Phyllis Evelyn Duguid OAM (16 October 1904 – 9 March 1993), née Lade, was an Australian teacher and Aboriginal rights and women's activist, who was highly regarded for her long-term commitment to those she saw as members of an underclass in society.
[2] Her father, Frank Lade (1868-1948), was a Methodist clergyman, who travelled extensively to give lectures to members of the temperance movement.
[2] Duguid's mother Lillian Frances (née Millard) strongly supported her daughter's study of Classics and English language and literature[4] at the University of Adelaide (BA Hons, 1925), saying that "she wouldn’t allow any of us just to stay home and be what was called a homegirl, until we had done something else".
[3] Duguid worked briefly as an English tutor at the university, later became a senior English teacher at the Presbyterian Girls' College in Adelaide (now Seymour College), and married the medical doctor Charles Duguid on 18 December 1930 at the Methodist Church, Kent Town, South Australia.
[5] Duguid was inspired to campaign for Indigenous issues after hearing from one of Charles' patients about the poor conditions in central and northern Australia, and the widely reported Tuckiar v The King case in 1934, in which an unfair conviction against a Yolngu man (Dhakiyarr) in the Northern Territory seven months earlier was overturned by the High Court of Australia.
Although the federal government viewed the idea positively, plans for the social and recreational centre were interrupted by priorities demanded by the advent of World War II.
[2] She and Charles were prominent in AALSA, and her work was instrumental in organising the meeting at the Adelaide Town Hall in 1953 which gave the floor to five Aboriginal people (George Rankin, Mona Paul, Peter Tilmouth, Ivy Mitchell, and Geoff Barnes) and resulted in the creation of the Wiltja Hostel for Aboriginal secondary school students in the suburb of Millswood.
[9] Duguid was active in the League of Women Voters of South Australia, becoming its final president in 1979 as well as holding other offices prior to this.
[10]) She wrote a booklet entitled The Economic Status of the Homemaker in 1944,[12] in which she advocated "homes founded on the true partnership of men and women who are free, equal and interdependent",[2] that "the political emancipation of women can never be complete so long as a large proportion of them are economically dependent", and argued for paying wages to homemakers.
[4][13] She gave a talk arranged by the Marriage Guidance Council in 1953, in which she said it was important for young people to "realise the hardships involved in the unequal economic status of a husband and wife" and to plan accordingly.