Smyth
The name/s on this page were taken from the 1891 Women's Suffrage Petition. We encourage you to edit this page to add information or make corrections.
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H Smyth of 43 Gertrude St Fitzroy
See Biography Page for H Smyth
This person used this address when signing the Women's Suffrage petition in 1891. Log in to edit this section.
Mrs J B Smyth of Oxley Road
See Biography Page for Brettena Smyth
In 1873 Brettena Smyth, a recently - widowed mother of four children, closed the family greengrocery in Errol Street in North Melbourne. Instead she opened a drapery and druggist's shop, which became a landmark in the struggle for womens's rights. The shop was the venue for meetings of the Australian Women's Suffrage Society in the 1880s and 1890s and more controversially, the source of birth control advice and 'preventatives' for Melbourne women.
Smyth became one of Melbourne's most prominent activists in the feminist cause. At almost six feet tall (two metres), she was also the most recognizable. A member of the first Austalian suffrage organisation, the Victorian Women's Suffrage Society, she left that organisation in1888 to found the Australian Women's Suffrage Society, after some members found her ideas on birth control objectionable.
Smyth recognised that access to artificial contraception, which could be 'used without the knowledge of the husband', was as liberating as the power of the vote.
Smyth died in1898 and her organisation did not long survive her. Other organisations such as the Victorian Women's Franchise League (backed by the Women's Christian Temperance Union) and the United Council for Women's Suffrage, led by Vida Goldstein, took the suffrage campaign into the twentieth century.
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(Information courtesy of PROV researcher Helen Harris)
(Images courtesy of Melbourne Library Service Local History Collection)
M T Smyth of Shepparton
See Biography Page for M T Smyth
This person used this address when signing the Women's Suffrage petition in 1891. Log in to edit this section.
S C Smyth of Albert Street Daylesford
See Biography Page for S C Smyth
This person used this address when signing the Women's Suffrage petition in 1891. Log in to edit this section.
S H Smyth of Albert Street Daylesford
See Biography Page for S H Smyth
This person used this address when signing the Women's Suffrage petition in 1891. Log in to edit this section.
Mrs Smyth of 43 Gertrude St Fitzroy
See Biography Page for Mrs Smyth
This person used this address when signing the Women's Suffrage petition in 1891. Log in to edit this section.
See the Editing Women's Petition information page for help on updating information and correcting transcription errors.
See the List of 1891 Women's Suffrage petition signatories for some other stories of these women.
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