Forestry has been a male dominated profession, and the Forests Commission Victoria was no exception with women first allowed to enter the Creswick School of Forestry for the first time in 1976. Women however broke into this male dominated profession much earlier in other jurisdictions around the world, with Mary Sutherland the first women ever to graduate with a BSc Forestry from the Bangor University, Wales in 1916. She worked for the New Zealand Forest Service from 1923 to 1933.

Recently whilst scanning documents for the Site Library, it turns out that Helen Lee (nee Purnell) was employed as the Forest Pathologist from some time before 1957 to around 1962. During this time she authored Bulletin No. 5 in 1957 (as Purnell) and had two articles published in Forest Technical Papers No.8 in 1962 (as Lee). She was the first person to investigate die-back in the East Gippsland forests, but the cause was not identified until later. Apart from this nothing else is known about Helen who was possibly the first women employed in a professional scientific capacity in the Forests Commission. She is mentioned however, albeit briefly, in a history of the University of Melbourne Botany School (Botany History booklet 2 March 2010), with the following references:

"Influenced by Turner’s interest in respiratory metabolism, Helen Purnell investigated the respiratory physiology of wood-rotting fungi."

"Meanwhile, FCV Forest Pathologist Purnell investigated tree diseases...."

"Long after McLennan had identified it in Werribee willows and Purnell (later Lee) documented the then puzzling root-destroying, dieback-inducing pathogen in East Gippsland forests, Weste began to survey and study P. cinnamomi in the Brisbane Ranges, and soon detected it at Wilson’s Promontory and the Grampians."

Whilst what is known about Helen is very scant, her time and role in the Forests Commission is important to acknowledge as part of the wider role women played in forestry in Victoria.