Our Centenary of Women’s Suffrage
Dr William Maloney versus Sir Malcolm McEacharn 1
Who would Vida vote for?
'When Cr Jeffries, the deputy returning officer in charge of the polling booth for the Lonsdale division of the city, arrived at the booth at St. James’s School, Bourke-street west, at 7.20 am, he was surprised to see awaiting his coming a well dressed lady, who informed him that she wanted to vote. “What name?” queried the officer, as he unlocked the door. “Goldstein – Vida Goldstein,” was the answer. Cr Jefferies directed the Senate candidate to a seat, where she sat quietly until the Post Office clock banged out the hour of 8 am, and before the carillons had ceased their jangle the first vote ever cast by a woman in Victoria under the Commonwealth Franchise Act had been cast by the first Victorian candidate for the Federal Parliament.' The Age, 17 December 1903
For the Senate presumably she would follow her own slogan ‘Vote for three men and one woman’.
For the House of Representatives she had a choice – Sir Malcolm McEacharn or Dr William Maloney. Both were strong personalities, and both had contested the same seat of Melbourne at the first Federal election in 1901.
- Unless otherwise acknowledged, biographical material drawn from the following: Dunstan, D 1986, ’McEacharn, Sir Malcolm Donald (1852-1910)’, in B Nairn and G Serle (General Editors) Australian Dictionary of Biography, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, vol. X pp. 263-264; Obituaries in The Age and The Argus; Other material from contemporary reports in The Age and The Argus.
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