National Council of Women of Victoria (1902 - )

Officially founded in 1902, with Janet Lady Clarke as president, and continuing today, the National Council of Women of Victoria is an umbrella organisation for a large and diverse number of affiliated Victorian women’s groups. It functions as a political lobby group, attempting to influence local, state and federal government. Like all National Councils of Women, it operates though a standing committee system whereby specific issues are brought before the Council and, if there is general agreement that a question should be taken up, a subcommittee is established to investigate the matter.
Until the 1940s at least, the Council was a major focal point for women’s activism.

Its initial aims were:
1. To establish a bond of union between the various affiliated societies.
2. To advance the interests of women and children and of humanity in general.
3. To confer on questions relating to the welfare of the family, the State and the Commonwealth.’

While encompassing a diverse range of organisations, the Council emerged as a largely middle-class women’s organisation especially in terms of its office bearers.

Although not always an overtly feminist organisation, the NCWV drew on the conviction that women had a special contribution to make to public life and the formulation of social policy. They were thus concerned with a wide array of social reform issues** as well as those more directly related to the legal and social status of women. It also drew on notions of gender unity and international sisterhood.

[Kate Gray, ‘The Acceptable Face of Feminism: the national Council of Women, 1902-1918’, MA thesis, University of Melbourne, 1988.]

All National Councils of Women, and the International Council of Women, operate though a standing committee system. The process was for specific issues to be brought before the Council by individual delegates. Often the issues were of special interest to one or more affiliated organisations, who may have been working unsuccessfully on them for some time. Once it appeared from preliminary discussions that there was general agreement that a question should be taken up, a subcommittee was established to investigate the matter and draw up recommendations on which the Council could act. The first subcommittee formed in 1902 on the introduction of Police matrons in city and suburban lockups. Other early committees concerned themselves with the establishment of a colony for epileptics, with children playgrounds and with street lighting. Latter standing committees included: Arts and Letters; Child and Family; Education; Health; Home Economics; Internal Relations and Peace; Laws; Mass Media; Social Welfare; Women and Employment; Migration.

From at least 1919, they advocated equal pay for equal work - [Norris, p. 41] but it was not until 1954 that active steps were taken by the Council to promote wage equality for women [Norris, p. 46]

Founded

• Goldstein, Vida (1869 - 1949)

Member

• Ellis, Constance (1872 - 1942)

  Member of the health committee and reported on the operation of the Commonwealth maternity allowances scheme in 1921

  [1902 - 1942]

• Glencross, Eleanor (1876 - 1950)

  Executive member

  [1918 - 1928]

• McEwan, Kathleen (Kitty) Agnes Rose (1894 - 1969)

  honorary publicity officer and an executive member

• Reader, Audrey Tattie Hinchcliffe (1903 - 1989)

  [1955 - 1989]

• Russell, Delia Constance (1870 - 1938)

  Executive member

President

• Alley, Diane Berenice (1927 - )

  [1977 - 1979]

• Baker, Alice (1855 - 1935)

  [1919 - 1920]

• Baylor, Gracia (1929 - )

  [1990 - 1993]

• Breen, Marie Freda (1902 - 1993)

  [1955 - 1957]

• Brookes, Ivy (1883 - 1970)

  [1938 - 1945]

• Clarke, Janet Marion, Lady (1851 - 1909)

  [1902 - 1909]

• Glencross, Eleanor (1876 - 1950)

  [1927 - 1928]

• Hallenstein, Phillipa May (1918 - )

  [1968 - 1970]

• Kumm, Frances Gertrude
• Moss, Alice Frances Mabel (1868 - 1948)

  [1928 - 1938]

• Norris, Ada May (1901 - 1989)

  [1951 - 1954]

• Skene, Lillias Margaret (1867 - 1957)

  [1924 - 1927]

Secretary

• Barrett, Edith Helen (1872 - 1939)

  [1911 - 1915]

• Downing, Cecilia (1858 - 1952)

  [Honorary secretary]

  [1928 - 1936]

Superior

• National Council of Women of Australia (1931 - )

  [1931 - ]

Related Corporate Bodies

• The Austral Salon of Music, Literature and the Arts (1890 - )

  represented at the inaugural meeting held on 19 March 1902

• Gentlewomen's Aid Society (1894 - 1989)

  represented at the inaugural meeting held on 19 March 1902

• Housewives Association of Victoria (1915 - )
• Melbourne Ladies Benevolent Society (1845 - 1983)
• The Melbourne Society of Women Painters and Sculptors (1902 - )
• Princess Ida Club (1888 - 1915)

  One of the 35 founding organisations

  [1902 - 1915]

• Queen Victoria Hospital (1896 - 1977)

  represented at the inaugural meeting held on 19 March 1902

• Victorian Medical Women's Society (1896 - )
• The Woman's Christian Temperance Union of Victoria (1885 - )

  represented at the inaugural meeting held on 19 March 1902

Related Events

• Australia Day Women's Ceremony

  [1961 - ]

Related People

• Brennan, Anna Teresa (1879 - 1962)

  Represented the Princess Ida Club

  [1912 - ]

• Laby, Elizabeth (Beth) Bartleman (1913 - 2001)

  Laby was a delegate for the Home Economics Association of Victoria

  [1984 - 1991]

• Oke, Marjorie (Marj) Elizabeth (1911 - 2003)

  In 1991 she was one of three women honoured at the 90th Anniversay dinner

• Speedie, Alice Beatrice (c. 1879 - 1955)

  Delegate to the Youth Problems of Today committee

Books

• From Vision to Reality: Histories of the affiliates of the National Council of Women of Victoria, YWCA, Melbourne, 1987, 252 pp. [ Details... ]
• Forty years on : women still pioneering : a collection of speeches from the Australia Day Women's Ceremony, Pioneer Women's Garden, King's Domain, Melbourne, National Council of Women of Victoria, Melbourne, 2002, 66 pp. [ Details... ]
• Gillan, Helen E (comp.), A Brief history of the National Council of Women of Victoria, 1902-1945, Spectator Publishing, Melbourne, 1945. [ Details... ]
• National Council of Women of Victoria Inc., Valuing the volunteers : An anthology for the International Year of Volunteers 2001, National Council of Australian Women Inc., Melbourne, 2001, 100 pp. [ Details... ]
• National Council of Women of Victoria Inc., Regional branches, 1927-2002, [National Council of Women of Victoria Inc.], Melbourne, 2002, 25 pp. [ Details... ]
• Norris, Ada, Champions of the impossible : a history of the National Council of Women of Victoria, 1902-1977, Hawthorn Press, Melbourne, 1978, 221 pp. [ Details... ]
• Penrose, Patricia, Nine decades, P Penrose, Melbourne, 1997. [ Details... ]

Conference Proceedings

• National Council of Women of Victoria (ed.), Women at work conference, Melbourne, 1969. [ Details... ]

Reports

• National Council of Women of Victoria, Annual report. [ Details... ]

Theses

• Foley, Meredith, 'The Women's Movement in the New South Wales and Victoria, 1918-1938', PhD thesis, University of Sydney, 1986. [ Details... ]
• Gray, Kate, 'The Acceptable face of feminism : National Council of Women, 1902-1918', MA thesis, University of Melbourne, 1988. [ Details... ]

See also

• Kelly, Farley, 'The 'Woman Question' in Melbourne, 1880-1914', PhD thesis, Monash University, 1983. [ Details... ]
• National Council of Women of Victoria, Geelong Branch, 50 years 1944-1994, Geelong, Vic., 1994, 18 pp. [ Details... ]
• The Health Association of Australasia in conjunction with the National Council of Women of Victoria, Hints for the busy housewife, Ramsay Publishing, Melbourne, [1938?]. [ Details... ]