Australian Dictionary of Biography

Margaret Berry, n.d.

Margaret Maude Berry (1906–2000), army officer and teacher, was born on 27 September 1906 in Adelaide, younger child of Walter Whyte Berry, clerk, and his wife Amy Gertrude Dale, née Dean. Following her early education at Yoothamurra Private School, Margaret studied at the Adelaide School of Art, and Adelaide Kindergarten Training College. She worked at Woodlands Church of England Girls’ Grammar School, Glenelg, later serving as director (1926–32) of the kindergarten. In 1932 she travelled to Bombay (Mumbai), India, and began working as a teacher at Queen Mary High School in the suburb of Girgaon. She also toured India by train and ship, spending three months trekking the Sind Valley in Kashmir. Having resigned her job in 1937, she went to England where she studied at the Medway School of Art in Kent. After completing her studies, Berry began working at St Margaret’s School in Hertfordshire.

Soon after World War II broke out, Berry returned to Adelaide where she trained in the Red Cross Transport Service. Frustrated by the lack of service options for women, in June 1941 she and five of her Red Cross colleagues resigned their positions and formed a State branch of the Women’s Australian National Service, a voluntary organisation established in New South Wales in June 1940 to train women for military service. She served as commander of WANS transport and clerical companies until November 1941, when she enlisted in the newly formed Australian Women’s Army Service (AWAS).

Berry rose quickly through the ranks of the AWAS and was appointed as a captain in January 1942—one of the first women to be commissioned. Adelaide’s Advertiser reported that she had been ‘a very popular leader with all sections of Army girls and … has a lively regard for the progress of the service here and the high standard of work maintained’ (1943, 3). In May 1943 she was promoted to major and posted to the headquarters of the Second Australian Army as assistant controller of the AWAS. She retained this posting for two years before being appointed assistant controller of the Tasmanian AWAS in May 1945. Returning to Adelaide in January 1946, she continued serving with the AWAS until it was disbanded in June 1947.

Seeking to continue her military career, Berry travelled to England in August-September 1947 and joined the Auxiliary Territorial Service, formed during the war as a women’s unit. She received a commission in October 1947 and undertook officer training before being posted as a platoon commander in Wiltshire. In 1948 she was promoted to junior commander and was posted to the War Office in London, working as personal staff officer to the director of the ATS. In February 1949 the ATS became the Women’s Royal Army Corps (WRAC) and the service was incorporated into the regular British Army. Berry was commissioned as a captain, acting as escort to King George VI’s sister Princess Mary—the Princess Royal and controller commandant of the WRAC—and also to Brigadier Dame Mary Tyrwhitt, director of the WRAC, with whom she visited units serving in Germany during the Berlin airlift. In 1949–50 she was posted to Northern Ireland where she served as WRAC company commander. On returning to England she was promoted to major in July 1950.

After ten months’ leave in 1952 to spend time with her mother in Adelaide, Berry returned to England, and was promoted to lieutenant colonel in 1954. That year she was posted to the Middle East Land Forces General Headquarters, Egypt, during turbulent times following the Egyptian revolution of 1952. She served as assistant director of the WRAC and advisor on matters pertaining to women’s service, and commanded some 400 women in the 16th Battalion. As the Suez crisis of 1956–57 worsened, the General Headquarters was relocated to Cyprus in the midst of what the British termed the Cyprus emergency. There she and her comrades lived under constant threat of attack by Greek Cypriot nationalist guerrillas seeking to throw off British rule and unify with Greece. After completing her tour of duty, she returned to England and took up a position at the War Office in London with the army team of lecturers.

In 1958 Berry retired from the British Army and returned to Australia to care for her mother and brother. In her later years, she worked as the librarian at the Adelaide Kindergarten Training College and volunteered in support of Aboriginal families and former mental health patients. Of medium height, with blue eyes, fair hair and fair complexion, and a ready smile, she kept a comprehensive collection of photographs and memorabilia of her years in the British Army, and was a keen photographer. She was keenly aware of the history of women’s involvement in the British military, and as a senior officer in the 1950s delivered speeches promoting women’s capacity to contribute in base areas on an equal footing with men. ‘Preserve me from men!’ (1943; AWM PRO1461), she once wrote in her diary after an exasperating encounter with another officer. She died in North Adelaide on 16 September 2000, a few days short of her ninety-fourth birthday. A funeral service was conducted at the Anglican Christ Church, North Adelaide. She left no immediate family and was buried in North Brighton cemetery, Adelaide, alongside her mother, father, and brother.