Butler started at the Department of Public Works in Sydney in 1910, aged 19. When Bradfield was appointed as chief engineer of the Sydney Harbour and City Transit branch in the Department of Public Works, Butler was his first staff pick.
Butler was involved in every aspect of the construction of the bridge. Excelling at maths at school, she said in 1925 that she found “delight in specifications and calculations”.
About 100 years ago today, she was in England – sent by Bradfield – leading a team of young male engineers supervising in London office of Dorman Long, which had won the bridge contract.
By 1922, The Sunday Times wrote that Butler’s achievements were a rebuttal to anyone who thought women were the weaker sex.
“For those who thought women the intellectually inferior to man in brain possibilities, Miss Kathleen Butler, secretary and clerk to Mr J. J. C. Bradfield, the bridge designer, would put the argument all askew. Mr Bradfield is the father of the bridge, but Miss Butler is the godmother,” the piece read.
The newspaper quoted Mr A. E. Ellis, the manager of the Pittsburgh Testing Laboratory in the United States, who had studied Butler’s plans and specifications for the construction of the cantilever bridge across Sydney Harbour.
It was a “more complete and comprehensive specification than any we have thus far encountered in our experience of inspecting large bridges”, he said.
Butler resigned from her job to marry in 1927, and was unable to continue work because of the ban on married women in the public service.
She died in 1972, aged 81.
Phippen admitted Butler would not have been allowed to work as an engineer today without formal qualifications.
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“But who among us would not trade four years of study for 15 years of one-on-one tuition by John Bradfield?” he said.
Bradfield’s grandson, Jim Bradfield, said he was “particularly proud” that 112 years ago his grandfather had recognised that women can play as much a role as men.
Today, only 14 per cent of Australian engineers are female.
Engineers Australia Sydney president and Western Sydney University professor Olivia Mirza heralded Butler as a pioneer for women in engineering.
She said the organisation was working hard to increase the number of women engineers, and hoped Butler’s story would encourage more girls and women to see engineering as a potential profession.
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