Adelaide Miethke

Adelaide Laetitia "Addie" Miethke, OBE (8 June 1881 – 4 February 1962), was a South Australian educator and teacher who was pivotal in the formation of the School of the Air using the existing Royal Flying Doctor Service radio network.

[2] He qualified as a teacher, and as was the policy at the time, was in his first years made to serve in a succession of small country schools: Parrot's Hill (near Moculta) in 1867, Reedy Creek in 1868, Mount Rufus then St. Kitts in 1869, moving to Angaston in 1871, Dalkey school (at Sichem) in 1872, Monarto in 1873, Carlsruhe (near Waterloo) in 1876, Chinkford in 1877, Manoora in 1880, Port Victor 1881–1885, Goolwa 1886–1891 and Woodville from 1892 until July 1905, when he retired.

She showed such promise that Alfred Williams (c. 1864–1913), the Director of Education, exempted her from the usual requirement for student teachers to serve two years in outback schools.

Out of the conference came 21 resolutions which were submitted to the Department, most relating to training qualifications, outback work, teaching conditions, system of examinations, and inspection; it took around ten years, but all were eventually realised.

In 1915 the League received permission from the Director of Education, M. M. Maughan (1856–1921), to organise the war efforts of school children, and following a suggestion from Miss S. N. Twiss, raised funds for a soup kitchen at the front.

In 1916 she was elected, with J. W. Odgers, a vice-president of the (South Australian) Public School Teachers' Union, the first woman to hold that position, and again in 1918, with J. D. A. Drinkwater.

SPF funds not spent during the War went into the purchase of a hostel, named Adelaide Miethke House and run by the Y.W.C.A., for use by country girls attending schools in the city.

Other unspent SPF money was passed on to the (Royal) Flying Doctor Service and was used to found the "School of the Air", an idea formulated by Miethke and driven by her.

Its base was set up at the Alice Springs Higher Primary School with a team of teachers talking over the Flying Doctor network to, and receiving feedback from, children in isolated locations with their pedal radios or battery-operated transceivers.