Matt Burnell (Spence, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise in this place just over 79 years to the day that Enid Lyons and Dorothy Tangney entered through the doors of Old Parliament House. I note the member for Tangney in the chamber today. These were two incredible women—Enid Lyons was the first woman elected to this place, and Dorothy Tangney was the first woman elected to the other place. I am speaking today in honour of another trailblazing woman, Catherine Helen Spence. Like Dorothy Tangney and Enid Lyons, Catherine Helen Spence has the auspicious honour of having one of the 151 electorates named after her, namely the division of Spence, which I have the privilege to represent in this place.

Born in Scotland 1825, she moved to South Australia in 1839 with her family. She was a governess, a novelist and an advocate of the suffrage movement. Her first passion was that of writing, with her novel Clara Morison the first novel set in Australia that was written by a woman.

She was a considerable advocate for women's education, playing a vital role in the establishment of the Advanced School for Girls in 1870. This school was at the time the only public academic school preparing women for entrance to the University of Adelaide. Later, she served as vice-president of the Women's Suffrage League from 1891 to 1894, the year that the South Australian colony granted women the right to vote. Unfortunately, in March 1897, she would be unsuccessful in her attempt to become Australia's first female political candidate.