Rose Scott

Rose Scott
photograph
neg.5514
National Library of Australia

THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF AUSTRALIA'S
FEDERATION GATEWAY


SCOTT, ROSE (1847-1925)

Social reformer, Rose Scott was born at Glendon, near Singleton, NSW, on 8 October, 1847. Rose Scott was one of the key figures in the turn-of-the century movement committed to the universal suffrage and a general improvement in the condition of women. She lived at home and did not marry, she devoted her life to the women's movement.

In 1889 she helped form the Women's Literary Society in Sydney and it was out of this society that the Womanhood Suffrage League developed in May 1891. She wrote and debated and lectured and argued until in 1902 the Women's Suffrage Act became law in New South Wales. She lobbied for the establishment of Children's Courts for juvenile offenders, for the 'age of consent' to be raised from fourteen to sixteen for girls (Crimes (Girls' Protection) Acts 1910), and for a more comprehensive and equitable system of family maintenance to be established.

She opposed Federation and, in later years, conscription. She was president of a local branch of the London Peace Society, formed in 1907, and international secretary of the National Council of Women of New South Wales, formed in 1896.

One of the most important figures of her time she died in Sydney on 20 April 1925.

Books of interest

Scott, Rose. (1919). Two Papers Read at the Women's Council Meeting, May 29th, 1919 /by Rose Scott and the President of the State Children Relief Board. Sydney: Australian Baptist Publishing House.

Harwood, Marian Fleming. (192-?). Reminiscences of the Late Miss Rose Scott as Founder, President, and Life-long Friend of the Peace Society, New South Wales Branch: a Paper /read by Mrs. Septimus Harwood at the Hague anniversary meeting on May 18, 1925, in the Royal Society's Hall, Elizabeth Street, Sydney. [Sydney?: Peace Society, New South Wales Branch?.] .

Allen, Judith. (1994). Rose Scott: Vision and Revision in Feminism. Melbourne: Oxford University Press.

Manuscript material includes a 1907 letter from her to publisher George Robertson (MS 3584) and a 1914 letter to her from Ada Holman, the wife of the then NSW premier (MS 9055). Copies of her papers at the Mitchell Library are available at mfm G 28059-28061.

 

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