VALE – ELAINE ANNE PETERSON (9/4/1934 – 15/8/2024)

Convenor, Sydney MOW 2000-04

‘A wonderful woman, … educator, Christian, women’s advocate and friend to many’. (Funeral notice Sydney Morning Herald, 20 August 2024)

Elaine Peterson was educated at The Fort Street High School in the 1940s and won a Commonwealth Scholarship to study Arts at the University of Sydney.  She served as a teacher of English and History with the NSW Department of Education at a mix of country and city high schools, culminating in her appointment as Principal of Burwood Girls’ High School in 1984, from whence she retired in April 1989.  At that time, female principals in the public system were few and far between.

Elaine was a leader who inspired both affection and respect.  At Burwood she was known as ‘Big Bird’ for the way she stood over the microphone, but she was also a firm disciplinarian.  The School’s 75^th anniversary booklet praised her for changing how the School thought about itself: ‘she brought pride into what we did and gave the girls a great role model’.  Elaine helped establish BGHS as a progressive place which nurtured the abilities of its students in all their differing needs and capacities, doing this with happiness in grace.

As a volunteer office bearer, Elaine was committed to her community through service organisations such as International Training in Communication (a worldwide not-for-profit organisation which provides training in leadership, communication skills and personal development), Keep Australia Beautiful, the Australian Federation of University Women and the International Toastmistress Club.  As a committed Anglican, she was warden, parish secretary, editor and archivist at St Luke’s Church, Concord/Burwood, a member of Sydney Synod and, of course, she was an active member of the Movement for the Ordination of Women.

In 1996 Elaine attended her first Movement for the Ordination of Women conference (in Sydney) and observed ‘I enjoyed carrying a banner’. (April 1997 newsletter, p. 40).  By 2000 she was convenor of Sydney MOW.  Historian Stuart Piggin interviewed her for his chapter about the Diocese of Sydney (Preachers, Prophets & Heretics: Anglican Women’s Ministry, eds. E Lindsay, J. Scarfe), describing her as ‘a natural born leader’.

As she showed when school principal, she was an advocate for change.  She thought it was time for MOW Sydney to change its strategies, to replace public demonstrations with ‘private engagement with the people who mattered, the influential spokespersons in Synod’.  Thus, she set up ‘a series of meetings’ with those who opposed the ordination of women, including Archbishop Peter Jensen (Piggin, p. 193).

On 10 April 2002 Elaine, accompanied by MOW committee member Judy Little, met with Archbishop Jensen.  Stuart Piggin records that both parties were polite, although the Archbishop objected to Elaine taking notes.  He was adamant in his support of male headship – when Elaine suggested that the majority of the laity probably supported the ordination of women, he replied ‘I agree but I am going to work very hard to change that’ (Piggin, p. 194).

When Elaine stepped down as MOW Sydney convenor in 2004, she observed that ‘our Diocese likes to give the impression that it supports women’s public ministry, but it is in fact institutionalising a limited and largely segregated ministry and thus diminishing our capacity to use the gifts of the Spirit which have been granted’ (Piggin, p. 195).  MOW today would say that nothing has changed.

Elaine continued as a very active and valued committee member of MOW Sydney.  On 14 April 2014, in company with MOW’s new convenor, the Rev’d Lu Piper, and Rosemary Christmas, she participated in a meeting with the ‘newish’ Archbishop of Sydney, Glenn Davies.  The tenor of the meeting was quite different from that earlier meeting with Dr Jensen.  Writing for the Anglicans Together newsletter (July 2014) Elaine noted that this was ‘a warm and gracious meeting lasting of an hour and a quarter, which was both frank and friendly throughout…. We were thus able to achieve our first goal – discussing what Sydney MOW hoped might happen during his episcopate. We acknowledged the entrenched opposition of the majority of the current synod to the priesting of women, but hoped for a more open acceptance of the real diversity of theological views on this issue and some capacity to co-exist in a more harmonious way.’

The issues raised in that meeting remain of concern to MOW:

• the lack of a proper career path for women in ministry
• the real pastoral need women may have of female priestly guidance in dealing with very serious personal issues
• the diocesan view of women which is so strongly counter-cultural to the place of women in today’s society that it becomes a barrier to understanding the Gospel, and
• hospitality to fully ordained women visiting or residing in the diocese.

Elaine reported that ‘The Archbishop repeated his assurance that he saw himself as archbishop for all groups in the diocese and that we should be able to co-exist.  He explained that his policy was that women can both preach and, if ordained as priest, preside, where they are authorised by the rector of a parish, who has the authority to make these decisions…. He suggested that there was much more concern from those opposed to MOW about women “preaching” than about their “presiding”.’

Elaine’s common sense was much appreciated by MOW as were her literary talents, as she undertook responsibility for editing and producing the Sydney newsletter, The MOW Report from 2013.  The November 2017 edition carried a substantial paper she had prepared for the Anglican Women of Australia Provincial Conference in Newcastle but was prevented by ill health from delivering in person.  The paper, ‘The Role of Sydney Diocese in the Debate Over the Ordination of Women’ addresses the background to the Sydney Diocese’s recalcitrant position on women, dating back to the 19^th century.  In June 2019 Elaine travelled to Newcastle for the ordination of Angela Peverell, a former MOW convenor, and in November that year attended the MOW Sydney annual meeting and the national AGM at St Luke’s, Mosman.

When Elaine’s health declined and she was no longer able to participate in MOW activities, we realised how much we had been blessed by her humour, her kindness, her efficiency, her intelligence and her friendship.  She gave us the courage to persevere and remains a role model for us as we still work to bring about change in the Sydney Diocese and the recognition of women’s ministry and leadership.