Remembering Shirley King OAM
Shirley (L) with Pixie Annat at Zonta International Convention, Detroit, 1994
Shirley King OAM was born on 12 September 1925 in Rockhampton. Home schooled by her grandmother until the age of 11, she then went to Rockhampton Girls Grammar School before beginning her long career in banking.
Despite many suitors, Shirley was determined to have a career and in those days it wasn’t possible to have both marriage and career. As a result, she moved to Brisbane after her father died as she didn’t want people saying “Poor Shirley, she never got married”. She didn’t need a man to change her tap washers!
Shirley had developed an interest in theatre through the Rockhampton School of Arts, and when she moved to Brisbane she joined the Brisbane Repertory Theatre where she met our club’s charter President, Babette Stephens. It was Babette who introduced Shirley to Zonta in March 1974.
Professionally, Shirley became one of the Commonwealth Bank’s first women managers, rising to the highest rank possible for women at the time. According to family lore, she was the first woman in the CBA who was sufficiently senior to be given a farewell dinner. In her speech at that dinner, she declared that she wasn’t going to abandon ambition when she retired as she fully intended to become a difficult customer. According to her family and those who knew her well, she achieved that goal with great aplomb!
Her choice to be a career woman made her a fierce advocate for women and their abilities, and her dedication to and passion for making the world a better place for women and children made Zonta a perfect fit. In close to 40 years as a member, Shirley served not only the Zonta Club of Brisbane, but Districts 16 and 24 and Zonta International with commitment and generosity until dementia and declining health brought about her retirement from Zonta in 2013.
As soon as she joined the Zonta Club of Brisbane, Shirley became involved in hands-on fundraising, service and fellowship, organising theatre outings, hosting fellowship lunches at the Lyceum Club with fellow Lyceum member, Shirley McCorkindale, and then taking over from the redoubtable Pixie Annat in maintaining the club scrap book.
With her background in financial services, she was soon elected as the Club’s Treasurer. She went on to be elected as the club’s fifth President and, in 1978, as Treasurer of District 16 which, at that time, comprised the whole of Australia and New Zealand. She also served as an Area Director from 1982 to 1984 during Leneen Forde’s term as District Governor, and supported Mary Magee during this time as co-sponsor of the Zonta Club of Rockhampton when it was established in 1983.
In the 1984-1986 biennium, Shirley was invited by the then International President, Annikki Makinen, to co-chair the International Relations committee for Zonta International and then stood successfully for election to the International Board in 1986. She went on to serve on the District 16 and International nominating committees during the following biennium and, still not exhausted, served as Conference Chairman for the District 24 Conference during the 1996-1998 biennium.
Shirley as Australian flag-bearer at International Convention in Denver, 1978, wearing the famous ‘Wattle Dress’
Carrying the Australian flag at International Convention is a rare honour, and sourcing something representative of Australia to wear is always a challenge. When Leneen Forde was invited as Australian flag-bearer for the Denver Convention in 1978, then club member, Rosalie Breusch (Kapper), hand-painted a beautiful wattle design on fabric which Leneen then had made into a coat by Mary Magee’s fashion manufacturing company. When Shirley was invited to carry the flag two years later at the 1980 Convention in Washington DC, Leneen lent her the “wattle dress”. Shirley later recalled this as “possibly one of the proudest moments of my life”.
That was not the only honour extended to Shirley. In the Australia Day Honours List in 2001, she was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for “service to the community, particularly through Zonta International and the Australian Association of Lyceum Clubs”.
The accolades continued in 2002 when both Shirley and fellow accountant and club member, Ann Shevill, were made fellows of CPA Australia in recognition of their 50 years of membership.
Shirley was a model of generosity. In the annual pre-Christmas fundraising sale of Tasmanian smoked salmon in 2003, she passed into legend, being responsible for selling 78 of the 300 sides of salmon sold by the club, a sales feat she emulated in subsequent years. In 2006, she made a very generous donation of $5,000 to the Babette Stephens Award fund to ensure that the memory of the Club’s Charter President was kept alive in perpetuity.
At the 58th Zonta International Convention in Melbourne in 2006, Shirley was recognised, together with Merryl Ducat, Leneen Forde, Joan Godfrey, Mary Magee and Shirley McCorkindale, for serving Zonta continuously for 30 years or more.
Shirley was a loyal and valued friend to many. She travelled often with Leneen on Zonta business (they were both at the ribbon-cutting ceremony for Zonta’s former headquarters in Chicago in 1987) but they also went to other places, including Oberammergau for the famed passion play and to Norfolk and Lord Howe islands where Shirley undertook enthusiastic hikes. She loved walking and was an inveterate traveller, voyaging to the Antarctic long before it was trendy and in 2003, to the Middle East after which she regaled a club meeting with tales of her cruise down the Nile, the Cairo bazaars, and her visits to Cyprus, Tunis, and Malta.
Towards the end of her life, one of her nieces wrote to Leneen Forde saying: “Shirley doesn't remember much these days but occasionally her dry sense of humour will shine through".
Shirley died peacefully on 22 February 2019 in the Crows Nest Nursing Home where she had been living for some years. She is survived by her nieces Barbara, Janet and Sarah. Her much-loved cat, Myra Maude, predeceased her by only a few short weeks.
Compiled by Judith Anderson from information in records held by the Zonta Club of Brisbane and from personal recollections of Leneen Forde and of Shirley’s niece, Barbara Plant of Crows Nest
Shirley (L) with Pixie Annat at Zonta International Convention, Detroit, 1994