Saluting a vigorous street life: Melbourne

Federation Square is Melbourne's main meeting place.

“What do you like best about Melbourne?” a friend asked me. I think the answer has to be the energetic and energizing activity on the streets.

My second morning here I participated in a tour led by a volunteer with the Melbourne Greeter Service. http://www.thatsmelbourne.com.au/visitors/services/greeter/Pages/GreeterService.aspx

One of the tour stops was in Hosier Lane. This and other lanes are filled with ever changing street art.

Creating street art in Hosier Lane.

The same weekend a two day art event featured a display in Federation Square, the main downtown meeting place where something is always happening.

Bed Square in Federation Square, part of Mel+Art event.

Other days in Fed Square I saw various promotions for fitness and sport including a touring display of the Asian Cup for football (soccer) to be contested in January 2015 in Australia. 

The cup tour was billed as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for fans to see and be photographed with the AFC Asian Cup. Not being sports oriented, I didn’t get a photo of it but another day did get one of a Zumba dance demo that people eagerly joined in.

Zumba demo attracts participants. 

Two days after the visit of the Asian cup, a crowd gathered across the street outside Flinders Street Station to see Australian race driver Daniel Ricciardo promoting the Australian Grand Prix to be held in Melbourne in March.

Driver Daniel Ricciardo promotes the Australian Grand Prix.

This being the Christmas season, there are almost daily outdoor performances by various local choirs.

Carols by a school choir.

What if it rains or the sun is just too hot? At Fed Square there is covered, open space in the Atrium. One day I heard a gospel choir there and another day watched a graceful Chinese exercise class. I also saw a group of women crocheting poppies in preparation for Anzac Day in April.

Volunteers crochet poppies for Anzac Day 2105.

Bourke Street is a pedestrian mall except for the trams that travel it and Melbourne’s large Chinatown is also bustling with activity. Many lanes reveal numerous cafes and shops, some quite tiny.

Even on a rainy day cafes in the lanes are busy.

The streets are packed with people almost all day and numerous buskers ply their trade. So far it’s never dull on the streets of Melbourne’s city centre.

One of the gates to Chinatown.

Recognizing bold women

As I travel I am drawn to women’s history.

Women are persons - 1929 Canadian victory.

Currently exploring Melbourne, Australia, I was delighted to discover the Pioneer Women’s Memorial Garden in King’s Domain. Established in 1934 as part of the city’s centenary celebrations, the garden acknowledges the contributions of women to the early development of the state of Victoria. Gardens and history, two of my favourite interests, in one place.

Melbourne's Pioneer Women’s Memorial Garden.

Also in Melbourne I learned more about Australian and Victorian history at the Old Treasury Building, which houses gold vaults from the gold rush era as well as rare and historic documents from the Public Records Office (state archives). 

Australia’s first women’s suffrage organization was formed in 1884 by Henrietta Dugdale and Annie Lowe. The Old Treasury Building has on display the 1891 Victorian Women’s Suffrage Petition, aka the Monster Petition, with nearly 30,000 signatures supporting women’s right to vote. The petition was entered into the UNESCO Australian Memory of the World Register in 2008. Australian women gained the right to vote in federal elections in 1902.

1891 Victorian Women’s Suffrage Petition.

In Ottawa, Canada recently, I visited the sculptures on Parliament Hill commemorating The Persons’ Case which acknowledges the 1929 legal victory of a group of Alberta women who had struggled for years for women to be appointed to the Canadian Senate. 

While women had the right to vote in Canadian federal elections from 1919 and the first woman, Agnes McPhail, was elected to the House of Commons in 1921, the Canadian government had continued to deny women’s right of appointment to the Senate. 

Canada's Famous Five sculpture on Parliament Hill, Ottawa.

The British Privy Council, the last court of appeal at the time, overturned the previous ruling of Canada’s Supreme Court, stating that the word persons in The British North America Act of 1867 includes women, thus making them eligible to sit in the Senate. 

Judge Emily Murphy, Henrietta Muir Edwards, Louise McKinney, Nellie McLung, and Irene Parlby became known as the Famous Five and the Persons’ Case had broader implications for women’s right to participate fully in public life. 

This entry is dedicated to the memory of my late mother Betty who was her own woman in her own quiet way.