Unbridling the Tongues of Women - The University of Adelaide

The New Woman of South Australia: Grand Old Woman of Australia
the 1880s a host of philanthropic ventures concerned specifically with women were
established. These included the Young Women’s Christian Association, inaugurated
in 1884; the formation of the Social Purity League to press for legislation to raise the
age of consent and to combat proposals for licensed brothels; the establishment in
the same year of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, off-shoot of the body
founded in the United States; and more short-lived enterprises including the Young
Women’s Institute, a residential club for young women working in shops and factories,
and Mrs L. M. Corbin’s crèche for children of working women. In January 1890
a different kind of organization, the Working Women’s Trades Union, was founded
as the result of a large public meeting about sweating in the clothing industry, held
in the previous year. 36
Many of these organisations focused their energies
comparatively early on the question of female suffrage. Its
place on their agendas had been ensured by its discussion
in one of the sanctums of the public sphere: in 1885 Edward
Charles Stirling introduced into the House of Assembly
a motion which read:
That in the opinion of this House, women, except
while under coverture, who fulfil the conditions and
possess the qualifications on which the parliamentary
franchise is granted to men, shall like them, be admitted
to the franchise for both Houses of Parliament. 37
Stirling had been in England acquiring degrees and fellowships
in natural science and medicine in the 15 or so years
since he and his family had travelled there, with Catherine
Spence for company, in 1864. His English acquaintances
included the Fawcett family, and he was in correspondence with William Woodall,
a liberal member of the House of Commons, who introduced into that House measures
for extending the franchise to women, twice in 1884, and again in 1885. 38 It
was not particularly surprising that, having returned to South Australia and gained
a place in the House of Assembly, Stirling should have sought the same there. After
all, the traditions established by the colony’s founders depicted it as a more liberal society
than that of Britain; a thoroughly progressive liberal measure might well stand
a better chance there. Arguments against such a measure which appealed to ‘natural’
149
Edward Charles Stirling.
Image courtesy of the
State Library of South Australia
SLSA: B11259.