Women's Suffrage League secretary, Mary Lee

Agitating for change

Women believed that if they could vote they could elect candidates who would legislate to improve society generally and strengthen the position of women and children in particular.

A number of organisations threw their support behind the female suffrage movement including the Christian Women’s Temperance Union and the Social Purity Society.

The most influential South Australian group, the Women’s Suffrage League, was established by Mary Lee and Mary Colton and later joined by well-known social reformer Catherine Helen Spence.

Female suffragists struggled against prejudicial traditional views of women that were embedded in society and the law.

Groups agitated for change in many ways. Letters were written to newspapers and magazines, public speeches were made and rallies and marches were held. Groups of women visited parliament and held discussions with important political figures including the state’s premier. Signatures were collected from across the colony for the longest petition that has ever been presented to the South Australian Parliament.

With more than 11,600 signatures and measuring around 400 feet in length with its pages glued end to end, the petition was used to show the government that both men and women supported women’s right to vote.

At last enfranchised

Before the 1894 Bill there had been three unsuccessful attempts to gain equal voting rights for women in South Australia.

Many parliamentarians felt that women were not emotionally or intellectually capable of properly participating in politics. Others also felt that women were stepping outside their traditional roles and that giving them the vote would undermine a husband’s position in the family.

However, following an election in early 1894, the Labour Party, which was sympathetic to the women’s cause, formed government.

The Constitutional Amendment (Adult Suffrage) Bill was presented to the Legislative Council on 23 August 1894.

A conservative effort to derail the Bill by introducing a woman’s right to stand for parliament as well as the right to vote did not stop the Bill narrowly passing. It was then sent to the Legislative Assembly where three months elapsed during which a slight amendment was made allowing women to postal vote as well.

After much debate, the Bill was finally passed 31 votes to 14 in front of a crowd of around 200 women. The Bill was officially made law in 1895 when signed by Queen Victoria. South Australian women then became the first in the world who could not only vote but also stand for parliament.

Equal enfranchisement therefore applied to all citizens of South Australia, including the Indigenous men and women of the colony.

The first South Australian election in which women could participate was held in 1896. The female presence was remarked upon by many newspapers, including the Adelaide Observer, which said:

Women were everywhere, and their presence … no doubt had a refining influence. Never have we had a more decorous gathering together of the multitude than that which distinguished the first exercise of the female franchise on Saturday April 25 1896.