Labour Australia

Mildred Elsie (Millie) Hoy, later Brunton (1903-1996) salaries clerk, trade union leader 

Birth: 1 August 1903 in Maitland, New South Wales, daughter of native-born parents Herbert William Hoy (1870-1953) hairdresser, and Margaret Dinah, née Weingartner (1874-1939). Marriage: 5 October 1946 in St Philip's Church, Sydney, to native-born John Robert Brunton (1879-1978), bank officer. Death: 10 February 1996 in Queenscliff, New South Wales. Religion: Anglican.

• She was descended from lacemakers, apparently the Bromhead family.
• Educated at Sydney Girls High School. Her father abandoned his wife and four children. Millie lived with her mother in Manly in the 1930s and with her husband at Harbord after their marriage.
• First appointed to NSW Public Service on 25 October 1920, she worked in the Department of Works and Local Government as salaries clerk for forty-three years.
• After 1942 Miss Hoy was prominent in campaign for equal pay through Public Service Association, and Australian Federation of Business and Professional Women.
• She was an active member of the Royal Blind Society Braille Writer’s Association for eight years.
• She retired in 1963 and on 8 June that year she was appointed MBE in recognition of public service to the State as “chairwoman of the Women’s Clerical sub-division of the Public Service Association of NSW since 1945. As the leading representative of women employed in the New South Wales Public service, her activities have contributed greatly to the well-being and efficiency of that service”.
• Member of the Business Women’s Club.
• Because of rules against the employment of married women, Mildred retained her maiden name in the public service throughout her career, though in electoral rolls she went by the surname Brunton.

Sources
Australian, 13 March 1996; 'Mildred Brunton: Lacemaker Extraordinaire', Tulle, Th Journal of the Australian Society of the Lacemakers of Calais, issue 39, May 1993, pp 28-30, available from https://www.lacemakersofcalais.com.au/tulle