The Women's Suffrage League, founded in 1888, spearheaded the campaign for women's right to vote in

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a States and territories of Australia, state in the southern central part of Australia. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories by area, which in ...

. In 1894 South Australia became the first Australian colony and the fourth place in the world to grant

women's suffrage Women's suffrage is the women's rights, right of women to Suffrage, vote in elections. Several instances occurred in recent centuries where women were selectively given, then stripped of, the right to vote. In Sweden, conditional women's suffra ...

. At the same time women were granted the right to stand for election to Parliament, the first place in the world.

History

The Women's Suffrage League evolved from the Social Purity Society, an organisation that was concerned about the social and economic difficulties many women faced. The Society campaigned for fairer treatment of women by the law, and greater legal protection for young women. Thanks to the Society the

age of consent The age of consent is the age at which a person is considered to be legally competent to consent to Human sexual activity, sexual acts. Consequently, an adult who engages in sexual activity with a person younger than the age of consent is un ...

for girls was raised to 16 and the age of young people in brothels was regulated. Members of the Society and similar movements of the period, notably temperance advocates including the

Woman's Christian Temperance Union The Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) is an international temperance organization. It was among the first organizations of women devoted to social reform with a program that "linked the religious and the secular through concerted and far ...

, realised that the key to affecting social change was parliamentary representation. This led the establishment of the Women's Suffrage League of South Australia with the view of initiating a movement for the enfranchisement of women. Their first meeting was held on 20 July 1888 at the Adelaide

YMCA YMCA, sometimes regionally called the Y, is a worldwide youth organisation based in Geneva, Switzerland, with more than 64 million beneficiaries in 120 countries. It has nearly 90,000 staff, some 920,000 volunteers and 12,000 branches w ...

rooms, with about 80 women in attendance along with members of parliament, religious leaders and others. Edward Charles Stirling was appointed as the first chairman of the League, with Mary Lee and Hector McLennan co-secretaries and Rose Birks treasurer. The first female president was Mary Colton, appointed in 1891. Members of the League were instrumental in collecting signatures from across the colony, resulting in the largest

petition A petition is a request to do something, most commonly addressed to a government official or public entity. Petitions to a deity are a form of prayer called supplication. In the colloquial sense, a petition is a document addressed to an officia ...

ever presented to the

Parliament of South Australia The Parliament of South Australia is the bicameral legislature of the Australian state of South Australia. It consists of the 47-seat South Australian House of Assembly, House of Assembly (lower house) and the 22-seat South Australian Legislati ...

, long with over 11,600 signatures, which was presented to the parliament by George Stanley Hawker in August 1894. In December, the ''

Constitutional Amendment (Adult Suffrage) Act 1894 The ''Constitutional Amendment (Adult Suffrage) Act 1894'' was an Act of the Parliament of South Australia to amend the South Australian '' Constitution Act 1856'' to include women's suffrage. It was the seventh attempt to introduce voting rig ...

'' was passed, which gave women not only the right to vote but the right to stand for parliament.

Key members

Those key to the suffrage movement in South Australia included: * Mary Colton, President * Mary Lee, Secretary * Rosetta Jane Birks, Treasurer * Serena Lake * Elizabeth Webb Nicholls *

Catherine Helen Spence Catherine Helen Spence (31 October 1825 – 3 April 1910) was a Scottish-born Australian author, teacher, journalist, politician, leading suffragist, and Georgist. Spence was also a minister of religion and social worker, and supporter of el ...

* Augusta Zadow The nature of society at the time meant that the role of men was vital for the success of the campaign for women's suffrage. Key men included: * Sir Edward Stirling, President until 1892 * Hector McLennan, Co-secretary with Mary Lee * Robert Caldwell MHA * Sylvanus James Magarey * Joseph Coles Kirby.

References

{{Reflist Australian suffragists Organisations based in South Australia

History

Key members

See also

References