UniSA Connect

The Inspiring Female Trailblazer Still Enthusiastic about her Career Six Decades Later

Beverley Perrett OAM

Fashion Design, South Australian School of Arts and Crafts

“But, you’re a woman?”

“I did know that,” responded an immaculately dressed Beverley Perrett when an indignant man across the counter questioned why she wanted to get her builders license.

This encapsulation of the very real barriers and judgement Beverley has experienced throughout a trailblazing career was always met with her signature class and wit; and determination to prove she was just as good, if not better than her male counterparts.

Throughout her illustrious career, at a time when it was not expected for women to be in such positions, Beverley spearheaded significant change as the Chair of the Adelaide Children’s Hospital and thrived at the helm of her design and investment consulting firms – all while having four children under the age of five.

Her tenacity and smarts were apparent from an early age and was no more obvious than in her determination to go to university at UniSA antecedent, the South Australian School of Arts and Crafts.

“I lost my father at the end of the war and while my brothers were sent to university, my mother said to me that I had to go and get married, which was very normal at that time,” Beverley says.

“I told her I didn’t want to do that – since I was small, I wanted to be a designer and go to design school.”

“She said, ‘how are you going to pay for that?’”

Beverley took a job in the pathology department at the University of Adelaide making up slides for students with cadavers to save up money. “I would walk up from the mortuary with this thing shaking on my tray, slice it up, put it on the microscope. It was fascinating.” This is also where she would first meet future husband, neuroradiologist Dr Lance Perrett.

With dreams of becoming a fashion designer, and now being able to pay for it, Beverley excelled in her design course – a testament to choosing the subjects you love and enjoy.

As a clear standout in her class, a lecturer also recognised Beverley’s talent for design – “I was ever grateful to Mr Dunbar” – and recommended her for a job designing clothes for teenagers for a Jewish family in Melbourne.

The family took Beverley under their wing in Melbourne, and not only nurtured her as a fashion designer, but developed her design talents in interiors, and piqued her interest in building and flipping houses.

Returning to Adelaide, Beverley saw an opening and set up one of the first clothes boutiques in the city on Grenfell Street called L'Officiel. Where, in addition to their own designs, they brought in ski pants from France, bathing suits from Israel, and employed a specialist in bridal wear.

“The family I worked for asked what it was like in Adelaide. I said, ‘There's not a small shop or a boutique in Adelaide, they're all department stores like Miller Anderson's, John Martin's, Charles Birk's.”

“It was fantastic because nobody had clothes like that, and you knew because it was in Grenfell Street, anybody that went down Rundle Street and bothered to walk around to us, they were coming to buy… and they all came and brought.”

Continuing to expand her design business and consultancy, Beverley found a niche in designing and decorating interiors for hospitals, all while flipping houses on the side and looking after her four children under five.

In regular contact with these hospital executives, she was soon asked to join the board of the Children’s Hospital in North Adelaide (now amalgamated into the Women’s and Children’s Hospital). Never one to turn away from an opportunity that excites her, Beverley joined, and in just a few years became the first female Chair in the hospital’s 108-year history in 1984.

In this role, being a working mother of four children was actually a great benefit. She could take her own experiences and directly relate them to the facilities that needed improving. One of her first initiatives was answering a desperate need for more parking.

“I had four children and they all had got sick at the same time, Lance had brought home some bacteria thing, and I knew what it was like trying to get a park there.”

“I said there's a building coming up behind us for sale, and if I put some apartments in front of it so you can't see it, I want to put a parking station behind it.”

“The Health Minister said, ‘alright, here's the money’, and then all the other male board members decided that maybe I wasn't so bad after all.”

During her time as the Chair of the Adelaide Children’s Hospital, Beverley spearheaded vast change like the buying of land and refurbishing current buildings in the area to establish a children's research foundation and ward for mothers to stay overnight with their children – something they could previously not do.

She even instigated small, but meaningful touches that made an immense difference to a sick child’s experience at the hospital like placing Disney pictures on the roof of the CT Scanner.

In 1990 her efforts were celebrated and officially recognised as she received a prestigious Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for service to the Adelaide Children's Hospital.

Now in her 80s, Beverley is still motivated and “besotted with work and loving it” continuing to have a hand in her business building and flipping houses. In fact, some of her children have followed her footsteps into business and property development.

“While I always picked them up from school, I said to one of my boys one day, ‘I'm sorry did you suffer because I worked so hard?’”

“God no! We couldn't wait to be with you.’ was his response. ‘We come home and you go all energised and excited, ‘Oh! I bought this! I sold this! Come and look at this, with a big smile.’”

“It’s what happens when you do what's true to yourself – pursuing what you're passionate about and ignoring everybody else.”

“I've sure had fun too.”

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