International Women’s Day occurs on the 8 March each year and celebrates the vital role women play in society where difference is valued and celebrated, and diversity, equality and inclusiveness are promoted.
It celebrates the achievements of women, those who came before us, those who stand beside us now, and those who will come after.
As stated in the article by Moira McAlister ‘The Tricky Business of Fact and Fiction’, “most women in the 19th century left little evidence of their life,” so that is why in this issue we celebrate the women of Port Phillip by highlighting several women who overcame hurdles, broke through the barriers of discrimination, bias and stereotypes and whose deeds, however seemingly insignificant at the time, paved the way for a more equal gender world.
MARY ANNE RENOWDEN
(née EADES; born 1845 Geelong—died 1932 Western Australia)
Postmistress
Mary Ann Eades, also known as Mary Cranwell Eades was born in 1845 in Geelong, Victoria the daughter of Samuel Eades and Ellen Eades (nee Kerwan). Mary came from a family of six children. In 1866 she married Zachariah Dawson Wilson in Geelong and they had six children. A Lieutenant with the Victorian Company Department, Wilson died at Warrnambool, Victoria, in 1881 at the age of 46 years.
Mary moved with her family to Silverton, near Broken Hill in New South Wales. In 1886 she married John Oliver Renowden, and had two more children.
John Oliver Renowden was a member of Broken Hill’s first Progress Committee. His sketch of the town pre-settlement is now held at the Broken Hill Railway Museum. When the Committee elected to appoint a postmistress and run a mail coach between Silverton and Mount Gipps, Mary was appointed postmistress. So, from hardship and struggle, Mary Renowden became the first government official in Broken Hill, New South Wales, serving as postmistress from 1 January 1886, with a salary of ten pounds per annum.
Mary left Broken Hill with her family in 1893 to live in Parkerville, Western Australia where she died 6 September 1932.
[http://nla.gov.au/nla.party-716078
ELIZABETH PHILLIPS AUSTIN
(née HARDING; born 14 August 1821 Somerset, England— died 2 September 1910 Winchelsea, Victoria)
Pastoralist and Philanthropist
Elizabeth was the fourth daughter of Robert Harding, a yeoman farmer, and his wife Mary (née Phillips). She sailed for Australia in 1841 with her brother William, who settled in Winchelsea. In 1845 Elizabeth married her neighbour, Thomas Austin, in Melbourne. She had eleven children, three of whom died in infancy. The Austin’s lived at Barwon Park, where they entertained the Duke of Edinburgh in 1867. Embarrassed by their ‘undistinguished homestead’, Elizabeth persuaded her husband to build a new home, and a bluestone mansion was completed by 1871. Thomas Austin passed away shortly afterwards.
According to historian Paul de Serville, Elizabeth Austin – described by grandchildren as a ‘shrewd, determined woman’ – had ‘quietly begun a second career, as a philanthropist’ by 1880. She responded to an appeal to found a hospital for incurables in Melbourne, offering £6,000 (via an intermediary) to launch it. Reputedly, her interest in incurable disease ‘derived from a case among her staff’. On her birthday in 1882, the Austin Hospital for Incurables was opened. She continued to give money for maintenance, and paid for the establishment of a children’s ward in 1898. Austin visited the hospital once a month, and three of her granddaughters served on its committee until the 1960s.
Another major philanthropic gift went to the Austin Homes for Women at South Geelong, built as part of the Jubilee celebrations for Queen Victoria in 1887.
Austin also gave to the Servants’ Training Institute, St Thomas’s Church (Winchelsea), the Ladies’ Benevolent Society and local charities. She was buried in the Geelong cemetery with Anglican rites.
In 2012 Elizabeth Austin was inducted into the Victorian Honour Roll of Women.
[The Australian Women’s Register: https://www.womenaustralia.info/biogs/AWE3970b.htm http://nla.gov.au/nla.party-769066
http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/AS10016b.htm]
CHARLOTTE HARRIS
(née COLE; born 1819 Sudbury, England—died 1898 Glenferrie, Victoria)
Divorcee and Head Teacher
Charlotte Mary COLE was a 21-year-old servant from Middlesex England who arrived in the Port Phillip District on 26 February 1842 on board the Himalaya accompanied by her sister Martha and brothers George and Thomas. Two months after arriving in the colony she marrie Francis HARRIS, a man of dubious character.
Not much is known about their early years together but it is an 1861 newspaper article and her Will dated 1898 that really shines a light on her struggles. According to the Bendigo Advertiser dated 14 October 1861 Charlotte made an application to Mr. Sturt, P.M. [Police Magistrate], in his private office, for protection under the new Divorce Act. The information made by the applicant set forth that she was married to the respondent, Francis Harris, on the 30th of April, 1842, in St. James’s Church, Melbourne, and that about the month of April 1855, he was convicted of uttering several forged cheques, and sentenced, cumulatively, to a period altogether of eleven years’ penal servitude. On the 26th of June, 1861, he obtained a ticket-of- leave for the district of Gipps Land, and left Melbourne without having then or since, contributed anything to the support of the applicant, or settled any property upon her. She had given no just cause for deserting her, and as by her own industry as a schoolmistress she was able to support herself, and had acquired some property, she prayed for the protection of the magistrate against the respondent or any of his creditors. The application was granted.
Records at the PROV show Mrs Charlotte Mary Harris, Teacher Record No. 1301-1600A, resigned aged 46, on 31 December 1868. An attached newspaper article stated that Charlotte had died on 14 June 1898 at her residence in Hawthorn. She devoted herself considerably to charitable deeds in Melbourne and was appointed Governor to the Melbourne Hospital. Despite a difficult beginning she lived a frugal but generous life and left assets to the value of just over £900. Amongst the bequests made in her will were the following; £25 to the Melbourne Hospital, the Little Sisters of the Poor, Northcote and the Benevolent Asylum Melbourne, and £50 to the Church of the Immaculate Heart, Hawthorn. Her remains were interred in the Cheltenham Cemetery on the 16th December 1898 where a headstone was erected by her adopted daughter Mrs A. L. Doyle (Western Australia).
It is worthy of mention that the late Mrs Harris was for 20 years head teacher of St Patrick’s Catholic School, Eastern Hill.
So, from a young servant immigrant, Charlotte Harris made a success of her life in the Port Phillip District by achieving financial independence with the help of the new divorce legislation.
CONTRIBUTED BY DIANNE WHEELER PPPG MEMBER # 1505