Blaze e-catalogue - Catalog - Page 96
Rose Scott
1847-1925
Social reformer
and penal reformer
Rose Scott’s high profile role in the social, cultural
and political circles of the state’s elite, and her
leading role in the NSW suffrage movement,
gave her almost celebrity status.
“Her life was dominated by the
ideal of human service. She
made her furrow, and followed
it to the end with a singleness
of purpose that is an inspiration
to women of today.”
Millicent Preston Stanley in ‘Triumphs for Women:
One’s achievements’, Sun, 12 April 1921, p. 7
In 1898, Scott toured Biloela and Darlinghurst
gaols. Her report was a ‘scathing, stinging
indictment of the current system as far as women
were concerned’. She recommended the NSW
Government establish a separate women’s
prison run by female warders. Women would
live in a protected environment with
opportunities to better themselves and provide
for their material support once released.
Her recommendations were not enacted,
so she and other like-minded women founded
the Ladies Committee of the Prisoners’ Aid
Association in 1902. Committee members
regularly visited Darlinghurst Gaol reading
to female prisoners, giving educational talks
and arranging employment and accommodation
for soon-to-be released women.
Scott’s proposed reforms were eventually
adopted with the opening of the State
Reformatory for Women, Long Bay, in August
1909. Disillusioned with the slow pace of
women’s progress since enfranchisement
in 1902, Scott retired from public life in 1922.
Above left
Rose Scott
T Humphrey & Co, Melbourne, c.1900, SLNSW, P1/1489
law & justice
1
96
