LUMEN Summer 2019 - Flipbook - Page 9
Agents of
women’s suffrage
With the University of Adelaide in its infancy and the suffrage
movement brewing, women’s education and voting rights
walked hand-in-hand in late-19th century South Australia.
STORY BY MICHAELA MCGRATH
B
eyond suspicion, no one has
ever formally endeavoured to
connect the University to the
women’s suffrage movement
which, in December 1894, led to South
Australian women becoming the first in
the nation to obtain the right to vote and
stand for parliament.
That is, until final year Bachelor of
Social Sciences student Courtney Eckert
undertook the monumental task ahead
of the state’s 125-year anniversary of
suffrage in December 2019.
A colonial Adelaide
Paired with a growing divide between the
Church of England and non-conformers,
this led to a new wave of British migrants
travelling down under, enticed by the
prospect of populating a new city
unconstrained by preconceived ideas
of religion.
“A whole range of religious groups
wanted to make their mark in a new
place,” explained Courtney.
“That’s why Adelaide is known as the
city of churches, because there were so
many families coming over here and
setting up churches of their own.”
In 1834, the South Australia Colonisation
Act was passed in the UK providing for
the settlement of South Australia.
ALUMNI MAGAZINE - SUMMER 2019
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