Eleanor Hinder

Hinder was born on 19 January 1893 in East Maitland, New South Wales. She was one of eight children born to Sarah Florence (née Mills) and Robert John Hinder. Her father was a long-serving principal of Maitland Boys' High School, while her sister Marie Farquharson was a prominent community worker in New South Wales. ==Welfare work==

In 1919, Hinder joined Sydney department store Farmer & Co. Ltd as welfare superintendent. She was also active in the Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) and with Jean Stevenson helped establish the City Girls Amateur Sports Association. She visited China, Japan, Canada, the United States, England, Switzerland and Norway, attending an International Federation of University Women conference in Oslo. China in Hawaii Hinder first visited Shanghai in 1923 at the request of World YWCA industrial secretary Mary Dingman. In 1926, she moved to Shanghai to work in the industrial department of the National YWCA of China. She "engaged in efforts towards the amelioration of industrial conditions, particularly for women and child factory workers", and worked for better regulation of labour in the Shanghai International Settlement which remained outside of Chinese jurisdiction. In 1928, Hinder attended the inaugural Pan-Pacific Women's Conference in Hawaii where she was organising programme secretary. She was also part of the Australian delegation to the Institute of Pacific Relations conference in Kyoto in 1929. She resumed her work with the National YWCA of China in 1930 as international education officer, where she wrote a series of articles for the North China Daily News on new industrial legislation and assisted sociologist Chen Da in his studies of the legislation. Hinder took up an appointment with the Shanghai Municipal Council as chief of its social and industrial division in 1933. Her activities were limited by the council's refusal to adopt Chinese labour laws, restricting her to "disseminating information about industrial health and safety and by providing training for workers". She was also given responsibility for monitoring the welfare of mui tsai (young women in various degrees of domestic servitude) within the city. She remained in Shanghai until August 1942, several months after the Japanese occupation of Shanghai. ==Foreign Office and UN work==

In 1942, Hinder joined the Foreign Office in London. She worked at the International Labour Organization in Montreal for a period, then from 1944 to 1948 served as a British representative on the technical committee of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Association. ==Personal life==

Hinder was in a long-term relationship with Addie Viola Smith, an American diplomat whom she met in Shanghai. They lived together in Shanghai until 1941 and subsequently in New York until 1959, frequently travelling together for Hinder's UN work. Hinder made several unsuccessful applications for permanent residency in the United States, leading them to opt to settle in Sydney in 1957. They occupied an apartment in Neutral Bay owned by Hinder's niece. Hinder died from a coronary occlusion in San Francisco on 10 April 1963, while travelling to New York. ==References==