Mary Lee - Up and Doing - Women's Suffrage

Women's Suffrage Petition.
Embroidered for Women's Suffrage Centenary by Embroiderer's Guild of SA.
On display at Textiles Exhibition, Adelaide Art Gallery.
Centre is Mary Lee. My great, great, great grandmother!

Women are best being ourselves and allowed to excel!
The South Australian push for votes and Education in the young colony.

https://www.slsa.sa.gov.au/proud-girls-and-determined-women?fbclid=IwY2xjawI4-p5leHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHWWXVpNASIv6EaGtG4RSXMDu3UxGnoRcQo1mnuqoNR6wYa3vm94DtJfcLw_aem_JPG9zFP4YxPo0kuAoO0P8g

Proud Girls and Determined Women South Australia has always prided itself on being a progressive state. In 1894, after a ten year battle, women here were granted the vote, second only after New Zealand which had granted the vote to women a year earlier. However, South Australia also gave females the right to stand for parliament, a...

International Women's Day. Learning about Adelaide Advanced School for Girls. A must watch. I can share the link here soon.

Spread the word. It's International Women's Day and this movie is a fundraising event.
Morning Tea will be served & the Honorable Lady Governess will be attending.
Cake Stall and Raffle Tickets for sale also.
(We're not endorsing the charity as such. It's just for Women's Suffrage promotion. We want more South Aussies to know the world pioneers South Australian Women were!)

Madge and Bibs and The advancing Girls Madge and Bibs and The advancing Girls Oaklands View Club "INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY" The film is “about the Advanced School for Girls and his great-great aunts, former school headmistress Madeline Rees George (known as Madge) and teacher Marian Rees George (Bibs). ‘I’m really using Madeline a...

History Month in May annually is a great time to have historical people and places recognised.
Mary Lee is just one of these people.
She worked tirelessly from the day she set foot in the Colony of South Australia for reforms including justice for abandoned women, women working in colonial sweat shop conditions and getting women the vote.
In fact she gained women just as many rights as their male counterparts.
In a Worldwide First women were allowed to join parliament and stand as a politician in their own right.
This was on December 18th, 1894!
(Reynella looked like this in 1894) SLSA reference.

I attended this dinner for the launch of the book Irish Women of the Antipodes at Norwood Hotel.
https://www.google.com/search?q=irish+women+in+the+antipodes+foregrounded&oq=irish+women+of+the+antipodes&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqCAgCEAAYFhgeMgYIABBFGDkyCAgBEAAYFhgeMggIAhAAGBYYHjINCAMQABiGAxiABBiKBTINCAQQABiGAxiABBiKBTINCAUQABiGAxiABBiKBTINCAYQABiGAxiABBiKBTIKCAcQABiABBiiBDIKCAgQABiiBBiJBTIKCAkQABiABBiiBDIKCAoQABiABBiiBDIKCAsQABiABBiiBNIBCTE4Mjg3ajBqNKgCAbACAQ&client=ms-android-oppo-rvo3&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8

Watching the re-enactment of SA Parliament made on December 18, 2019 of the passing of the Bill in SA Parliament to enfranchise women with the vote + the ability to be voted into Government.
Popcorn, drinks and sweets were included. BONUS!
South Australia was the first place in the world to allow Women to stand for state government election.
Ever wondered what Old Parliament House looks like inside. Here 'tis.
Making SA GREAT!!

Lee, Mary (1821 - 1909)
Born
1821
Monaghan, Ireland
Died
1909
North Adelaide, Australia
Occupation - Labour Movement Activist and Suffragist
Alternative Names
Walsh, Mary (Maiden, 1821 - 1844)
Written by Patricia Grimshaw, The University of Melbourne

Mary Lee was a notable leader in the South Australian suffrage movement and a worker for working women. Mary Lee was born Mary Walsh in Ireland in 1821. She married George Lee in 1844, bore seven children, and in 1879 travelled to Adelaide when her migrant son became ill; it became her permanent home.

Lee's first activism centred on the ladies' committee of the Social Purity Society that fought for improvements in laws relating to child labour, young women's employment and the age of consent. She served as secretary of the Working Women's Trade Union League from its foundation in 1890, and attended meetings of the Trades and Labour Council. Lee also Committee and the Adelaide Sick Poor Fund. She helped form the Women's Suffrage League of South Australia in 1888, serving as secretary and collaborating with the president, Augusta Zadow, a German-born suffragist who was a trained tailoress and similarly linked her pressure for the vote to better conditions for working women. Invigorated by the New Zealand suffrage victory in 1893, Mary Lee, like a number of Woman's Christian Temperance Union activists, travelled all over the colony to obtain signatures for a suffrage petition. With 11,600 signatures, the petition was presented to parliament before the successful Act granting women the vote and right to stand for parliament passed in 1894. A widow, with no surviving children, Lee died in 1909.
*edited - Mary Lee died with her daughter Evelyn at her side and other children spread across many continents. More information to come.