87  
Journals link Search link Partners link Information link
November, 2004
Previous
Next
Labour History

Table of Contents
List journal issues
Home
Get a printer-friendly version of this page
 
 

They Did Not Know Their Place : the Politics of Annie Golding and Kate Dwyer

Kate Deverall*

Annie Golding and Kate Dwyer claimed a central place for women within the New South Wales Labor Party. They struggled to ensure that women's participation in the Party was supported structurally, linked to leadership, valued and rewarded. To understand their priorities and their persistence, this struggle must be viewed in the context of their personal histories, prior political activities and professional careers. As the advent of universal suffrage created expectations of a new dawn for all women, whatever their class background, a personal quest for social standing fed the Golding sisters' unique contribution to collective organisation and action.
We do not intend to sever our connection and withdraw. We have worked too hard and for too many years to let it be divided. Of course we consider the women were shamefully treated at the last [Labor] conference ... However, we aim at securing what 'our L. Movement stands for Equal Opportunities for all regardless of sex'. We must have an outlet for our women other than forming outside bodies.1
 Annie Golding, Kate Dwyer and their younger sister, Belle Golding, were the Australian born daughters of Celtic Catholic immigrants. Annie and Kate had a passion for politics that derived from their mother's example and their own life experiences. Dwyer described her Scottish mother as a 'keen politician'. She commented that as a child she took politics 'as she took her meals'. Mrs Golding encouraged her daughters to take an interest in matters 'beyond the domestic circle' and took them to hear politicians speak at public meetings.2 More importantly, Mrs Golding practised what she preached, as the following story illustrates.3		 1
      Kate's grand-daughter in law never met Mrs Golding but she recalls hearing this story about her. Mrs Golding took her girls to Church every week. One week, the priest decided to give a sermon on the sin of calumny. He lectured at length on the evils of gossip, which he portrayed as an exclusively female failing and as one of the worst of all possible sins. Mrs Golding became more and more agitated. Finally, when the priest proclaimed that 'the road to hell was paved with women's tongues', Mrs Golding could take no more. She stood up, motioned for her girls to do likewise and walked out of the church. After the service, she confronted the priest with these words: 'Father, the road to hell may be paved with women's tongues, but its rooved and walled with men's misdeeds'.4 2
      This story neatly encapsulates Mrs Golding's attitude to authority. In doing so, it underscores the value of oral history — its capacity to add depth to our understanding of the past — especially where the written sources are scant. Paul commanded that women be silent in church. In this story, Mrs Golding kept within the letter of this law, but completely contravened its spirit. She voted with her feet. She took the priest's words, and turned them back upon him, to expose the hypocrisy of his position. The priest might have expected her to remain obediently in her pew, but Mrs Golding did not know her place. She claimed her own pulpit. Her daughters learnt the lesson well. Decades later, Annie submitted papers on women's status to the Australasian Catholic Congress — not quite the same thing as access to the pulpit but a fitting postscript to Mrs Golding's confrontation with the priesthood nonetheless.5 3
      The early years of the Golding sisters' long lives also exposed them to the hardships faced by 'the labouring class'. Kate recalled witnessing the difficulties encountered by gold miners at Tambaroona in her youth, selectors in Castlereagh in the 1880s and strikers at Broken Hill in the early 1890s. The sisters also had some first hand experience of financial insecurity. Their father was an Irishman who came to try his luck on the goldfields, with mixed results. While the family was not poor, its limited income was dependent on Mr Golding's hard work and good fortune. When he was injured in a mining accident, plans to send Annie to a convent to complete her secondary education had to be abandoned.6 4
      Like many other girls from backgrounds of restricted means and burgeoning expectations, Annie and Kate turned to teaching as a way of securing an income. Unlike factory work or domestic service, teaching did not compromise a woman's respectability or conflict with aspirations for social mobility. However, from the very beginning, they had to overcome obstacles to achieve their goals. There were no vacancies at schools in the vicinity of their parents' home. So Annie established a tiny school at a neighbouring settlement, with Kate's assistance. Despite their father's disapproval, they persisted in their endeavour until Annie was offered a post in the parish school system. Mutual support, independence and persistence: these elements, already present in the girls' adolescence, would characterise their future lives.7 5
      Annie stood up to those in authority from the beginning of her teaching career. For example, she reported her supervisors at the Randwick Orphans' School for failing to prevent the physical abuse of their charges. Despite such challenges to the authority of her superiors, Annie was determined to progress through the rapidly expanding public school system. Fortunately for her, the State needed teachers with her talents and dedication. Not enough, of course, to want women teachers after they married — an injustice Annie and Kate worked against all their political lives. Nor did the State value talented women teachers when the 1890s Depression made cutbacks necessary. Female teachers bore the brunt. Annie, who had just obtained the sought after rank of headmistress, watched as the pay of headmistresses was drastically reduced. 6
      This experience led Annie to fight the sexism of the Education Department, through the Public School Teachers Association. She became the first female office-bearer of the Association in 1908. At that time, female teachers were more privileged than most women workers. However, most still earned less than the male basic wage. Annie fought to improve the pay and opportunities available to women at all levels of the teaching service and to improve the vocational prospects of her female pupils. Annie Golding's professional life was marked by opportunities but also by obstacles and setbacks. Her determination to make sure State government superannuation provided for female employees reflected her understanding of the vulnerable position women occupied in the labour market. As she put it to the Minister for Education: 'If women are pushed out of the Department, they go to lower paid professions, and tend to initiate a system of sweating in other avenues of employment'.8 She knew that the gulf between female teacher and factory girl was not so very great.9 7
      Of course for women, the alternative to work was marriage. Kate's career ended when she married a fellow teacher. Like Annie, Kate's husband commenced work at an early age at a parish school and went on to work his way up through the public school system. By 1900, he was the headmaster of a large public school, a rank he retained until his retirement twenty years later. However, not even a good marriage guaranteed women economic security. Kate and Annie both regarded it as an outrage that a woman was expected to give up work to care for husband and children, and yet she had no automatic right to a share in his assets. Together with other feminists, they campaigned for the passage of the Testator's Family Maintenance Act. The Act gave a widow the right to challenge her husband's will, if it did not make adequate provision for her and her children.10 8
      As well as the dangers of economic dependence, Kate understood that marriage brought with it the burden of domestic labour. The Dwyer household could not afford a maid and Kate acknowledged that her political activities were only possible because of the wholehearted co-operation of her husband and children. She knew that she was more fortunate than most married women. In response to the idea that housewives could save money by making their children's clothes, she once told a Royal Commission into the Basic Wage that mothers without domestic help had too little time to themselves already. Low wages meant housewives had to work harder to make ends meet. While Annie understood that most female employees could barely survive on the wages that they received, Kate recognised that inadequate family incomes meant that the 'bread and butter question' consumed the lives of most housewives.11 9
      Elizabeth Faue argues that we need a better understanding of 'the range and malleability of class identity and experience' —flexible ways of talking about class, to enable us to investigate its transformations and contradictions. Faue offers the term 'social distinctions', as one that 'encompasses class phenomena more complex than fixed positions within social hierarchies, to show the shadings and gradations of status and honour, money and power'. She argues that a renewed emphasis on the subjective experience of class — its varying and frequently disparate manifestations and impacts across the life course of specific individuals — would help us to better understand the inherent complexity and instability of class. I prefer the term social standing to social distinctions, because it directs attention to the connection between class feeling and class politics — to the way in which thwarted personal aspirations may give rise to a radical political orientation.12 10
      I agree with Faue that such shifts in the language and focus of labour history are necessary if we are to understand the important roles played by individuals who straddled class boundaries, particularly female Labor activists such as the Golding sisters, whose professional and political work also attempted to bridge the divide between a masculine public world and a feminine private sphere. The Golding sisters are not important simply because they had talents and opportunities that other women lacked. They occupied a liminal social and economic position. This position left them sensitive to social distinctions, and vulnerable to social exclusion. Their preoccupation with social standing drove their search for solidarity and legitimacy, their quest for a party and a platform. 11
      The Golding sisters' contemporaries in the women's movement and the labour movement were alternately attracted and repelled by their approach to politics. Today's feminist and labour historians have acknowledged their presence.13 However, the extent and significance of their contribution to the women's movement and the labour movement has yet to be fully explored. Feminist historians have had much to say about labour historians who fail to give due consideration to women's contribution to progressive politics.14 However, little consideration has been given to the question of why women active in the Labor Party have warranted less attention from feminist historians than other female political activists. When feminist historians have directed attention at women within the Labor Party, they have generally focussed on their defeats.15 However, the Golding sisters were never very good at accepting defeat. The role of victim doesn't fit them well. 12
   

Splits in the Suffrage Sisterhood

 
In the mid-1890s, Annie's career and Kate's marriage brought both women to Sydney. They were soon living in the same street, Kate with her husband and children and Annie with Belle and, until her death, Mrs Golding. This close proximity would enable the female members of the Golding family to offer each other considerable emotional and practical support in the coming years. Women's campaign for the vote was already underway and the Womanhood Suffrage League welcomed the Golding sisters for their skills as public speakers. Maybanke Wolstenholme, then President of the League, recalled:
[We] spoke at drawing room and public meetings wherever we were invited. I did so sometimes two or three times a week. Miss Dickie, Miss Golding and I were a debating team and we never lost a debate. I remember only one fight. It was in Newtown Town Hall, and only a few chairs were broken.16
 In parliamentary debates on the Women's Franchise Bill, only one other suffragist was mentioned as frequently as Annie Golding — Rose Scott, the Secretary of the Womanhood Suffrage League.17 In her own day, Annie was lauded in the press as a suffragist whose only aim was to use her vote to make the world 'brighter and happier'.18 Headmistress of a large public school, dedicated to her elderly mother, readers learnt of the pleasure Annie took in the company of her sisters, nieces and nephews. Then, public tributes to Scott and Annie glossed over the significant differences between them. Today, feminists celebrate Scott's contribution, while Annie's receives less attention. Then as now, not all feminists were the same and they were not always in agreement. The differences can help explain the lack of attention to Annie.		 13
      The Golding sisters were something of a rarity within the suffrage movement. They were not Protestant, nor were they upper-middle class. These facts have practical implications. Scott's extensive personal papers, and those of several other feminists of this period who shared her class background, have ended up in public institutions. The Golding sisters and other labour women of their generation have not left us such a legacy. Collecting and conserving one's personal papers takes time and space. It is easier in a large house with servants — harder for those with children and those who must work for their living. There is no doubt that any study of women in the Labor Party in the early twentieth century presents the historian with difficulties in relation to sources. However, such difficulties must be surmounted, using new methodological approaches if necessary, in order to develop a more holistic picture of the past. Furthermore, a great deal of information about the Golding sisters can be gleaned from close analysis of the labour and daily press, the archives of government departments and the records of labour and women's organisations. Asking new questions, even of old sources, can lead to new narratives. In this case, the starting point is to consider the Golding sisters' involvement in the suffrage movement from their perspective.19 14


 
Figure 1
    Illuminated Address presented to Kate Dwyer for services to the cause of Labor, by the Women's Central Organising Committee of the Political Labor League of New South Wales, 26 January 1910
    Reproduced courtesy of Mrs Nano Dwyer of Northbridge, Sydney
 


 
      The Golding sisters' personal background had political ramifications. They believed that the League should give them larger roles to play in recognition of their work but Scott saw their demands as presumptuous. Unfortunately for Scott, the skills that made the Golding sisters such good debaters also made them difficult members for the leadership of the League to control. Scott wrote in 1901:
Had it not been for an attempt last year on the part of a Branch, to oust the central Treasurer, a most efficient & faithful worker, and substitute a branch member in her place, the central members would not have seen fit to alter their rules.20
 Needless to say, the Golding sisters ran the branch in question and the faithful Treasurer was a supporter of Scott's. The rule change reduced branches' rights to representation within the League but not the fees that branches paid. The Golding sisters took this dispute to the press, accusing the League of betraying its own principles. 'No taxation without representation', they declared and withheld their fees.21 The League responded by expelling the rebel branches. The Golding sisters had not understood their place in the League. Never made to follow, never born to lead.22		 15
      This defeat did not signal the end of the Golding sisters' interest in feminist organisation. The 'rebel' branches formed their own suffrage organisation, the United Branches of the Womanhood Suffrage League, which continued to campaign until the vote was obtained. The branches organised a mass deputation to the Premier, which was reputedly the largest action of its kind ever undertaken in New South Wales. It was known as the 'historic eighty', for the number of women that attended and for the fact that the Bill that gave women the vote was introduced immediately afterwards. These branches also formed the basis of the Women's Progressive Association (WPA), which was formed in 1901. Its express purpose was to develop and vigorously pursue a feminist agenda that went beyond the suffrage issue. This organisation preceded, rivalled and outlasted the post-suffrage feminist organisation established by Scott, the Women's Political and Education League. The Golding sisters used it as a base from which to campaign for the further extension of women's civil rights until the Women's Legal Status Bill was carried in 1918.23 16
      After 1900, Annie and Kate also sought to organise working women into unions and to raise their wages. The Golding sisters' support for trade unionism predated their involvement in the Labor Party. In September 1902, Annie gave an address on 'How women should use a Vote' to the WPA. She named 'Work and Wages' as the priority for female activists and industrial organisations as the vehicle for reform.24 By 1903, Annie and Kate were inviting representatives of the Labor Council to address WPA meetings and assisting the Council to organise unions amongst women working in laundries, cardboard box factories and the boot trade. Kate was one of only four women to serve on the Organising Committee of the Labor Council, in the pre-war period. Rae Cooper's detailed study of the operations of this Committee between 1900 and 1910 concludes that, despite their under-representation on the committee:
Women activists had an enormous effect upon the Organising Committee and most of the organising work among women workers in the latter part of the decade was at the insistence of these women.25
 		17
      These activities brought the Golding sisters into conflict with non-party feminists once again. In 1910, Kate clashed with Rose Scott over a proposal to regulate the conditions of domestic servants. Scott supported campaigns against sweating in shops and factories. She argued against the notion that Englishman's home was his castle when it came to combating the sexual dominion of men over girls or the testamentary power of husband's over their wives. However, she refused to accept that some women were using the privacy of the home to exploit their less fortunate sisters. She declared:
My maids have been satisfied. Others can say the same, and they do not ask for wages boards or rulings from outside bodies on matters which are purely domestic and private ... I feel that those who are unwilling to come into a home to do their share of the work honestly and fearlessly, leaving themselves in the hands of a good mistress, are no loss to the ranks of domestic labour.26
 Scott was blind to the inequalities of power created by class divisions between women. She believed sisterhood alone could be relied upon to build a consensus between maid and mistress. The Golding sisters harboured no such illusions and they became increasingly critical of those who claimed to represent all women but adopted positions that reflected the interests and priorities of the privileged.		 18
      After World War I, the Golding sisters gave evidence to several minimum wage inquiries about the standard of clothing required for female workers and workers' wives. For Annie and Kate, dress held more than just material significance. Annie argued that it was a matter of personal dignity, like opportunities for leisure and self-improvement. While employers eventually conceded many of their claims with regard to the items of clothing required by women, they disputed their cost, for which read quality. This dispute came to a head when Kate gave evidence to the Royal Commission into the Basic Wage in 1920. She said that workers' wives were entitled to such things as lace on their underwear. The National Council of Women sent representatives to the Commission to contradict such extravagant claims. Outraged that the Council had chosen to present evidence that favoured the employers' position, Kate called a meeting of women's unions at Trades Hall. The meeting condemned the Council for ranging itself on the side of 'affluent women' by 'sending single girls on good salaries to the Basic Wage Commission to dictate to married women with children what they should wear'. The meeting decided to inform the Council that: 'the working woman who has been ignored in the past, has arrived, and has come to stay'.27 19
      When Kate and Annie demanded that governments appoint women to industrial tribunals, clearly they did not mean the 'single girls on good salaries' from the Council. Many of the Council's affiliates were women's organisations with philanthropic aims but for the Golding sisters, charity was no substitute for 'a proper system of work and wages'.28 They identified with working class women who aspired to a standard of living above a bare subsistence, who wanted 'a respectable life, a comfortable life, a life that is worth living'.29 20
   

Women Within the Labor Fraternity

 
The Golding sisters first turned their attention to the Labor Party in 1904. Kate helped establish a Women's Committee within the Party. At the Committee's inaugural meeting in 1904, three hundred women unanimously elected Kate as President of the Committee. She retained the Presidency unopposed for 12 years, retiring from the post voluntarily in 1916. In 1914, she was elected Vice-President of the Party in NSW, becoming the Party's first female office-bearer and the first woman to chair its State Conference. Dwyer was regularly selected as a delegate to the Party's State and Federal Conferences and as a member of the State Executive. She polled well in Party ballots and was one of the pre-selected Labor candidates for the multi-member electorate of Balmain in 1925. She remained the most prominent woman in the Party until the late 1920s.30 21
      Annie's role within the Party was no less significant. She covertly wrote most of her sister's speeches, as well as many of those delivered by other female Party activists in the pre-war period, when civil servants were barred from political activity. Her prolific propaganda work against conscription was her first public activity under the Labor banner. She continued to be very active within the Labor Party throughout the 1920s. During this period, she was a regular contributor to both the Worker and the Labor News and she, Kate and Belle were very active in the Annandale branch of Party. Annie was also active at the State level of the Party, serving as a delegate from the Balmain electorate to the Party's State Conference and as both a member and an alternate member of the Party's State Executive. In 1922, she and Kate were both on the Executive and she was Kate's campaign manager at the 1925 State Election. While Annie's role was less high profile than Kate's, her influence was at least as great as her sister's.31 22
      Like the Womanhood Suffrage League a decade earlier, the Labor Party initially welcomed the Golding sisters for their organising capacities. The skills that they had used to help get women the vote proved equally useful in securing women's votes for Labor. Labor did well at the polls in NSW in the first decades that followed the advent of universal suffrage. Dwyer's capacity to attract women's votes to the Labor cause and to organise other female activists to do the same was recognised and applauded by the Party machine. In 1914, the Women's Committee presented Kate with a portrait to commemorate Labor's recent ground breaking electoral successes. The Premier, William Holman, gave a speech that 'eulogised the work performed by Mrs. Dwyer, and fittingly acknowledged the debt the movement generally was under to its women workers'. Ada Holman, the Premier's wife, said Kate could bequeath the portrait to her descendents, so that they might emulate her example, for her political activities were 'but another phase of her philanthropy'. The Worker marked the occasion by interviewing Kate, reporting with delight that she was happily married, did her own housework, and was proud of her children.32 23
      Philanthropy and conventional family values as the foundation for Labor women's activism: a story that contained female activity within acceptable bounds. However, once again, such accolades concealed the complex motivations to Kate and Annie's politics and the conflicts their activism engendered in the women's movement and the labour movement. The Golding sisters wanted to do more than simply deliver the women's vote for the Labor cause, they wanted to re-fashion Labor politics in women's interests. In 1904, under Kate's leadership, the Women's Committee submitted a raft of policies for the Party's consideration, and requested that special provision be made for women's representation. The Committee gained rules all but guaranteeing Conference votes for women. While the rules lasted, several dozen women generally attended the Party's Conference in NSW, whereas in other States, there were only ever a token few. Higher levels of representation at Conference also resulted in more women on the Party's State Executive. In addition to wanting advice on how to win women's votes at State and Federal elections, Labor leaders now had a more immediate reason for listening to organisers from the Women's Committee. In an increasingly factionalised Party, votes at State Conference and on the State Executive lent some muscle to women's moral authority.33 24
      One of the first acts of these new female Party activists was to prevent Rose Scott from addressing the 1905 State Conference. Given the Golding sisters' recent experiences in the Womanhood Suffrage League, Kate's attitude was not surprising. When Ada Holman protested that Scott was as good as a Labor woman, Kate responded:
[As] good as a Labor woman' who, after a hard day's work, tramped the highways and byways, in all weathers, badly clothed and often badly fed, in the interests of the Labor candidate. These voluntary workers were not paid or regaled on tea, toast and jamroll like the plutocratic workers.34
 While Kate clearly relished this opportunity to take revenge on Scott, the dispute had a deeper significance. During the debate Labor women also alleged that Scott had described them as 'camp followers of a corrupt system'.35 By rejecting Scott, they also rejected this charge of political prostitution.		 25
      In a leaflet entitled 'Points for the Women Electors to Consider', produced by the Women's Committee for the 1907 State elections, the first two points were:
  1. THE POLICY OF THE LABOR PARTY is made by the voice of the people through Annual Conferences — women being represented and having equal status with the men.
  2. THE LABOR PARTY is the only Party that recognizes women's full rights as co-workers in all Social, Industrial and Political Reforms, and their full rights to citizenship.36
The Women's Committee did not simply make these points to win votes. They were articles of faith. As co-workers for the cause, the Golding sisters expected their views to be respected above those of outsiders. They did not join the Labor Party simply to support working-class men in their struggles, nor did they join it to listen to lectures from Scott. Disaffected by their perception that elitism infected the non-party women's movement, they sought a marriage of Labor and feminist objectives through their participation in the Party. If the State Conference had granted Scott a hearing, this would have amounted to a breach of promise in their eyes.		 26
      The primary objective of Labor women in New South Wales was to mitigate the hardships faced by working-class mothers through far-reaching reforms to the welfare system. Their conviction that poverty was the result of social injustice, not the personal failings of the poor, challenged the established ethics of philanthropy. They demanded that mothers' rights to social security benefits be codified and that those administering relief be politically accountable. Together with other Labor women throughout Australia, they welcomed the Federal Labor Government's introduction of a Maternity Allowance in 1912.37 27
      However, various church groups, welfare bodies and women's organisations suggested that the Maternity Allowance should be means tested and its distribution monitored by charitable organisations. They argued that the 'indiscriminate' distribution of the allowance was wasteful and open to abuse. Dwyer described the 'malicious lie that this allowance was an encouragement to immorality and cheating' as 'a cruel libel on the womanhood of Australia'.38 When the Women's Christian Temperance Union suggested that the allowance was an insult to motherhood, Labor women were equally scathing:
Is the [Maternity Allowance] only an 'insult' when given equally and to all direct, as a right, by Government; and the insult wiped out by making it a CHARITY, given after much 'gimlet-holing' through a CHARITABLE ORGANISATION? Or is it that the W.C.T.U. fears a curtailment of its privileges as a Note-of-Interrogation Brigade, if the grant is general, instead of being an occasional charity thrown like a bone to a starving dog?39
 Labor women alleged that the real purpose of charity was to give the wealthy power over the less fortunate: philanthropy both symbolised and supported class privilege.40		 28
      In New South Wales, Labor women felt that the State Children's Relief Board (SCRB) treated impoverished mothers in a miserly and judgemental fashion. One of the first acts of the Women's Committee was to demand that the SCRB pay widowed and deserted mothers the same allowances as it paid to foster mothers. The Party's State Conference readily endorsed this policy. The first Labor government in NSW appointed Annie Golding to the SCRB in 1911 and implemented the policy in 1912. Leading philanthropists associated with the SCRB objected to Annie's appointment because, contrary to precedent, she was not recommended by the religious establishment and to the change in policy because it involved substantial additional expenditure and might discourage thrift and encourage immorality. These pre-war decisions were important precursors to the Lang government's Widows' Pension Act of 1926 and its Family Endowment Act of 1927, each the first of their kind in Australia.41 29
      After the war, Labor women campaigned for further reform of the SCRB, aided by adverse reports regarding its administration. The State Labor Government responded with the Motherhood Endowment Bills of 1920 and 1921, which constituted Labor's first attempt to introduce both widows' pensions and child endowment in NSW. Both Labor and the conservatives saw the Motherhood Endowment Bill as an alternative to further liberalising payments administered by the SCRB. When the opposition declared that the Bill would deprive the SCRB of 'the right to discriminate between case and case', the Minister for Motherhood responded that the opposition could not 'distinguish between a charity dole and a just pension'.42 Annie was appointed by the Minister to a bi-partisan committee established to consider means of funding motherhood endowment. When the Churches opposed the introduction of a State lottery to raise money for this purpose, Annie did not hesitate to expose their hypocrisy, noting that the Churches accepted proceeds from lotteries for their own purposes.43 The Labor Government lost office before the Bill could be passed. However, while the Bill lapsed, the Nationalists proceeded with Labor's plan to abolish the SCRB in 1923 and Lang ensured that the Widows' Pension Act was carried in his first year as Premier.44 30
      While Labor men in New South Wales initially supported the welfare reform agenda of the Women's Committee, the Golding sisters had to fight to get State Conference to adopt policies favouring equal pay and supporting women's representation in public life. Then, they had to fight again to get Labor governments to implement such policies. As Annie and Kate were forced to point out, male politicians showed a marked disinclination to implement planks of the platform that might reduce their own privileges.45 However, the Women's Committee did have some successes. The first Labor government in NSW instituted an equal minimum wage in the State's teaching service, another change involving substantial expenditure. Kate was the first woman to sit on the University Senate. Holman appointed her in 1916. When the Dooley Labor government appointed the first batch of female justices of the peace in 1921, the Golding sisters and many other Labor women were among them.46 Jack Lang also appointed Kate and three other women to sit on the Industrial Commission's living wage inquiry of 1926 — another first for women. This inquiry recommended the introduction of child endowment and the Lang government responded with the Family Endowment Act of 1927.47 31
      Labor women in NSW had begun advocating child endowment prior to World War I. They sponsored motions that saw the principle of child endowment incorporated in the NSW Labor platform in 1918 and the Federal Labor platform in 1919. They made sure that child endowment was central to Labor's campaign at the State Election of 1920. Their vigorous promotion of Labor's childhood endowment policy was widely regarded as critical to Labor's success at that election. During the term of the short-lived Labor government that followed, they campaigned actively for the immediate introduction of child endowment.48 In New South Wales, progress on the issue became one of the yardsticks by which the Party judged the performance of its leaders.49 When the Lang Labor Government was elected in 1925, Labor women once again worked to ensure that child endowment was central to Labor's agenda, both during the election campaign and afterwards. As a result of the introduction of widows' pensions and family endowment, State government expenditure on welfare payments to mothers increased by more than 500 per cent between 1926 and 1928.50 32
      This victory was all the more significant given that many male trade unionists believed child endowment would undermine the male minimum wage because the wage was based on the requirements of a married man with children. Labor women in New South Wales did not believe child endowment should be funded by means of a reduction in men's wages.51 However, their insistence that child endowment legislation be introduced immediately ran counter to the trade union position that the introduction of child endowment should be put on hold in favour of claims for a higher male basic wage.52 Labor women received little help from non-party feminists on this issue. Many of the members of the National Council of Women sincerely believed that child endowment would undermine parental responsibility and weaken the institution of marriage.53 Despite opposition from employer groups and union leaders and the ambivalence of his own Caucus, Lang fought a long and tortuous battle to get the Act through the Legislative Council, which had blocked two previous attempts to enact child endowment in New South Wales. Labor women helped Lang to generate public pressure in favour of the Bill by organising a deputation to the Governor and a mass demonstration at Sydney Town Hall. Evidently, women's voices carried weight within the Party in New South Wales but this was about to change.54 33
      Many Labor men had become increasingly uncomfortable with women's hands on the levers of the Party machine. Then as now, those who benefited from a narrow definition of the authentic Labor stalwart sought to cast Labor women as an adjunct to the Party, not as its heart. Some openly complained that women's influence was conservative, others that changes were necessary to preserve the rights of important constituencies, like country electorates and unions, or to make State Conference more manageable. The self-styled 'industrialists' within the Party claimed that increased union representation was necessary to ensure that Labor politicians remained true to labour ideals. For their part, politicians supported the claims of the smaller and more isolated country branches, where their own influence was greater. By the mid 1920s, men on both sides of this debate were advocating a system of 'group representation', based on neighbouring electorates and kindred industries, as a way of controlling the size of Conference while guaranteeing an appropriate balance between competing interests on the Executive. 34
      Women's Committee organisers did support reforms directed specifically at holding parliamentarians accountable to the rank and file. However, they opposed changes in rank and file representation that stood to reduce women's influence, whether they came from 'conservative' country leagues, 'radical' unionists or power brokers who wanted to 'rationalise' the Party's representative structures. The Golding sisters also opposed the system of 'group representation' because they believed it would prevent women being elected to the Executive.55 Female delegates came from a wide range of electorates, predominately in metropolitan Sydney — very few came from unions.56 Thus, proposals favouring regional areas or unions stood to have an adverse effect on women's representation. The group system also made it more difficult for women to combine forces on Conference floor in support of particular people or policies. The men behind these proposed rule changes denied that their actions were designed to reduce women's influence as a sex. However, when Party militants attacked women for 'pandering' to politicians or condemned 'the promiscuous election of the Executive from conferencefloor',57 they betrayed hostility to women's presence that went further than disagreeing with women's politics. 35
      The traditional lines of division within the Party ignored the fact that male unionists, male branch members and male politicians, whatever their geographical origins or ideological preferences, had more in common with each other, than with women in the Party. Men could and did move through the Party, from country delegate to Labor Premier, from the leadership of militant unions to the presidency of the Party, from the Party's Executive into the State's Cabinet. When women's representation within the Party was threatened, Women's Committee organisers emphasised that women's voluntary work for the Party received less recognition than the contributions of other stakeholders, and threatened to go 'on strike'. As Kate put it in 1916:
If the [industrial] organisations put money into the movement they secured the plums. There were no plums for the women, and they were kept out of parliament; there was no place for them there. ... They went about with the rolls in one hand and a collection box in the other but the women were getting tired of that.58
 While the Golding sisters won many battles, they did not win this war of attrition. The cap on the size of union delegations was lifted in 1917. The effects of this were temporarily off-set when several unions disaffiliated in 1919. However, most of these affiliates had returned by 1923, when further rule changes capped the size of branch delegations. The group system of representation was finally introduced in 1927, when the so-called 'red rules' were adopted. Ironically, Lang secured the passage of these rules riding high on a wave of popularity with the rank and file of the Party — a popularity sustained in part by his willingness to confront the Legislative Council over measures such as the Family Endowment Bill.59		 36
      Bede Nairn notes that, while these 'red rules' were widely regarded as a victory for the industrialists, in fact, the branches retained considerable influence. He also doubts whether the rules were in fact red, noting that they served mainly to enhance Lang's power within the Party. It is clear that the rules made Conference more manageable by drastically reducing the number of delegates. However, Nairn fails to note that the rule changes had a negative impact on women's representation, both at Conference and on the Executive. The Women's Committee survived. Its members continued to render countless hours of voluntary labour for the Party. Their efforts were duly appreciated, now that they were confined to their proper place.60 However, it would be 50 years before the Labor Party included effective affirmative action provisions in its constitution again, at the behest of a new generation of labour feminists, most of whom knew nothing of Kate Dwyer or Annie Golding. 37
      Male unionists and non-party feminists both suggested that these Labor women pioneers were not as politically pure as they ought to be. Both associated their political liminality with sexual misconduct. In a community that associated women's sexual license with all kinds of social disorder, such insinuations are revealing. Pure or not, the Golding sisters were hardly lacking in political courage — or political conviction. But they were a political menace. 38
      The Golding sisters demanded the respect of both their sisters in the women's movement and their brothers in the Party. When they advocated the cause of 'the working woman', their motives were not philanthropic. They stretched this category from the sweated seamstress to the head mistress and from the destitute mother who struggled to keep her children to the respectable wife who juggled household affairs without servants. The sisterhood that they envisaged challenged the nascent solidarities of both the women's movement and the labour movement. They sought to appropriate and manipulate the rules and the rhetoric of those with power over them. In the process, they helped to articulate the grievances of working-class women, but they also sought revenge on their social superiors and the Labor Party power brokers, for letting them only half way in, for not treating them as equals. The complexities of their social standing help to explain both their achievements and the limits to their success, as well as the hostility that they aroused. Just like their mother, they did not know their place. 39
      The Golding sisters struggled for recognition their whole lives — they'd be disapproving, but not surprised, to know how little they'd receive after their deaths. Much has changed for labour women since the early twentieth century but the very idea of women wielding any influence within the labour movement still disturbs both those attached to 'the dream of unified class experience'61 and those who yearn for universal sisterhood. 40


Endnotes

*  I should like to thank Ashley Hogan, Bev Kingston and the anonymous referees for their constructive criticism of drafts of this paper.

1.  Kate Dwyer to Sara Lewis, 28 August 1916, in Women's Central Organising Committee Correspondence, 30 April 1912 — 25 October 1942, ALP Victorian Branch Women's Central Organising Committee, ALP Series, Tom Merrifield Collection, MS 13045, Box 107, Item 1, Latrobe Library, State Library of Victoria.

2.  'Our Public Women: Mrs Kate Dwyer,' Daily Telegraph (Telegraph), 3 March 1915; Australian Worker (Worker), 29 January 1914, p. 1.

3.  Biographical information in relation to the Golding sisters drawn from Worker, 12 November 1904, p. 6, 10 December 1904, p. 6, Lone Hand, 1 November 1911, p. 28; Woman's Voice, May 1905, p. 28; press cuttings in Rose Scott Papers, Womanhood Suffrage League Records, 1894–1902, ML MSS 38/35, Item 6, State Library of NSW (SL NSW); Beverley Kingston, 'Golding, Annie Mackenzie and Isabella Theresa' and Viva Gallego 'Dwyer, Catherine Winifred' in Australian Dictionary of Biography, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1966, Vol. 8, pp. 386–387 and Vol. 9, pp. 41–42 respectively; Heather Radi, 'Kate Dwyer,' in Heather Radi (ed.), 200 Australian Women: a Redress Anthology, Women's Redress Press, Broadway, Sydney, 1988; Audrey Oldfield, Woman Suffrage in Australia: a Gift of a Struggle, Cambridge University Press, Melbourne, 1992, pp. 93–95; 'The Golding Story,' undated typescript written or dictated by Kate Dwyer, ca. 1940, personal records of Kate Dwyer held by her granddaughter-in-law, Nano Dwyer of Northbridge, Sydney (currently with SL NSW, for assessment).

4.  Conversation with Nano Dwyer, 18 June 2003. Nano's husband was Allan Frederick Dwyer, a grandson of Kate Dwyer. Allan lived with Kate in Annandale (79 Annandale St) for a number of years. Nano met Kate later, during World War II. Email from Paul Dwyer (Nano's son) to Kate Deverall, 10 June 2003.

5. Proceedings of the Second and Third Australasian Catholic Congresses, Sydney, 1904 and 1909. See also, Hilary M. Carey, Truly Feminine, Truly Catholic: a History of the Catholic Women's League in the Archdiocese of Sydney 1913–87, University of New South Wales (UNSW) Press, Kensington, 1987.

6.  'Our Public Women: Mrs Kate Dwyer' and Dwyer, 'The Golding Story'.

7.  Dwyer, 'The Golding Story'; Noeline Kyle, Her Natural Destiny: the Education of Women in New South Wales, UNSW Press, Kensington, 1986, p. 136.

8.  Transcript of an interview granted to Annie Golding by the Public Service Board, 11 September 1906, p. 7, Department of Education subject files: Teachers' Associations and Classes, K/w 20/13271.1, State Archives of NSW (SA NSW).

9.  Dwyer, 'The Golding Story'; Kate Deverall, 'A Bid for Affirmative Action: Annie Golding and the New South Wales Public School Teachers' Association, 1900–15,' Labour History, no. 77, November 1999, pp. 117–139.

10.  'A noted school master: Mr. M. Dwyer to retire,' Sunday News, 7 August 1921; Telegraph, 13 September, 1904, p. 7; Woman's Sphere (hereafter Sphere), February 1905, p. 13; Worker, 9 November 1905, p. 7; 30 November 1905, p. 7; Notes of deputations from the WPA to the Attorney General dated 24 February 1904, at p. 6, 20 Sept 1913, at p. 10, 18 August 1915, at pp. 5 & 12, letter from Annie Golding to the Premier, 8 March 1916, letter from the Under Secretary of the Attorney General's Department to Annie Golding, 27 March 1916, all in Papers re shoplifting, the First Offenders (Women) Act and the Women's Legal Status Bill, 1905–39, 3/3165, SA NSW (Papers re Shoplifting); Third Australasian Catholic Congress, p. 292.

11. Worker, 20 May 1905, p. 5, 29 January 1914, p. 9; Telegraph, 28 April 1920, p. 10.

12.  Elizabeth Faue, 'Retooling the Class Factory. United States Labour History after Marx, Montgomery, and Postmodernism,' Labour History, no. 82, May 2002, pp. 109–136.

13.  For example, Oldfield, Woman Suffrage, pp. 93–95; Judith Allen, Rose Scott: Vision and Revision in Australian Feminism, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1990, pp. 165–167, p. 181, pp. 196–202; Graham Freudenberg, Cause for power: the Official History of the New South Wales Branch of the Australian Labor Party, Pluto Press, Sydney, 1991, pp. 75, 129–130, 137–138; Bede Nairn,' The Big Fella': Jack Lang and the Australian Labor Party, 1891–1949, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1995, pp. 65, 68, 76, 116.

14.  See Faue, 'Retooling the Class Factory,' at pp. 111–113. For Australian examples, see Joy Damousi, 'Gendered Meanings and Action in Left Wing Movements' and Marilyn Lake, 'The Constitution of Political Subjectivity and the Writing of Labour History,' both in Terry Irving (ed.), Challenges to Labour History, UNSW Press, Sydney, 1994.

15.  For example, Judith Smart, 'Feminists, labour women and venereal disease in early twentieth century Melbourne', Australian Feminist Studies, no. 15, Autumn 1992, pp. 25–40; and, Melanie Raymond, 'Labour Pains: Women in Unions and the Labor Party in Victoria, 1903–1918,' Lilith, no. 5, Spring 1988. There are no biographies of Labor Party women to compare with Allen's Rose Scott, nor studies of women in the Labor Party to compare with Joy Damousi's, Women Come Rally: Socialism and Gender in Australia, 1890–1955, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1994.

16.  Interview in the Telegraph, 21 April 1915, quoted in Oldfield, Woman Suffrage, p 88.

17.  Allen, Rose Scott, p. 162.

18. Woman's Voice, May 1905, p. 28.

19.  Judith Allen, 'Evidence and Silence: Feminism and the Limits of History,' in Carole Pateman and Elizabeth Gross (eds), Feminist Challenges. Social and Political Theory, Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 1986; Bradon Ellem, 'Retooling the Class Factory. Response 1. Making Sense of Institutions? Class, Space and Labour History,' Labour History, no. 82, May 2002, pp. 120–123.

20.  Honorary Secretary's notebook in Womanhood Suffrage League, Miscellaneous Papers, 1892–1902, Rose Scott Papers, ML MSS 38/36, SL NSW.

21. Sydney Morning Herald (SMH), 24 June 1902, p. 3.

22.  Minutes of the Womanhood Suffrage League, 26 February 1901, 13 March 1901, 3 April 1901, 10 April 1901, 8 May 1901, 14 August 1901, 20 August 1901, 24 August 1901, 3 September 1901, 15 October 1901, 25 March 1902, 24 June 1902, 22 July 1902 & 26 August 1902, in Rose Scott Papers, ML MSS 38/33.

23. SMH, 5 August 1901, p.3, 1 October 1901, p. 9, 2 October 1902, p 5; Sphere, September 1901, p 104, December 1901, p. 132, November 1902, p. 280; Dawn, September 1901, p 16, November 1901, p. 8; Papers re Shoplifting; 'The Awakening of Woman', Evening News. 12 October 1903, press cutting in 'Holman, Ada Augusta — Collection of stories, articles etc. by A.A. Holman and about her, 1902–1930', ML Ref. FA824/H, SL NSW.

24. Dawn, 1 October 1902, p. 14.

25.  Rae Cooper, '"To organise wherever the necessity exists": the activities of the Organising Committee of the Labor Council of NSW, 1900–10,' Labour History, no. 83, Nov 2002, pp. 43–64, at p. 57. See also, Sphere, 10 May 1903, p. 297, 10 August 1903, p. 838. Worker, 27 June 1903, p. 7, 25 July 1903, p. 3.

26.  Press cuttings entitled 'For Women — Domestic's Wages Board — Mistresses and Maids in Committee' and 'The Other Side', c. 1912, Rose Scott Papers, ML MSS 38/62, Items 1–5, cuttings numbers 457–457a, microfilm roll CY 3673, SL NSW. See also, Worker, 24 September 1904, p.2, 10 December 1904, p.2, 14 January 1905, p.5, and 9 November 1905, p.7, 23 January 1908, p.19, 2 September 1909, p.3, 11 November 1909, p.7, 3 March 1910, p.3, 28 July 1910, p.5, 17 November 1910, p.5, 19 January 1911, p.6, 8 June 1911, p.15, 20 July, 1911, p.7, 27 July 1911, p.23, 7 December 1911, p.17, 4 April 1912, p.13, 28 November 1912, p.17; SMH, 10 August 1904, p.10, 6 September 1904, p.6; ALP — NSW branch, Rules and Constitution and the Policy and Platform (State and Federal), vol. 1900–1915 & vol. 1916–1925, binders title, call no. 329.3106/2, SL NSW; Allen, Rose Scott, pp. 114–116, pp. 150–152, pp. 184–196.

27. Daily Telegraph, 13 May 1920, p. 6. See also, Minutes of Executive and General Meetings, 6 May 1920 and 27 May 1920, in Records of National Council of Women, ML MSS 3739, MLK 3009, SL NSW (NCW Minutes); NSW Board of Trade, Compendium of Living Wage Decisions and Reports, Sydney, 1921, especially pp. 52–54; Transcripts of Public Inquiries into the Living Wage for Adult Females in 1918, 1919 and 1920 in NSW Board of Trade, Transcripts of Proceedings, 1918, 1919 and 1920, K/w 2/5768, 2/5770, 2/5775, SA NSW; Worker, 30 October 1919, p. 11; Labor News, 7 December 1919, p. 7.

28.  Belle was explicit on this point. Worker, 10 December 1904, p. 6.

29.  The words are Annie's. Transcript of Public Inquiry into the Living Wage for Adult Females in 1919, p. 782. Cf. Kereen Reiger, '"Clean, Comfortable and Respectable": Working Class Aspirations and the 1920 Royal Commission on the Basic Wage,' History Workshop, no. 27 (Spring, 1989), pp. 86–105. See also, Annie Golding, 'Rates of Pay for Women', Rose Scott Papers, ML MSS 38/62, Items 1–5, Reel CY 3673, Frame 394, SL NSW, Lone Hand, 1 November 1911, p. 30, Worker, 28 November 1918, pp. 5 & 9, 26 December 1919, pp. 7 & 9; Labor News, 14 December 1918, p. 5, 18 January 1919, p. 8; Rules and Constitution, vol. 1916–1925, 1920 edition, p. 14.

30. SMH 2 September 1904, p. 6; Worker, 10 September 1904, p. 6, 27 April 1916, p. 16, 4 May 1916, p. 13, 4 March 1925, p. 4, 18 March 1925, p. 18, 13 May 1925, p. 18, 27 May 1925, pp. 6–7, 3 June 1925, p. 15. The Women's Committee's official title was the Women's Central Organsing Committee (WCOC). Reports of the WCOC, in ALP — NSW, Reports of the Executive, 1915–1948, binders title, call no. 329.3106/3, SL NSW.

31.  Dwyer, 'The Golding Story'; LC Jauncey, The Story of the Conscription Campaign in Australia, MacMillan, Melbourne, 1968, p. 195. Worker, 28 September 1916, p. 3, 28 September 1916, p. 17, 19 October 1916, p. 7, 23 November 1916, p. 15, 26 November 1917, p. 7, 3 December 1917, p. 3, 10 December 1917, p. 6, 14 December 1917, p. 3, 22 September 1921, p. 17, 6 October 1921, p. 19; Labor News, 12 March 1921, p. 7, 24 September 1921, p. 5, 10 February 1922, p. 2, 25 March 1922, p. 4, 6 May 1922, p. 2, 19 August 1922, p. 2, 29 September 1922, p. 2, 16 December 1922, p. 5, 26 January 1924, p. 2. See also, reports of Conference in the Worker (1905–1927), the Labor News (1920–1922), and the Labor Daily (1923–1927) and lists of Executive members and office bearers in Rules and Constitution, vol. 1900–1915& vol. 1916–1925.

32. Worker, 29 January 1914, p. 9. See also, the Worker, 24 January 1907, p. 9, 25 July 1907, p. 15, 1 August 1907, p. 11, 8 August 1907, p. 9, 10 October 1907, p. 23, 30 January 1908, p. 18, 28 April 1910, p. 3, 21 July 1910, p. 2, 18 August 1910, p. 15, 19 January 1911, p. 23; Pamela Allan, A Preliminary Sketch of the Role of Women in the N.S.W. Branch of the Australian Labor Party, BA (Hons) thesis, Government, University of Sydney, 1974, Ch. 1; Julie Atkinson, Aspects of the Developing Political Relationship Between Working Class Women and Feminists, BA (Hons) thesis, History, University of Sydney, 1979, pp. 66–76.

33.  First WCOC Annual Report in Worker, 21 October 1905 p. 5 and Worker, 17 August 1911, p. 7. For WCOC members involvement in factional disputes, see Report of the 1921 Federal Conference in ALP, Official Report of Proceedings, 1902–1921, binder's title, call no. ML 329.305/4, SL NSW; Worker, 13 June 1923, p. 5, 13 February 1924, p. 17, 4 June 1924, p. 15, 11 June 1924, p. 15, 18 June 1924, p. 15, 2 July 1924, p. 17. Cf. Freudenberg, Cause for Power, pp. 137–138; Nairn,' The Big Fella', pp. 65 & 68; Denis Murphy, Labor in Politics: the State Labor Parties in Australia, 1880–1920, Queensland University Press, St Lucia, Qld., 1975, pp. 87–88; Vere Gordon Childe, A Study of Workers' Representation in Australia, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1964, pp. 57–58.

34. Worker, 4 March 1905, p. 5. See also Worker, 25 February 1905, p. 5, 11 March 1905, p. 5; Sphere, 15 March 1905, pp. 1–2; press cutting from Evening News, 10 February 1905, p. in 'Holman, Ada Augusta — Collection'.

35. Worker, 18 February 1905, p. 6.

36.  'New South Wales Elections,' ML Pamphlet File, Q 329.1/N, SL NSW.

37.  Marilyn Lake, 'The Independence of Women and the Brotherhood of Man: Debates in the Labour Movement over Equal Pay and Motherhood Endowment,' Labour History, no. 63, November 1992, pp. 1–24, at p. 5. Cf. State and Federal platforms for 1912: Rules and Constitution, vol. 1900–1915; Worker, 1 February 1912, pp. 11 & 33.

38. Worker, 6 August 1914, p. 5.

39.  Mary Gilmore in Worker, 19 September 1912, p. 11. See also, Commonwealth Parliamentary Debates, 25 September 1912, pp. 3412, 3416 & 3441, 26 September 1912, pp. 3511, 3525, 3542–3544, 27 September 1912, pp. 3614–3615, 3 October 1912, p. 3798, 4 October 1912, pp. 3856–3858, Age 24 September 1912 & 4 October 1912, Worker, 19 September 1912, p. 11.

40. Worker, 8 December 1910, p. 7, 20 June 1912, p. 17, 27 June 1912, p. 14, 1 August 1912, p. 13 and 24 October 1912, p. 15.

41. Worker, 4 February 1905, pp. 7–8, 21 October 1905, p. 5, 8 February 1912, p. 13; Rules and Constitution, 1900–1915; State Children's Relief Board (SCRB), Report for 1911, p. 5, New South Wales Parliamentary Papers (NSWPP) 1911 (Second Session); SCRB, Report for 1914, pp. 9–12, 35–43, 64, NSWPP, 1914 (Second Session); Select Committee on the Whole Administration of the State Children Relief Act, 1901, Progress Reports together with the Proceedings of the Committee and Minutes of Evidence, NSWPP, 1915–1916 (First Session), p. 935 and 1916 (Second Session), p. 1011.

42. New South Wales Parliamentary Debates, 20 October 1921, pp. 1004–1012 and see also, 20 December 1920, p. 4088, 29 September 1921, p. 848.

43. Worker, 22 September 1921, p. 17, 6 October 1921, p. 19.

44.  Fifth Sectional Report of the Royal Commission to inquire into the Public Service of New South Wales, NSWPP, 1920, Vol. 5, p. 451, at p. 46 of the report; Labor News, 14 August 1920, p. 1, 2 October 1920, p. 1, 16 October 1920, p. 5; NSWPD, 17 August 1922, pp. 1146–1147, 24 August 1922, pp. 1337–1340; handwritten amendment to an agenda gives priority to the Widows' Pension Bill, initialled by Lang and dated 12 November 1925 in Cabinet Meetings (Agendas), Premiers Department: Records of Cabinet, City 9/5107, SA NSW.

45.  Notes of a deputation to the Attorney General from the WPA, 18 August, 1915, p. 2 & p. 7, in Papers re Shoplifting.

46. Worker, 17 February 1910, p. 3, 26 February 1914, p. 19. 'Women Justices,' Rose Scott Papers, ML MSS 38, Box 62, Items 1–5, microfilm roll CY 3673, frame 150; Labor News, 11 June 1921, p. 2; Papers re Shoplifting; Deverall, 'A Bid for Affirmative Action'.

47.  Industrial Commission of New South Wales, Declaration of the Standard of Living and Living Wage for Adult Male Employees, 15 December 1926, ML call no. 331.214/N, SL NSW; Worker, 26 May 1926, p. 5, 22 December 1926, p. 15, 29 December 1926, p. 18, 9 March 1927, pp. 6–8.

48. Truth, 2 January 1921 & 23 January 1921, news clippings in Papers of Dr Richard Arthur, ML MSS 473, Box 2, item 2a; and Labor Council Minute of a deputation to Mr. Cann about work for the unemployed, n.d., in attendance book no. 1, Records of the Labor Council of NSW, ML MSS 7–166 A, at A 3851; both SL NSW. See also, Report of the 1921 Federal Conference in ALP, Official Report of Proceedings, 1902–1921; Worker, 24 March 1910, p. 7, 9 June 1910, p. 7, 25 August 1910, p. 7, 8 September 1910, p. 7, 20 June 1918, p. 19, 3 July 1919, p. 7, 5 August 1920, p. 20, 22 September 1921, p. 17; Labor News, 21 February 1920, p. 5, 6 March 1920, p. 8, 24 April 1920, p. 7, 31 July 1920, p. 3, 11 December 1920, pp. 2, 4 &5, 18 December 1920, p. 2, 8 January 1921, p. 3, 22 January 1921, p. 2, 24 September 1921, p. 5, 19 November 1921, p. 2, 8 July 1922, p. 2, 22 July 1922, p. 2, 5 August 1922, p. 2; Telegraph, 14 May 1920, p. 4, 15 May 1920, p. 10, 17 May 1920, p. 1, 19 May 1920, p. 6; SMH, 19 May 1920, pp. 10 & 11;

49.  Reports of State conference in Labor News, June 1920, April 1921 and June 1922, passim; news cuttings in George Black papers, 1874–1933, ML MSS 256, Box 5, Item 7; Manuscript entitled 'Report of the Conference Investigation Committee, 17th June 1922' and manifesto presented to delegates to the 1924 annual conference of the NSW ALP both in Voltaire Molesworth papers, ML MSS 243, box 5, item (xv); SMH, 16 January 1922, p. 9, 17 January 1922, p. 9; Worker, 19 March 1924, p. 12, 4 June 1924, p. 2.

50. Worker, 27 August 1924, p. 18, 11 February 1925, p. 5, 13 May 1925, p. 18, 27 May 1925, pp. 6–7, 2 June 1926, p. 5, 13 October 1926, p. 5, 9 February 1927, p. 5, 2 March 1927, pp. 2–3, 23 March 1927, p. 5, 30 March 1927, p. 5, 1 June 1927, p. 5; WCOC Annual Report for 1925 in ALP — NSW, Reports of the Executive, 1915–1948; Summary of submissions received from the public regarding family endowment as at 31/1/27, file no. 249676 in Submissions to the Minister for Labour and Industry, 1927, Industrial Relations: correspondence and related records, K/w 6/3462. The State Government spent £313, 474 on State Children's Relief payments to mothers in 1926 and £1, 683, 210 on State Children's Relief payments to mothers, Widows' Pensions and Family Endowment combined in 1928. Official Year Book of New South Wales, Sydney, Government of NSW, 1926 and 1928.

51.  Annie argued that such a reduction would '[justify] the sweating of women by making it a basis on which to pay single men'. Truth, 23 January 1921, in Papers of Dr. Richard Arthur.

52.  Reports of the proceedings of the All Australian Trade Unions Congress in Age, 24 June 1921, p. 9, 27 June 1921, p. 8, SMH, 24 June 1921, p. 10; cf. Worker, 5 November 1924, p. 15, Labor News, 16 April 1921, p. 5 and Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia, Report of the Royal Commission on the Basic Wage, Government Printer of Victoria, Melbourne, 1920, pp. 58–59 & 91–93. See also, Lake, 'The Independence of Women'; Bettina Cass, Women, Children and the State: A Study of Child Endowment and Family Allowances, 1916–1981, Thesis (PhD), UNSW, 1983.

53.  NCW Minutes, 20 March 1918, 22 April 1918, 5 June 1919, 17 July 1919, September 1919, 20 October 1919, 3 June 1920, 24 June 1920, 1 July 1920, 29 July 1920, 30 June 1921, 28 July 1921, 25 August 1921, 29 September 1921, 27 October 1921, 1 December 1921, 26 November 1925, 24 November 1927; Australian Highway, September 1920, November 1920, December 1920, January 1921, February 1921; The Women's Voice, September 1921; Labor News, 27 August 1921, p. 3, 27 August 1921, p. 7, 17 September 1921, p. 1; Worker, 29 September 1921, p. 2; news cuttings from the Sun and SMH both dated 21 August 1921 in Papers of Dr. Richard Arthur, ML MSS 473, Box 2, Item 2a.

54. Worker, 22 December 1926, pp. 3, 10, 11, 15, 16 & 18, 29 December 1926, pp. 3, 10 & 18, 26 January 1927, pp. 4 & 7, 16 February 1927, p. 3, 23 February 1927, pp. 2 & 14, 2 March 1927, p. 2 & 20, 9 March 1927, pp. 6, 7, 8, 12, 14, 16 March 1927, pp. 5, 11, 18, 23 March 1927, p. 3, 18, 30 March 1927, pp. 7, 14, 15, 16, 18; A. H. Charteris, 'Family Endowment in New South Wales,' Australasian Journal of Psychology and Philosophy, vol. V, no. 2, 1927, pp. 94–112. Cf. Previous experience in Qld. Worker, 7 January 1925, p. 4, 18 February 1925, p. 9, 27 May 1925, p. 6, 3 June 1925, p. 2, 10 June 1925, p. 6, 12 August 1925, p. 15, 9 September 1925, p. 14, 16 September 1925, p. 12, 23 September 1925, p. 17; A. B. Piddington, Report on the Productivity of Queensland and the Remuneration of Labour, Brisbane, The Queensland Trades Union Economic Research Committee, 1925.

55. Worker, 16 February 1911, p. 3, 23 February 1911, p. 3, 15 June 1911, p. 14, 29 June 1911, p. 12, 17 August 1911, p. 7, 7 September 1911, pp. 2 & 13, 1 February 1912, p. 11, 13 February 1913, p. 17, 4 May 1916, pp. 15, 19 & 20, 18 May 1916, pp. 15, 19 & 20, 25 May 1916, pp. 19 & 20, 20 July 1916, p. 19, 27 July 1916, pp. 5, 9 & 19, 3 August 1916, pp. 6 & 15, 10 August 1916, p. 14, 17 August 1916, p. 3, 24 August 1916, p. 3, 7 June 1917, p. 17, 14 June 1917, p. 17, 21 June 1917, pp. 17–18, 25 June 1924, pp. 14 & 16; Labor News, 29 April 1922, p. 6, 13 May 1922, p. 2, 20 May 1922, p. 6, 27 May 1922, p. 2, 3 June 1922, p. 2, 20 January 1923, p. 2, 24 March 1923, p. 2, 5 May 1923, p. 1; 'Scrapbook containing full story and documents with the history of the industrial section of the ALP' and anonymous, undated, printed leaflet entitled 'Executive for 1919' in 'papers, chiefly printed, re. A.L.P,' Papers of Voltaire Molesworth, ML MSS 71, Boxes 5 & 6 respectively, SL NSW; Voltaire Molesworth, 'The Story of the NSW Labor Party', and typescript entitled 'Resolutions adopted by Committee of Federal and State parliamentarians and Executive members' dated 18 May 1922, Papers of Voltaire Molesworth, ML MSS 243, Boxes 4 (xii) and 5 (xv) respectively, SL NSW; Constitution of the Majority Labor Party in George Waite papers, ML MSS 208, Box 2, Item titled 'Printed Material, 1910–1926', SL NSW; Minutes of Conference held at Trades Hall, Sydney, 21 June 1924, in Records of the Labor Council of NSW, ML MSS 7–166, A 3851, Book 2, SL NSW; Labor Women's Council of NSW Rules and Constitution and Kate Dwyer to Sara Lewis, 28 August 1916, in Women's Central Organising Committee, ALP Series, Tom Merrifield Collection, MS 13045, Box 107, State Library of Victoria; Cf. Childe, Workers' Representation, pp. 57–58.

56.  List of delegates for the 'Annual Conference June 1919' in 'Labour Party in Australia: Handbills, Press Cuttings & etc'. (binders title), ML catalogue no. Q329.31/A, SL NSW; list of delegates for '1926 A.L.P. Conference,' in Voltaire Molesworth papers, ML MSS 243, Box 5, Item 16, SL NSW. Lists of delegates to State Conference were also published in the Worker until 1908 and in the Labor Daily from 1923.

57. Worker, 20 July 1916, p. 19, News cutting of a report of a congress of delegates from the NSW ALP Executive and affiliated and unaffiliated trade unions on 28 April 1923, in George Black Papers, 1874–1933, ML MSS 256, Box 5, Item 7 (emphasis added). See also, Anonymous blue pamphlet and typescript entitled 'A Benefit A.L.P. Concert' and annotated 'ALP Conf. 1926', both in Voltaire Molesworth papers, ML MSS 243, Box 5, Items 15 and 16 respectively, SL NSW.

58. Worker, 18 May 1916, p. 19.

59. Rules and Constitution, 1916–1925; Worker, 25 May 1927, p. 3.

60.  Nairn, The Big Fella, pp. 154–157, 171–179 & 333, fn. 43; List of delegates for the 'Annual Conference June 1919'; Rules and Constitution, vols 1900–1915 & 1916–1925; Allan, A Preliminary Sketch.

61.  The expression is Faue's, 'Retooling the class factory', p. 111.

Content in the History Cooperative database is intended for personal, noncommercial use only. You may not reproduce, publish, distribute, transmit, participate in the transfer or sale of, modify, create derivative works from, display, or in any way exploit the History Cooperative database in whole or in part without the written permission of the copyright holder.

 



November, 2004 Previous Table of Contents Next