Beadle, Jean (1868 - 1942)

After being exposed to ‘sweated labour’ conditions while working in the Melbourne clothing industry during the 1880s, Jean Beadle was inspired to dedicate her life to the betterment of conditions for women and children. Known as the ‘The Grand Old Lady of the Labor Party,’ she was a founding member of the Women’s Political and Social Crusade and the Labor Women’s Organization in Victoria (1898), Fremantle (1905) and Goldfields (1906). She was also a delegate to the Eastern Goldfields District Council of the State Australian Labor Party. Beadle was one of the first women appointed as a Justice of the Peace in Western Australia, sitting for many years on the Married Women’s Court. She was later appointed to serve as an honorary Justice on the bench of the Children’s Courts. An official visitor to the women’s section of the Fremantle Prison, Beadle also was instrumental in the building of the King Edward Memorial Hospital for Women. She was secretary, of the King Edward Memorial Hospital Advisory Board, from 1921 until her death. In recognition of her dedicated service the hospital annually awards a Jean Beadle scholarship.

• Miller, Jane (Jean) (maiden name, 1 January 1868 - )

Events

1892	Organized a Victorian relief committee for the Broken Hill strikers
1898	Founding member of the first Labor Women's Organization in Australia
February 1898 - 1901	Vice-president of Women's Political and Social Crusade
1901	Jean with her husband, Harry, and family move to Western Australia
October 1905	Founding member of the first Western Australian Women's Political and Social Crusade (later the Women's Labor League) at Fremantle
December 1906 - 1911	Founding president of the Goldfields Women's Labor League
1912	President of the first Labor Women's Conference
1915 - 1929	Honorary justice on the Children's Court Bench
1919 - 1942	Justice of the Peace
1921 - 1942	Secretary of the King Edward Memorial Hospital Advisory Board
October 1927	Presided over the second Labor Women's conference
1930 - 1935	President of the Perth Women's Branch of the Australian Labor Party
1930 - 1938	President of the Women Justices' Association
1931	Invited by the Labor Women's Organisation to stand for Labor pre-selection for the Senate (unsuccessful)

Membership

• Women's Service Guilds of Western Australia (1909 - 1997)

  Long-serving Executive member

Book Sections

• Birman, Wendy and Wood, Evelyn, 'Beadle, Jane (1868-1942)', in Australian Dictionary of Biography, vol. 7, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, Vic., 1979, pp. 223-224. [ Details... ]
• Joyce, Robin R., 'Feminism: an early tradition amongst Western Australian Labor Women', in Women and Labour Publications Collective (eds), All Her Labours Working It Out, vol. 1, Hale & Iremonger, Marrickville, 1984. [ Details... ]
• Joyce, Robin R., 'Labor Women: Political Housekeepers or Politicians?', in Simms, Marian (ed.), Australian Women and the Political System, Longman Cheshire, Melbourne, 1984. [ Details... ]
• Oliver, Bobbie, ''A Truly great Australian woman' : Jean Beadle's work among Western Australian women and children, 1901-1942', in Crawford, Patricia and Skene, Judy (eds), Women and citizenship suffrage centenary, University of Western Australia Press, Nedlands, WA, 1999, pp. 87-98. [ Details... ]

Theses

• Joyce, Robin R., 'Feminism in Labor Women's Organisations 1905 to 1917', Hons thesis, 1979. [ Details... ]
• Joyce, Robin R., 'Women's Labour: Women's Power?', MA thesis, 1999. [ Details... ]

See also

• Daniels, Kay, Uphill all the way, University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, Qld, 1980, 335 pp. [ Details... ]
• Kerr, R, ''Potential inefficients at best, criminal at worst': The girl problem and juvenile delinquency in Western Australia 1907-1933.', in Proceedings Western Australian Institute for Educational Research Forum 1998, Western Australian Institute for Educational Research, 29 August 1998, http://education.curtin.edu.au/waier/forums/1998/kerr.html. [ Details... ]
• Oliver, Bobbie, '' In the thick of every battle for the cause of Labor' : the voluntary work of the Labor women's organisations in Western Australia, 1900-1970', vol. 81, November 2001, 2001, pp. 93-108. [ Details... ]