Olwen Wooster
{{Short description|Australian air force officer and telecommunications engineer}}
{{use dmy dates|date=October 2021}}
{{use Australian English|date=October 2021}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Olwen Wooster
| birth_date = 22 December 1917
| birth_place = Charters Towers
| death_date = 11 October 1981
| death_place = Melbourne
| occupation = Royal Australian Air Force officer telecommunications engineer
}}
Olwen Abigail Wooster BEM (22 December 1917 – 11 October 1981) was an Australian air force officer and pioneering telecommunications engineer expert.
Early life
Wooster, was born on 22 December 1917, in Charters Towers in Queensland to Vivian Henry Wooster, a telephone mechanic, and his wife Ethel Abigail Wooster (née Albrecht). Wooster attended Blackheath College in Charters Towers, Australia.{{Cite web|title=The Northern Miner (Charters Towers, Qld. : 1874 - 1954) - 2 Dec 1933 - p3|url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-page8019914|access-date=2021-10-12|website=Trove|language=en}}
Career
Working as a switchboard operator in the Postmaster-General's Department beginning in 1934, she was stationed in Ayr in 1936, and then in Townsville in 1941.{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article81607372 |title=GOSSIP |newspaper=The Northern Miner |location=Queensland, Australia |date=27 December 1951 |accessdate=12 October 2021 |page=4 |via=National Library of Australia}}
In World War II, she was a wireless telegraphy operator in the Women's Auxiliary Australian Air Force in 1942.{{Cite web|title=Commonwealth of Australia Gazette (National : 1901 - 1973) - 10 Jun 1943 - p1224|url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.newspage25034111|accessdate=2021-10-12|website=Trove|language=en}} She served at the Royal Australian Air Force's Melbourne Wireless Transmitting Station as a cypher officer and signals traffic officer. In January 1945, she received an award for 'good service' and was promoted to temporary flight officer.
After the war, Wooster worked at Trans Australia Airlines in Melbourne, specialising in ground communications. Her work grew to cover the Territory of Papua and New Guinea in addition to Australia.{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article225656048 |title=Queenslander has a unique post with airline |newspaper=Weekly Times |issue=4401 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=28 October 1953 |accessdate=12 October 2021 |page=53 |via=National Library of Australia}} By 1954, her team had grown to a total of 120 people. For this work, she received a British Empire Medal in 1961.{{Cite web|last=Project|first=Australian Women's Archives|title=Faith, Hope, Charity - Australian Women and Imperial Honours - Browse Year - 1961|url=http://www.womenaustralia.info/exhib/honours/1961.html|access-date=2021-10-12|website=www.womenaustralia.info|language=en-gb}}{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article240889215 |title=Government Gazette Notices |newspaper=Commonwealth of Australia Gazette |issue=51 |date=22 June 1961 |accessdate=12 October 2021 |page=2373 |via=National Library of Australia}} In 1964, Wooster then joined the Victorian Totalisator Agency Board, which operated gambling and betting shops. Here she worked on communications and computing systems which connected around three hundred town and country agencies and district centres with racecourses. Then in 1967 she began work for Honeywell. In 1978, she launched her own consultancy, O. A. Wooster & Associates Pty Ltd, specialising in computing and communications.
Memberships
Wooster was an associate of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (Australian Section), the Australian Institute of Management, and a member of the Society of Women Engineers (U.S.), the Victorian Computer Society and the Telecommunications Society of Australia. She spoke on Communication at the first International Conference of Women Engineers and Scientists in New York in 1964{{Cite web|title=Proceedings of the First International Conference of Women Engineers and Scientists (PDF). Society of Women Engineers. 1964. pp. vii.| url=https://uihistories.library.illinois.edu/REPOSITORYCACHE/156/d5ne15BSVY0hV4ogbAmN6p592koYodSl607Z2in6km8aHI1y4S15vb3R58qwP34ra4tJ4nx1TJgHk55V7f17K3l8FSw6XNK5mjz39ERv2o9_3409.pdf}} and was the Australian representative for the organisation of the Second International Conference of Women Engineers and Scientists held in Cambridge, England in 1967.{{Cite journal|title=Second International Conference of Women Engineers and Scientists| journal=The Woman Engineer|volume= 9| issue=19|url=https://twej.theiet.org/twej/WES_Vol_9.html|access-date=2021-10-12| page=13|date=1965}} (Page 510- in scanned version.) She was president of the Melbourne Soroptimists from 1972 to 1973 and a member of the Lyceum Club.
Wooster died of a heart attack on 11 October 1981 in Melbourne.{{Citation|last=Eather|first=Steve|title=Wooster, Olwen Abigail (1917–1981)|url=https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/wooster-olwen-abigail-15630|work=Australian Dictionary of Biography|place=Canberra|publisher=National Centre of Biography, Australian National University|language=en|access-date=2021-10-12}}
Her archives are held at University of Melbourne.{{Citation | author1=Wooster, Olwen | title=Wooster, Olwen | publication-date=1940 | url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/235565001 | access-date=13 October 2021}}
References
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Category:Australian women in World War II
Category:Australian recipients of the British Empire Medal
Category:Australian women engineers
Category:People from Charters Towers