Her mother died suddenly in August 1948[2] and her father later married Helen Ladbury Allen (née Baylis).
She won a scholarship to study at the University of Adelaide, graduating in 1969 with a BA (hons) for her thesis on The Jews in the French Revolution.
At that point, concerned about staff losing their contracts, she became involved in union activities.
[3] Colleagues organised a conference to celebrate her career in 2010 and the papers were published in the Australian Feminist Studies journal.
From 2005 to 2010 she was on the board of the International Federation for Research on Women's History and editor of its newsletter.