Amy Christine Rivett (1891–1962), doctor, contributed greatly to medicine and women's health. Born into a philanthropic family in Yarrawonga, Victoria, she attended the selective Sydney Girls' High School and studied medicine at the University of Sydney. After moving to Brisbane, she became superintendent of the Hospital for Sick Children in 1915 and resident medical officer at Brisbane General and Lady Bowen hospitals. Rivett regularly visited Brisbane's brothels as municipal medical officer in charge of the health of licensed prostitutes, and was an early and persistent advocate of birth control and sexual health. Having gained her master's degree in surgery in 1918, from 1919 she practised in Wickham Terrace, where her doctor brother Edward joined her in 1920. (Another brother, Sir David Rivett, was CEO and then Chairman of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, which became the CSIRO.) In 1929 Christine Rivett became the first Queensland woman to gain an A-class pilot's licence, and was a foundation member of the Queensland Medical Women's Society. She was also a patron of the arts and a popular figure in the Brisbane art scene. In 1927, Edward Rivett, a devotee of alternative therapies and homeopathy, bought a Walter Burley Griffin house in Castlecrag, Sydney, which he converted to a private maternity hospital. Before the Second World War, Christine Rivett spent some months studying gynaecology and tropical diseases in London and Vienna; after the war, she joined her brother in Castlecrag, practising obstetrics and experimenting in telepathy and ESP. Brother and sister died within a few months of each other.
