Sybil IrvingPrint Page

A tree commemorates Sybil Howy Irving, founder and controller of the Australian Women`s Army Service, worker for the Girl Guides Association and other groups.

During World War One, Irving was a Voluntary Aid Detachment member with the the Australian Red Cross. From 1924 until 1940 she was secretary of the Girl Guides' Association, Victoria. In 1940 she was appointed assistant-secretary of the Australian Red Cross Victorian Division. Invited in 1941 to establish and head the Australian Women's Army Service, Sybil Irving held this position until 1946. She later became Honorary Colonel of the Women's Royal Australian Army Corps. After the war Sybil Irving became general secretary of the Victorian Division of the Red Cross. Upon her retirement in 1959 she was made an honorary life member of the society.

In 1960-61 she took a thirteen-month holiday in Britain and Europe, one of her several trips abroad. She met Red Cross workers in Switzerland and elsewhere, visited the Women`s Royal Army Corps in England and attended the wedding of Princess Margaret, the W.R.A.A.C.`s colonel-in-chief.

Back in Australia, Irving worked as a consultant (1961-71) for the Victorian Old People`s Welfare Council (later the Victorian Council on the Ageing), organizing elderly citizens` clubs.

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