- Born
- 26 June 1839
Chesterfield, Derbyshire, England - Died
- 22 January 1917
Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia - Occupation
- Women's rights activist, Union organiser and Suffragist
- Alternative Names
- Calderwood, Emma (former married name, 30 August 1874 - 21 October 1886)
- Holmes, Emma (maiden name, 26 June 1839 - 15 September 1857)
- Silcock, Emma (former married name, 15 September 1857 - 30 August 1874)
Summary
Emma Miller was foundation president of the Woman’s Equal Franchise Association between 1894 and 1905. The vote for women in Queensland State elections was finally won in 1905; women had had the right to vote in Federal elections since Federation, and voted for the first time in the 1903 Federal election. On 2 February 1912, known as Black Friday, at the height of a general strike, Miller led a contingent of women to Parliament House, avoiding police with fixed bayonets. The women were charged by baton swinging police on their return from Parliament House. Miller reputedly stuck her hatpin into a horse ridden by the Police Commissioner, Patrick Cahill. Cahill fell from his horse and claimed to have been permanently injured. Direct political action was not Miller’s only cause. She was anti-militarist and opposed conscription in World War I. She believed that ‘those who make the quarrel should be the only ones to fight’. As vice-president of the Women’s Peace Army, Miller attended the Peace Alliance Conference in Melbourne in 1916. She also fought hard for free speech and civil liberties. During the First World War, Miller preached equal pay to those fearing that women would take the jobs of men away at the war.
