Congratulations to Dorothy Hamilton who was recognised in Australia Day Honours list with a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for her services to music.
“I am humbled and honoured to receive this award,” says Dorothy.
The eldest of seven children, Dorothy was born in the small country town of Rainbow in the Southern Mallee, Victoria, in 1927 and has been blind from birth. From early childhood she developed a love of music and her earliest ambition was to teach sighted children music.
Dorothy was the first blind woman in the southern hemisphere to obtain a music degree. She recounts her time studying as one of inclusion acceptance by her sighted peers.
“Everyone was so happy to help me,” says Dorothy. “The other students with writing out my work and even the office staff to walk me to tutorials or the tram stop. Most importantly my work was valued. It was a privilege to go there.”
After completing tertiary music studies Dorothy applied for many jobs as a music teacher in schools. In 1953 she secured a role at Korowa Anglican Girls' School where she taught recorder, piano and choir.
Her work at Royal Victorian Institute for the Blind (RVIB), now Vision Australia, began in Transcription as a proof reader. Then, in the early ‘90s, Dorothy introduced the use of refreshable braille (computerised braille). This meant that people who are blind were no longer relegated to the proof reading of braille documents, but could produce the documents themselves and could also make multiple embossed copies of a document with just the press of a button.
Dorothy has been working at Vision Australia as a braille transcriber for more than 35 years and remains to this day a very valuable and admired staff member.
Dorothy is also a very prominent figure in the world of Braille Music Code. In 1985 she established the Braille Music Camps and also taught long distance, over the phone, to children who lived far from braille music teachers. She also represented Australia a number of times at international braille music camps because of her expertise.
Dorothy is considered by many as a trailblazer and an innovator who worked incredibly hard for all she achieved but did so with good grace. Many of her younger blind students found inspiration in what she achieved professionally and personally and through this saw a future for themselves as well.
You can listen to a the audio documentary "Meet Dorothy Hamilton", on Talking Vision here.