4 June 2017 - Edith Dircksey Cowan (1861-1932)

Edith Dircksey Cowan

 (1861-1932)

G'day folks,

Welcome to some facts about Edith Dircksey Cowan, OBE who was an Australian politician, social campaigner and the first woman elected to an Australian parliament.

Edith Dircksey Cowan (1861-1932), social worker and politician, was born on 2 August 1861 at Glengarry near Geraldton, Western Australia, second child of Kenneth Brown, pastoralist and son of early York settlers Thomas and Eliza Brown, and his first wife Mary Eliza Dircksey Wittenoom, a teacher and the daughter of the colonial chaplain, J. B. Wittenoom. Edith's mother died in childbirth in 1868 and she went to a Perth boarding school run by the Misses Cowan, sisters of her future husband; she completed her education with Canon Sweeting, ex-headmaster of Bishop Hale's School. Her adolescence was shattered in 1876 by the ordeal of her father's trials and hanging for the murder, that year, of his second wife. These experiences made her a solitary person, committed nevertheless to social reforms which enhanced women's dignity and responsibility and which secured proper care for mothers and children.

On 12 November 1879 in St George's Cathedral Edith married James Cowan, registrar and master of the Supreme Court. His appointment in 1890 as Perth police magistrate gave them permanent social and economic security and gave her an insight into the wider society's social problems. They had four daughters and a son between 1880 and 1891.

In the 1890s Edith Cowan became involved in voluntary organizations: she was the Karrakatta Women's Club's first secretary in 1894 and later vice-president and president. There Perth's leading women mastered public speaking and shared their reading on health, literature and women's rights: Cowan's included Olive Schreiner, J. S. Mill and Charlotte Perkins Stetson (Gilman). A state education advocate, she served several terms on the North Fremantle Board of Education, one of the few public offices then open to women. She worked with the Ministering Children's League (from 1891) and the House of Mercy for unmarried mothers (Alexandra Home for Women) from 1894. A foundation member of the Children's Protection Society in 1906, she pioneered its 1909 day nursery for working mother's children. The society was instrumental in the passing of the State Children Act, 1907, which set up the Children's Court. She was among the first women appointed to its bench in 1915; also an early woman justice of the peace (1920), she constantly urged the appointment of women to such positions.

Cowan was an initiator of the Women's Service Guild in 1909 and was vice-president to 1917 when she resigned. Amongst other work, the guild undertook the fund-raising, public meetings and government lobbying, in which she was prominent, which led finally to the opening of the King Edward Memorial Hospital for Women in 1916. She was secretary of the new hospital's advisory board. In 1911 she was prominent in the creation of the Western Australian National Council of Women; she was its president in 1913-21 and vice-president until her death. She was a foundation member of Co-Freemasonry in her State in 1916, and the first female member of the Anglican Social Questions Committee from 1916 and a co-opted member of synod from 1923.

Up to 1915 the many women's organizations co-operated confidently and harmoniously, with the same people prominent in several of them, like Cowan, Lady James, Jane ('Jean') Beadle, and Bessie Rischbieth and Roberta Jull. After a bitter controversy that year over amendments to the Health Act concerning venereal disease, the movement split: the National Council of Women and a group around Cowan, who supported the clauses recommending compulsory notification; and a more radical group around Rischbieth and the Women's Service Guild. The rift between these two women was never healed.

Cowan went overseas in 1903 and 1912 to Britain and Europe, and in 1925 to the United States of America as an Australian delegate to the sixth convention of the International Council. During World War I, already heavily engaged in social welfare, she took on a wide range of war work for which she was appointed O.B.E. in 1920. Immediately after the war women's organizations renewed their efforts for civic rights, as part of 'the full democratic re-generation of the world', and in 1920 legislation ended the legal bar to women entering parliament. In the 1921 elections Cowan was one of five women candidates. As an endorsed Nationalist for the Legislative Assembly seat of West Perth, she opposed an independent Nationalist and T. P. Draper, the sitting Nationalist attorney-general in Sir James Mitchell's government. The electorate had a majority of women on the roll, but was solidly wealthy with a few potential Labor voters. She campaigned on her community service record, the need for law and order, and for women in parliament 'to nag a little' on social issues. She narrowly defeated Draper to become the first woman member of an Australian parliament.

Cowan used her term to promote migrant welfare, infant health centres and women's rights: she 'was convinced of the necessity of motherhood endowment', even defended the idea, in parliament, of a housewives' union, and continued to press for sex education in state schools. The Women's Legal Status Act, which she introduced in 1923 as a private member, opened the legal profession to women. She had taken seriously the wartime Nationalist claim to be a non-party organization, and voted sometimes with the government and sometimes with the Opposition, impressing neither. In the 1924 elections West Perth business interests stood a strong candidate in T. A. L. Davy. A Labor candidate and the continuing conflict between the two major women's organizations further depleted her support and she lost. She failed again in 1927.

Cowan was a founder of the (Royal) Western Australian Historical Society in 1926 and contributed to its journal—her daughter Dircksey was its first keeper of records. She was active in planning the State's 1929 centenary celebrations. Until her last illness she maintained her committee and social work. Survived by her husband (d.18 October 1937), she died on 9 June 1932 and was buried in the Anglican section of Karrakatta cemetery. She left an estate of £161. Colleagues erected a clock tower memorial at the King's Park gates to indicate her place as 'one of Australia's greatest women'. She had led a group of forceful articulate women who made the Western Australian women's movement a model; while she shared its concern with purity, temperance and ameliorative social work, she gave it her own rational analysis of issues and an austere dedication. Her portrait is in the Western Australian Art Gallery.

 Clancy's comment: Another outstanding woman who was ahead of her time. 

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19 March 2017 - HERBERT VERE EVATT

HERBERT VERE EVATT

G'day folks,

Herbert Vere Evatt, KC KStJ, usually known as H. V. Evatt or Bert Evatt, and often as "Doc" Evatt on account of his Doctor of Laws degree, was an Australian judge, lawyer, parliamentarian and writer.

Childhood and education

Herbert Vere Evatt, known as Bert, was born on 30 April 1894 in East Maitland, NSW, the fifth son of a publican, John Evatt, and his wife Jeanie. John Evatt died when Bert was seven leaving him to play a major role in the upbringing of his three younger brothers. Two of them, Ray and Frank, were killed in the First World War. Their deaths had a profound effect on Bert and brought home to him at an early age the tragedy of war.

Evatt was educated at Fort Street High School, Sydney, and the University of Sydney. He was a brilliant scholar and attained the degress of B.A. (triple first-class honours and University Medal), M.A., LL.B. (first class honours and University Medal), LL.D. and D. Litt.

Early career and marriage

He was admitted to the Sydney bar in 1918, taking silk in 1929.

In 1920 Evatt married Mary Alice Sheffer, a student of Architecture, and the daughter of an American businessman. Mary Alice had come to Australia as a small child and she was to remain Evatt's constant companion.

Evatt joined the Labor Party in 1925, entering NSW State Parliament as the MLA for Balmain.

High Court

He left state politics when in 1930, at the age of 36, he was appointed a justice of the High Court of Australia, the youngest person to be appointed to such a position. Evatt quickly distinguished himself as a brilliant and liberal judge and a respected author in the fields of law and history.

Parliamentary career

In 1940 Evatt resigned from the High Court, standing as a federal Labor Party candidate and winning the Sydney seat of Barton at the elections of the same year. When Labor gained power under John Curtin in 1941, Evatt was appointed Attorney-General and Minister for External Affairs. From 1946 to 1949 he was Deputy Prime Minister to Ben Chifley.

During the war years Evatt led many important overseas missions for the Australian government. He was instrumental in bringing home Australian troops from the Middle East and in securing military aircraft to support Australia's war effort in the Pacific. During his years as Minister for External Affairs, Evatt completely reorganized the department and laid the foundations for an active and independent Australian foreign policy. He championed the cause of the smaller nations having a voice, alongside the great powers, on questions of international and global significance.

International activities and United Nations

He was a member of the San Francisco Conference in 1945 which drew up the United Nations Charter and the leader of the Australian delegation to the Paris Peace Conference in 1946.

Evatt was Chairman of the Far Eastern Commission, USA, 1945; President of the South Pacific Regional Conference, Canberra, 1947; and Chairman of the British Commonwealth Conference on the Japanese Peace Treaty, 1947.

Evatt led the Australian delegation to the United Nations in 1946, 1947 and 1948 and was elected President of the General Assembly at its Third Session from 1948-49. He was the first chairman of the UN Atomic Energy Commission and chairman of the Palestine Commission.

Opposition years

In 1949 Labor lost the federal election to R.G. Menzies and the Liberal Party and the rest of Evatt's parliamentary life was spent in opposition.

In 1950 Menzies introduced the Communist Party Dissolution Bill which gave power to the government to publicly declare any citizen a Communist and to bar him or her from holding office in a range of public organizations, including trade unions. Evatt successfully contested this Act in the High Court where it was declared unconstitutional.

When Chifley died in June 1951, Evatt was elected the new leader of the Labor Party and held this position throughout a tumultuous period of Australian political history. Evatt successfully campaigned for the "No" vote in the Referendum of September 1951 in which the Menzies Government sought to ban the Communist Party of Australia.

Petrov Affair

In 1954 the defection to Australia of a senior Soviet diplomat, Vladimir Petrov, and the subsequent Royal Commission into Espionage revived fears of Communism and the Soviet Union in the Australian electorate and contributed to the defeat of the ALP in the 1954 Federal elections. The split which occurred in the ALP in the mid 1950s and which led to the formation of the Democratic Labor Party weakened the ALP's chances of regaining power.

Post-political career

In 1960 Evatt retired from politics and took up the position of Chief Justice of New South Wales. Ill health forced him to retire in 1962. He died in Canberra on 2 November, 1965, aged 71.

  

Clancy's comment: An imposing man with much talent. As a child, I recall being a witness to the arrest of Petrov as we travelled to church one Sunday morning. It was a case of right spot, right time.

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