The Womanhood Suffrage League of New South Wales, was founded in 1891 and campaigned for women's right to vote in New South Wales. Women's suffrage is the right of women to vote in elections.
The Womanhood Suffrage League of New South Wales, was founded in 1891 and campaigned for women's right to vote in New South Wales. Women's suffrage is the right of women to vote in elections.
Mary Windeyer and Rose Scott, among others, formed the Womanhood Suffrage League of New South Wales from the New South Wales Women's Literary Society and the group held its first meeting on 4 June 1891. [1] [2] The first chair for the meeting was Dr. Vandaleur Kelly and Mary Windeyer was elected the foundation President of the League, [3] while Rose Scott held the position of Secretary. [4] [5]
They held their bi-monthly meetings at the offices of The Dawn and Mary Windeyer resigned from her role in March 1893, when she left Australia and travelled to Chicago, she was replaced by Mrs Louis Haigh. [6] Many men and women from different political parties joined the League whose main purpose was to secure the vote for women upon the same conditions as those which applied to men. [7] In May 1893 Dr Grace Robinson, Bachelor of Medicine and Master of Surgery and one of the first two women graduates at the University of Sydney, joined the League. [8]
On 14 October 1892, prior to the introduction of the Electoral Bill by the NSW Ministry, a deputation from the League which included Lady Windeyer and Mrs Lawson was received by Sir George Dibbs, who promised to bring their request before the Cabinet. [9] On 19 September 1893 the governor of New Zealand signed a new Electoral Act into law which made it the first self-governing country in the world in which women had the right to vote in parliamentary elections. [10] These events pushed forward the case being made by the League and in the same month it was noted that Women's Suffrage had been adopted as a plank in the platform of The Labour Electoral League and that the question had entered the sphere of practical politics in New South Wales. [11] The League also supported the universal voting rights advocated by the utopian socialist settlement New Australia which was set up in Paraguay in 1893. [12] Women were finally granted the right to vote in New South Wales in 1902. [13]
In 1902 the New South Wales Womanhood Suffrage League redefined itself as the Women's Political Educational League. [14]
Started in 1894, this magazine was the official organ of the Womanhood Suffrage League of New South Wales and was entirely edited by women working from offices at 80 Albion Street, Sydney. According to their Managing Editor, the intent of the publication was to make the Governments of Australia in general, and that of New South Wales in particular, understand they were: [17]
not asking the privilege of being allowed to vote. We are not "your humble petitioners," and therefore do not "forever pray." The whole thing resolves into this. We have made up our minds to vote, we intend to vote, and we will vote. Do you understand, or don't you want to?
Rose Scott was an Australian women's rights activist who advocated for women's suffrage and universal suffrage in New South Wales at the turn-of-the twentieth century. She founded the Women's Political Education League in 1902 which campaigned successfully to raise the age of consent to sixteen.
Maybanke Susannah Anderson was an Australian suffragist and education reformer involved in women's suffrage, Federation of Australia and the Free Kindergarten Movement.
Louisa Lawson was an Australian poet, writer, publisher, suffragist, and feminist. She was the mother of the poet and author Henry Lawson.
Sir William Charles Windeyer was an Australian politician and judge.
John Haynes was a parliamentarian in New South Wales, Australia for five months short of thirty years, and co-founder (1880), with J. F. Archibald, of The Bulletin.
Matilda Emilie Bertha McNamara was an Australian political activist and writer. She was born in Prussia and arrived in Australia as a teenager. She became involved in the labour movement in the early 1890s until the 1920s, running a socialist bookshop in Sydney and authoring numerous political pamphlets; she was eulogised as "the mother of the labour movement". She was the mother of eleven children, and her sons-in-law included the writer Henry Lawson and politician Jack Lang.
Margaret Windeyer was an Australian librarian and feminist.
Women's suffrage in Australia was one of the early achievements of Australian democracy. Following the progressive establishment of male suffrage in the Australian colonies from the 1840s to the 1890s, an organised push for women's enfranchisement gathered momentum from the 1880s, and began to be legislated from the 1890s, decades in advance of Europe and North America. South Australian women achieved the right to vote in 1894, and to stand for office in 1895 following the world first Constitutional Amendment Act 1894. This preceded even male suffrage in Tasmania. Western Australia granted women the right to vote from 1899, although with some racial restrictions. In 1902, the newly established Australian Parliament passed the Commonwealth Franchise Act 1902, which set a uniform law enabling women to vote at federal elections and to stand for the federal parliament. By 1908, the remaining Australian states had legislated for women's suffrage for state elections. Grace Benny was elected as the first councillor in 1919, Edith Cowan the first state Parliamentarian in 1921, Dorothy Tangney the first Senator and Enid Lyons the first Member of the House of Representatives in 1943.
Ellen Alma Martel, was an English-Australian suffragist and elocutionist. She stood for the Senate at the 1903 federal election, one of the first four women to stand for federal parliament.
Francis Cotton was an Australian politician.
Euphemia Bridges Bowes (1816–1900) was a suffragette and social activist, who campaigned for the temperance movement and helped to raise the age of consent and fight against child prostitution.
The Jessie Street Gardens is an urban park in Loftus Street, in the Sydney central business district, near Circular Quay, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. The park is named in honour of Jessie Street, a leading Australian women's rights activist.
Lady Mary Elizabeth Windeyer was an Australian women's rights campaigner, particularly in relation to women's suffrage in New South Wales, a philanthropist and charity organizer.
Eliza Ann Ashton was an English-born Australian journalist and social reformer. She wrote for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Daily Telegraph in Sydney under the names Faustine and Mrs Julian Ashton. She was a founding member of the Womanhood Suffrage League of New South Wales.
Sophie (Sophia) Elizabeth Steffanoni (1873–1906) was an Australian born artist who produced works in the style of the Heidelberg School art movement, also known as Australian impressionism.
Eliza Pottie was an Australian social reformer, and a leader in women's organization in New South Wales. She was involved in the founding of the Young Women's Christian Association in Sydney, the Ladies' Sanitation Association, and the Women's Christian Temperance Union. She served as president of the Ladies Sanitation Association for nine years. She advocated for prison reform, supported orphanages, visited people in hospitals and institutions, and campaigned for women's suffrage. She was appointed to the Government Asylum Inquiry Board in 1886. A member of the Religious Society of Friends, she helped found the Quaker Relief Committee during the depression of 1893. In 1896, she attended the first National Council of Women New South Wales as a delegate for the WCTU. She died at her home in Manly in 1907.
Elizabeth Jane Ward was an Australian evangelist and active parish worker for the Church of England known for her involvement in various women's Christian organisations and campaigning for women's suffrage.
Phyllis Le Cappelaine Burke, was an English-born Australian market researcher, housing commissioner, civic volunteer and philanthropist. She studied economics at the University of Sydney, graduating with a Bachelor's degree in 1922. She served for twenty years on the Housing Commission of New South Wales, and supported numerous social reform causes through her voluntary activities. A devout Catholic, in 1943, she founded Altair, a discussion group for Catholic women who were University graduates. She was also a foundation member of the Sydney chapter of the St. Joan Social and Political Alliance.
Laura Bogue Luffman was an English-born Australian writer who was active in journalism and the Women's Reform League in Sydney.
Mrs Molyneux Parkes aka Hilma Olivia Edla Johanna Parkes born Hilma Ekenberg was a Swedish-born Australian nurse and political organiser. She founded the Women's Liberal League of N.S.W. and the Women's Liberal Club.