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.