E. Dorothea Proud (1885–1967)

E. (Emily) Dorothea Proud was born in North Adelaide, Australia. Her mother Emily Good Proud had been a non-graduating student at the University of Adelaide before women were admitted to degrees, and her English-born father Cornelius Proud was an advocate of women's rights, including higher education.

Dorothea, as she was known, was educated at the pioneering state-funded Advanced School for Girls. In 1906, she graduated with a BA from the University of Adelaide. She spent five years as a teacher at Kyre College, a boys' school, and became involved in the Progressive Club for factory girls. She traveled to New Zealand to do field research under an assumed name as an unskilled factory worker and
in 1912, won the first Catherine Helen Spence Scholarship to study sociology. She attended the London School of Economics, earning a doctorate of science in 1916 with a thesis published that year as Welfare Work: Employers Experiments for Improving Working Conditions in Factories.
It drew on her research at factories across Britain as well as Australasia. David Lloyd George, the future Prime Minister, then Minister for Munitions, wrote an enthusiastic preface, and the book became the standard work on the subject. In 1917 in London, she married Lieutenant Gordon Pavy, an Australian lawyer and Imperial Forces officer; that same year, she was awarded a CBE by King George V for her efforts to create better conditions for women factory workers, including crèches for working mothers. The couple returned to Australia after World War I and had two children. Dorothea studied law at the University of Adelaide, and was admitted to the Bar in 1928. She and her husband went into practice together. She also lectured at the University of Adelaide to social science students. She took on women's issues through the law, community service, and research, and served as a member of the National Council of Women.