A great step forward for woman

From http://www.wilsonsalmanac.com/book/jun12.html: June 12, 1902 The first place in the world to give women the right to vote and stand for election.

Australia's Commonwealth Franchise Act came into force, second in the world after New Zealand (which gave women the right to vote not not be elected), giving all women the right to vote in federal elections but excluding 'aboriginal natives of Australia, Asia, Africa or the Islands of the Pacific except New Zealand' unless they already had the vote at State level (as stipulated in S 41 of the Constitution). South Australia had already won, on December 18, 1894, the first rights in the world for women to vote and stand for election – 24 years before Britain, 26 years before the USA, and 75 years before Switzerland. (South Australian women first voted on April 25, 1896.)

The women's vote was gained in Australia by the untiring efforts of some men and many women, including Maybanke Anderson, Rose Scott, Emma Miller, Vida Goldstein and Louisa Lawson (mother of national poet Henry Lawson and called by Rose Scott 'the Mother of Women's Suffrage') ...

Find more about these remarkable people at http://www.wilsonsalmanac.com/lawsons/lawson_chronology.html



A world chronology of women's electoral rights

Categories: women, history, australia, womens-rights, suffragism