Our Centenary of Women’s Suffrage
Things that happened: They must be true, they were all in the papers
Making sure
In Melbourne Vida Goldstein arrived at the polling booth for the Lonsdale division at 7.20 am. She was the first to enter and cast her vote, as the Post Office clock banged out the hour of 8 am. In Sydney ‘Mr Dugald Thompson’s sister’ was one of the first to vote (he was the unopposed candidate for North Sydney); Miss Agnes Robertson, the only surviving sister of Sir John Robertson, at age 83, exercised her franchise at 8.15 am in the morning. In the Valley (Brisbane) two ladies were waiting to exercise their votes at a quarter to eight, and they were the first to record their votes.
A family occasion
Many women brought their small children with them to the polling booths. In some electorates women’s committees had made arrangements for looking after children while mothers voted. Outside other polling centres there were always a few go-carts and perambulators, with the baby consoled by a ‘comforter’ and a brother or sister of four or six standing by as sentry. ‘Many ladies openly contravened the law that they should enter the voting compartment alone’ – they took their babies with them. As another report remarked, the babies seemed very adaptable, and this practice caused no great inconvenience to anyone but the mothers themselves.
Occasionally the indispensable constable stationed at the polling booth was asked to hold the baby. Older children, of two or three years, could cause more disturbance, by loudly demanding the ‘boo pencil’ mother was writing with.
There were several incidents concerning wives and husbands. In South Brisbane the presiding officer approached a man winking and laughing at a woman as she voted. The spectator responded that he was looking at his old woman, who had never voted before. ‘It is the first time in my life that I have seen her nervous.’ After she had completed the process, the lady responded with a crushing look. At a Melbourne booth, husband and wife showed each other their papers before putting them in the ballot box. The wife appeared unhappy with her husband’s choices and declared that she would ‘tell Katie to come down this afternoon and vote for Vida Goldstein, just to spite you. There now! See if I don’t.’ A more troublesome incident concerned a man the worse for liquor, who accompanied his wife into the booth, and drunkenly maintained his right to instruct his wife to vote in what he considered the right way. After several warnings, the deputy returning officer gave him one minute to get out of the booth or be arrested, and called a policeman. The man went out.
As reported in the Brisbane Courier, a lady voted once, and then came in again. When queried by an official as to how it was she wanted to vote again, she claimed that she had another vote. The puzzled official asked for an explanation, and the lady replied: ‘Well, I was not married when the constable took my name and put my name on the roll. I am now Mrs.----, and when I was married I sent in my name again and got it on again.’ She was a little surprised to learn that provision had not been made for double voting, even as a reward for matrimony.
Delivering the votes
Another new feature at the election, noted in The Age, was the use of motor cars, driven by supporters of the various candidates, to bring voters to the booths. ‘The vehicles did useful service throughout the day, and the only mishap recorded overtook one of the machines which was being driven on its last trip at a rate which came perilously near to being “furious” when something went wrong with the works. A couple of ladies were aboard, and it wanted but four minutes to 7pm. A distance of about 50 yards lay between the fair voters and the booth – in Collins Street – but, urged on by the motor driver, the pair, discarding the conveyance, made a hot pace over the intervening footway and entered the booth with fully a minute to spare.’
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