women students were affronted by her sartorial choice: a men’s suit.

Harvie — who played golf and chess — habitually wore men’s suits to work, which was uncommon for the time but a choice she made partly due to the profession. As Bronwyn Hannah observed in Absence and Presence: A History of Early Women Architects, an obvious problem for those in the industry was women’s clothing. It was difficult to climb up ladders at a building site while wearing a skirt that touched the ground.

Pants might have been political, but they were also practical in this instance. And Harvie’s choice to wear men’s suits epitomises the woman more than any other detail. She was fervent in her choices, and unphased by the societal judgements that came with them — be it studying a traditionally-masculine profession, remaining an independent, single woman to pursue her career, or wearing a suit. As the contemporary suit designer Emily Meyer once said: “I don’t think pants necessarily make a woman more powerful, but I think it is powerful for a woman to choose what she wants to wear.” 

Main image courtesy of Museums Victoria

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