Unbridling the Tongues of Women - The University of Adelaide

Introduction
able two and a half hours of my life waiting Micawber-like for something
to turn up; and it turned up in the person of the village blacksmith. I
spoke to him and explained my mission to the town. He had heard nothing
of any meeting …‘Well’, I said … ‘if you can get together a dozen
intelligent men I will explain effective voting to them’. He looked at me
with a dumbfounded air, and then burst out, ‘Good G–, madam there are
not three intelligent men in the town.’ 39
‘One of her admirers ... remarked on hearing of some of her misadventures, “Oh,
I wish Miss Spence did not do things like that. It does give the Mothers such cause
to blaspheme”; 40 a comment redolent with the values and attitudes amongst which
Spence lived. Such reactions tally with those of her niece; Lucy Morice’s regard for
her aunt was ambivalent. The tone of her memories of Auntie Kate wavers from
amusement to admiration and genuine affection. While Lucy was growing up, her
father, Spence’s brother, was becoming a wealthy and prominent figure in Adelaide.
Shortly before she was married, Lucy Spence was considered an heiress. 41 She may
have echoed her mother’s resentment at Kate’s reliance upon her brother’s interest
and generosity. But she also admired her aunt for her courage, energy and sympathetic
concern for other people. And she loved her for the stories she remembered
being told as a child, for her good humour, simplicity and generosity. 42 These were
the qualities emphasised by Catherine Spence’s biographer, Jeanne Young.
Jeanne Foster Young.
Image courtesy of the State Library of South Australia SLSA: 26285/211.
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