Women's suffrage in Victoria, when women gained the right to vote in the state, was the result of many years of campaigning before Federation of Australia in the Colony of Victoria, and for eight years after in the State of Victoria. It was connected to the wider push for Women's suffrage in Australia. And yet while Victoria's campaign started earlier than other states, early lobbying culminated in the formation of Australia's first suffrage group, the Victorian Women's Suffrage Society (VWSS) in 1884, it was the last to grant state suffrage to women in 1908.
Decades before the formation of the VWSS, women landowners, such as Fanny Finch in the colony identified that they were technically enfranchised in local election through their status as rate payers and attempted to lodge their votes. However, they were blocked from exercising this right by electoral administrators. In 1865 the legislators in the Colony removed the technicality by changing the language of legislation to explicitly exclude women from the vote. It would take another 43 years, of women agitating and campaigning before white women of Victoria were allowed to vote in state elections. Furthermore, it would take would take another 40 years, when federal legislation changed in 1949, for those voting rights to be extended to Aboriginal people.
As the turn of the century drew closer, the suffrage campaigning picked up, with more suffrage groups forming, such as the Australian Women's Suffrage Society and other groups with broader agendas, such as the Woman's Christian Temperance Union of Victoria (WCTU), deciding to focus on the cause. In 1891 the groups worked together to canvass for women's signatures, with the resulting Monster Petition of nearly 30,000 signatures being presented to Victorian Parliament, which eliminated the myth that only a fringe group of women wanted to have the vote. The suffrage groups coordinated their campaigning in 1894 by creating the United Council for Woman Suffrage, led by Annette Bear-Crawford. After Bear-Crawford's unexpected death in 1899, Vida Goldstein took up the leadership of the movement.
The legislative Bill that finally passed through Victorian Parliament successfully in 1908 was the 19th that had been brought forward. The first had been put forward 20 years earlier by William Maloney in 1889.
Suffrage movement in Victoria Years prior to 1884 Early suffragists When the Victorian gold rush began, European immigrant women had hopes that Victoria would be a more liberated environment for women. Women who were present on the goldfields in the 1850s stated it required self-sufficiency to survive, and as such the required independence to write their own rules. The egalitarian spirit of the time allowed people to set aside social gradations, which resulted in political and social inclusiveness, and allowed women a freedom that they were unable to achieve in many other places, leading to them being very involved in the political activism to resist the colonial authorities. Ellen Young, an English poet who arrived in Ballarat in February of 1854, had her first poem published in the Geelong Advertiser of that same year. Her poems were controversial for her time with Protofeminist and political themes that questioned the establishment. In one letter to the papers she stated “We, the people, demand cheap land, just magistrates, to be represented in the Legislative Council, in fact treated as the free subjects of a great nation”. Another woman from the goldfields, Fanny Smith, wrote to the Ballarat Times in 1856 asking whether women with 'Miner's Right' were eligible to be elected as part of the local court just like men. Smith said she had read the legislation and it was 'silent on sex'. Henrietta Dugdale is usually credited as being the first woman to publicly call for women's suffrage when she wrote to the Argus in 1869. Other women such as Helen Hart and Caroline Dexter would deliver public lectures, and write to the press on women's rights and suffrage.
First women to attempt to cast votes The Municipal Institutions Act of 1854 stated that 'all persons' who paid rates had the right to vote in municipal elections, which meant that women were not explicitly excluded. In 1856, two rate payers, Fanny Finch, an English-born business woman with African ancestry, and an unknown female friend cast their votes at a Castlemaine election. Later that afternoon the assessors disallowed the women's votes stating "they (the women) had no right to vote".
Early legislation In 1865, when the Victorian Assembly were making amendments to the Municipal Act, John Dane moved that the wording of the Act should be changed from 'all persons' to 'all male persons' to exclude women from voting, and that any women's names on the state electoral roll should be expunged. The debate that followed was the first debate on women's suffrage in the Victorian parliament. While there was some support for women voting, the motion was passed. The motion was supported by George Higinbotham who would later support women's suffrage, however he stated that granting women suffrage should be deliberate, not inadvertent.
Women who held 'high positions' in the colony lobbied John Richardson, who subsequently attempt to restore women ratepayers suffrage when a bill to redistribute electorates was being passed through parliament in 1873. Higinbotham supported the motion, and after it passed by two votes. So Higginbotham moved that all adult women be allowed to vote, but this was defeated.
Years 1884 to 1894 Formation of suffrage organisations
The Victorian Women's Suffrage Society was formed on 25 May 1884 by Annie Lowe and Henrietta Dugdale at the house of Elizabeth Rennick. It was a group of twenty women, and a number of men, and they formed a committee and drew up a constitution and called the organisation the Victorian Women's Suffrage Society. They called a general meeting for the 22 June. While the participants were united in agreeing that women should have the vote, there were a variety of opinions about why and how. One clergyman in attendance, Reverend Dr Brumby, believed that women would hold the same opinions as their husbands, and married men deserved a double vote because they held a greater stake in the country than single men. Another participant, Mrs Webster, suggested the organisation should focus on getting women ratepayers the vote, as they would have more chance of success. Another still, Mr Black, raised concerns that women's suffrage would provide courtesan's with the vote. Lowe and Dugdale both stated that women needed to be enfranchised, so they could have greater protection from violence. At that time, violent offences against women brought a lesser sentences than property offences.
Up until August 1888, Brettena Smyth was an active member of the Victorian Women's Suffrage Society, she was elected as secretary in July of that year, however, soon after there was a disagreement within the organisation, leading to her and five committee members to resign. Smyth soon formed her own suffrage organisation the Australian Women's Suffrage Society. Smyth's views on women's rights were considered more radical than many other suffragists. She believed the biggest problem for women was that they did not have the rights to choose when they had children. Smyth was an advocate for contraception, which she sold in her general store.
In 1885 an American Woman's Christian Temperance Union missionary Mary Clement Leavitt travelled to Australia to promote the Temperance Movement. She founded local unions around Victoria. In 1887, Marie Elizabeth Kirk and the Reverend Philip Moses founded a central organisation, the Woman's Christian Temperance Union of Victoria (WCTU). Mary M. Love became the first president of the organisation. The organisation's primary focus was on promoting abstinence of alcohol and wished to change the legislation to put controls on the sale of alcohol, so by 1890 they adopted a resolution that as men and women both have to obey laws, they both should be able to elect those who make the laws. The resolution said women's votes would safeguard the home, and women's interests, and this would be good for the whole population.
The Monster Petition of 1891
With their resolution to seek women's suffrage, in 1891, when the Victorian Parliament had their next sitting, the WCTU collaborated with the Victorian Temperance Alliance and sent a deputation to James Munro the Premier of Victoria to urge him to introduce legislation for women's suffrage. Munro, an advocate for the temperance movement, agreed only to raise it with his cabinet, and said they would need to provide a united front to agitate for successful suffrage legislation. Taking his advice, the WCTU approached the two other main suffrage organisations, the Victorian Women's Suffrage Society, and the Australian Women's Suffrage Society, who agreed to work together to gather women's signatures for a suffrage petition. For six months the groups sent out canvassers to go door to door in Melbourne, and in the suburbs and towns of Victoria. They gathered nearly 30,000 signatures of Victorian women. The pages were glued to a 260 metre long piece of material, and rolled onto a cardboard spindle. When it was presented to parliament in support of a suffrage bill, it needed several attendants to carry it. It was nicknamed the 'Monster Petition'. The suffrage bill was attached to a bill intending to abolish plural voting. While it passed the Victorian Legislative Assembly, Munro was pressured by his supporters to drop Women's Suffrage from the bill to give the abolishment of plural voting more chance of passing in the Victorian Legislative Council. The bill did not pass anyway. While the suffrage groups were disappointed, the petition had a lasting impact on the suffrage movement. There was now clear evidence that calls for women's suffrage were not just from a small group of radical women. A large proportion of Victorian women wanted to be able to vote.
Years 1894 to 1904 Suffrage organisations uniting Annette Bear-Crawford, a Victorian born suffragist who had recently returned from her schooling, and early career as a social worker in England, identified that the various suffrage groups needed to unite to achieve their goal. She organised the formation of the United Council for Woman Suffrage, an umbrella organisation with representatives from each group, which could direct the suffrage campaign. Bear-Crawford had the ability to bring the different personalities together on common ground. Vida Goldstein credited Bear-Crawford as a mentor who taught her how to speak confidently on the public stage. Bear-Crawford also recognised that another suffrage organisation was required. Each of the major suffrage groups had broader agendas which were alienating people who wanted to only support suffrage. The WCTU was focussed on restricting alcohol; The Victorian Women's Suffrage Society hoped for broader reforms in women's rights, and was led by women who had reputations for being radical, such as Dugdale who even made and wore her own trousers; and the Australian Women's Suffrage Society actively promoted contraception, which at that time were considered extreme and sinful. So, at a meeting of the WCTU, Bear-Crawford organised the formation of the Victorian Women's Suffrage League, an organisation with only one agenda, women's suffrage.
Leadership change In the late 1890s two significant people in the suffrage movement died, first Smyth of the Australian Women's Suffrage Society died of Brights disease in February 1898. They society had by this time been largely defunct, as she had been focussing primarily on her lecture tours. She had another tour planned before she fell ill.