Students of Maitland High School and residents of East Maitland are familiar with the name Hinder.
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Hinder House, Hinder Library and Hinder Street are named after Robert John Hinder.
Australian born Hinder (1856-1918), educated at Sydney Grammar School and Sydney University, was principal of Maitland Boys' High from 1889 to 1914.
Known as 'the Boss', he guided the fledgling school (established in 1884) to success and respectability.
Hinder oversaw the move from Church St to 'the school on the hill' at East Maitland.
He allowed the boys to vote to change the school colours from blue and gold to black and white and thus to become known as 'the magpies'.
These colours were adopted by the majority of Maitland's sporting teams. Hinder's punishments were tailored to the incident.
A boy who put a pin on another boy's seat had to sit on the pin, and boys who threw water out of a window onto junior boys were made to stand against a wall, endure a lecture and have a basin of water thrown over them!
Despite these unconventional punishment styles, Hinder was loved and respected. Hinder and his wife, Sarah Mills, valued education.
Unsurprisingly their daughter, Eleanor Mary (1893 - 1963) excelled at Maitland West Girls' High, Teachers College and the University of Sydney (BSc, 1914).
Eleanor was a strong supporter of women's issues, being Secretary of the Sydney University Women Graduates' Association, instrumental in organising the Australian Federation of University Women and a co-founder of the Sydney City Girls' Amateur Sports Association.
Eleanor taught biology at North Sydney Girls' High. However, her interests lay elsewhere.
She pioneered Australian industrial welfare after appointment as Superintendent of Staff Welfare at Farmer Co Ltd in Sydney during WWI.
In 1926 she commenced her career in international labour welfare and reform in the industrial department of the National Committee of the Young Women's Christian Association of China.
Here she worked towards the improvement of industrial conditions, particularly for women and child factory workers, becoming Chief of the Industrial and Social Division of Shanghai Municipal Council from 1933 to 1942.
She was appointed to the International Labour Organisation in Montreal, serving as Special Consultant on Asian Questions in 1942.
In 1944 Eleanor was appointed the British representative on the Far Eastern Sub-Committee of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Association's technical committee.
At this time, Australians were classed as British citizens. Later, she joined the Foreign Office as British Liaison Officer for UN activities in the Far East. Eleanor was appointed to the Order of the British Empire in 1950.
In August 1951 she became Chief of the Project Planning Division, Technical Assistance Administration of the United Nations, and she was appointed Chief of the Office for Asia and the Far East from 1953 to 1955.
In 1956 she administered the UN programme of technical assistance for Latin America, joining the UN Statistical Office.
She organised and administered a special programme of assistance to Asian governments in 1957.
Eleanor Hinder died on 10 April 1963 in San Francisco, en route to the UN to take up another short-term appointment.
Robert and Eleanor were invested into the Maitland Hall of Fame in 2017 and 2016 respectively.
One made a major contribution to Maitland, the other on the international stage.
