Joan Croll

Una Joan Croll AO (née Holliday; 15 June 1928 – 14 February 2022) was an Australian physician and radiologist who specialised in ultrasound and mammography. Outside medicine, she was an environmental activist, one of the 13 women who saved Kelly's Bush in Sydney.

Joan Croll

AO
Born
Una Joan Holliday

(1928-06-15)15 June 1928
Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Died14 February 2022(2022-02-14) (aged 93)
Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Alma materUniversity of Sydney

Early life and education

Una Joan Holliday[1] was born in Sydney, New South Wales, on 15 June 1928.[2] As an undergraduate at the University of Sydney, she competed in rowing.[3] After completing her medical degree in 1952,[4] she briefly worked as a pathologist in the Northern Territory but returned to Sydney afterwards.[5] In 1955, she married Frank James Croll,[1] a fellow medical student who specialized in cardiology, and subsequently spent thirteen years as a full-time mother to her four children, delaying her career in medicine till she was 47 years old.[4][5]

Environmental activism

In the early 1970s, Croll became one of the 13 women environmental activists known as the "Battlers for Kelly's Bush", who campaigned against urban development into a parcel of native bushland by the Parramatta River in Hunters Hill, a suburb west of Sydney.[6] Their efforts led to the first enforcement of a Green Ban.[4][7] This successful preservation of Kelly's Bush paved the way for a number of similar Green-Ban actions, impacting land use and redevelopment plans in and around Sydney. With no further real estate developments permitted on site, Kelly's Bush was later purchased by the government to become public open space, to be cared for by local volunteers known as "Friends of Kelly's Bush", with Croll as the inaugural president in 1996.[7][8] She later remarked that her participation in saving Kelly's Bush as "the most important thing I ever did."[9] In 2021, she attended the 50th anniversary celebrations the year before her death.[10]

Career in medicine

In 1975, Croll was appointed to run Sydney's Breast Health Screening Program, and she became the medical director of the Sydney Square Breast Clinic in 1978. In 1994, she took a position with the Central Sydney Area Health Service, while continuing as consultant radiologist at the Sydney Square Breast Clinic.[2] Over the years, the clinic developed into a prominent teaching centre in radiology, where Croll, as one of Australia's pioneers of mammography,[11] promoted the introduction of breast ultrasound and mammography screening,[12][13] and helped establish the national breast cancer screening program in Australia.[5]

Croll was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia in the 1996 Australia Day Honours for "service to medicine, particularly in the fields of mammography and ultrasound".[14] She then retired in 1997.[2][4]

Personal life and death

Croll was known as a prolific writer of letters to The Sydney Morning Herald.[4][15] Her letters about the environment and various other issues were regularly published by the newspaper.[9]

Joan and Frank Croll were art collectors and the couple were members of an art-buying syndicate of Australian art connoisseurs and investors.[16] Parts of their collection have been donated to art galleries, including a 1976 portrait of Joan painted by John Brack on display at the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra.[17]

Joan Croll died on 14 February 2022, at the age of 93.[18] Her husband Frank predeceased her in 2003.[19][20]

References
  1. "Marriage Registration No. 1540/1955". Births, Deaths and Marriages. Retrieved 22 February 2022.
  2. "Croll, Joan (Una)". Encyclopedia of Australian Science. Retrieved 22 February 2022.
  3. "Pages for Women". The Daily Telegraph. Vol. VIII, no. 24. New South Wales, Australia. 27 April 1947. p. 42. Retrieved 22 February 2022 – via National Library of Australia.
  4. "Joan Croll AO, b. 1928". National Portrait Gallery. Retrieved 22 February 2022.
  5. "Stories from graduates of the 1930s to the 1960s: Dr Joan Croll AO (née Holiday) MBBS '52". Golden Yearbook (PDF). The University of Sydney. December 2016. p. 63. Archived from the original (PDF) on 27 February 2022. Retrieved 27 February 2022.
  6. "What did a Hunters Hill resident and a union leader have in common in 1971? The safety of a piece of urban bushland..." ABC Radio. 19 May 2020. Retrieved 27 February 2022.
  7. "First green bans". www.nma.gov.au. National Museum of Australia. 8 February 2022. Retrieved 28 February 2022. In 1977 Premier Neville Wran announced that there would be no development at Kelly's Bush. Finally, in 1983, Wran announced that Kelly's Bush would be reserved for public use on a permanent basis. The first green ban led to efforts to protect many other sites in and around Sydney. These included saving some of the oldest buildings in the Rocks, stopping a concrete sports stadium being built in Centennial Park and blocking the construction of a carpark underneath the Botanic Gardens which threatened fig tree plantations....
  8. Riches, Nicola (February 2021). "Celebrating Bushland, Battlers and Bans". The Village Observer. issuu. Retrieved 28 February 2022. In 1993 Kelly's Bush was handed over to the care of Hunters Hill Council and in 1995 local volunteers began bush regeneration. The Friends of Kelly's Bush was subsequently established as a landcare community group in 1996 and Battler Joan Croll became its first President.
  9. Bacon, Wendy (14 February 2020). "Suburban Battlers who Changed the World". Wendy Bacon: Journalist, activist. Retrieved 26 February 2022. Dr Joan Croll is the only surviving battler and also a lifelong environmentalist. She was recognised with an Order of Australia for her pioneering work in breast cancer and mammography. Despite these other achievements, she describes her involvement in saving Kellys Bush as "the most important thing I ever did." ... When her children were young Croll was not in the paid workforce, but by the later stages of the campaign she was working as a doctor. For many years, she regularly wrote letters to the SMH on environmental & other issues. ...
  10. "Vale Joan Croll". Hunters Hill Bridge Club. 16 February 2022. Retrieved 22 February 2022.
  11. Houssami, Nehmat (December 2003). "From Beirut to Sydney: backyards, breast cancer, and basic opportunity". The Medical Journal of Australia. 179 (11–12): 595–7. doi:10.5694/j.1326-5377.2003.tb05711.x. PMID 14636127. S2CID 30077147. Early in 1990, I accepted a position as a breast clinician in one of Sydney's private breast centres (Sydney-Square Breast Clinic) under the mentorship of Dr Joan Croll, one of Australia's pioneers of mammography.
  12. Gibson, Brendan J.J. (September 2003). "From Transfer to Transformation: Rethinking the Relationship between Research and Policy" (PhD Thesis). The Australian National University. Retrieved 28 February 2022. ... Joan Croll, one of the directors of the Medicheck facility, was among the earliest advocates of mammography screening in Australia (Croll, MacMillan et al. 1977; Croll 1978; Croll 1987) ...
  13. "Tree Profile Sheet: 44 The Point Road, Woolwich" (PDF). Significant Tree Register. Hunter's Hill Council. April 2015. Retrieved 28 February 2022. The London Plane Tree was planted by the previous owners, Frank and Joan Croll in 1958, reputedly to commemorate their wedding. The Crolls left the property in the early 1960s only to return in 1970.4 Dr Joan Croll AO (b. 1928) is a breast physician and radiologist. From 1975 until her retirement in 1997 she was a persistent worker in the field of breast cancer, promoting the introduction of breast ultrasound and mammography. In the early 1970s, Croll's fight alongside thirteen other women (known as Battlers for Kelly's Bush Hunters Hill) to stymie a housing development on Sydney bushland led to the world's first Green Ban and the birth of urban environmentalism. Her late husband, Frank Croll, (1929-2003) was a leading consultant physician with a special interest in cardiology.
  14. "Dr Joan Croll". It's an Honour. 26 January 1996. Retrieved 22 February 2022.
  15. "Government is trying to duck blame for rail chaos". The Sydney Morning Herald. 22 February 2022. Retrieved 25 February 2022.
  16. Turner, Brook (8 June 2011). "Art-buying syndicates come of age". Australian Financial Review. Retrieved 28 February 2022.
  17. Sayers, Andrew (1 December 2001). "String of Pearls". Portrait magazine. National Portrait Gallery. Retrieved 28 February 2022. John Brack was not known as a portrait painter, yet he painted many distinctive portraits. He rarely painted portraits on commission and the first occasion on which he undertook a private commission resulted in a fine and utterly 'Brackian' portrait of the Sydney art-lover and breast cancer specialist Dr Joan Croll AO. The portrait was commissioned by the sitter's husband Frank Croll. In November the Croll family generously donated the portrait to the National Portrait Gallery....
  18. "Joan Una Croll Death Notice". Sydney Morning Herald. 22 February 2022. Retrieved 22 February 2022.
  19. "Sydney Morning Herald 2004". James O'Brien. 25 February 2009. Retrieved 22 February 2022.
  20. "Obituary: Dr Frank Croll". Sydney Morning Herald. 13 June 2003.
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