The Monster Petition for women's suffrage in Victoria - 1891

 Each completed paper page was pasted to one, long linen fabric

and rolled onto a spin­dle. 

260 metres long and very heavy

Victoria’s Constitution of 1855 did not give women the right to vote. Women first received the vote in Victoria in 1863, when in a piece of faulty legislative drafting, the Electoral Act allowed all ratepayers listed on local municipal rolls to vote. However the Legislative Ass­embly quickly changed the “mistake” to restrict the vote for parliam­ent­ary elections to male ratepayers only.

Victorian Premier James Munro said he would introduce a bill into par­liament granting women the vote, if they demonstrated that ord­inary women wanted this right. The Victorian Woman’s Temperance Union and the Vic­torian Women’s Suffrage Society took up the challenge, joining forces regarding a petition in 1891.

The Women's Suffrage Pet­ition (1891) reflected those women’s dedicated work and was one of the most wonderful documents for wom­en’s history in Australia, especially in Victoria. They stated that half the pop­ul­ation should not be without the vote.

Women gathered on a lawn, preparing to travelling around Victoria

State Library Victoria

The Victorian women believed that voting could improve their lives and their children’s. They hoped to influence liquor laws, en­ab­le equal pay for women, a higher age of consent for girls, introduce playgrounds and schools, and gain greater equality regarding land own­ership and divorce.

It took just 6 weeks going from door to door across Victoria to col­lect 30,000 signatures for women’s suffrage. They covered the state by trav­elling via all the railway lines.

The document’s great length earned it the name of the Monster Petition. When completed it was 260 metres in length and the largest known pet­ition of the C19th; each completed page was made of paper pasted to linen fabric backing, rolled onto a cardboard spin­dle and rested on a Perspex stand. It is now a treasured possession of the Public Re­cords Office of Vic­t­or­ia.

We normally assume that women’s suffrage was a middle and upper-class move­ment, a challenge taken on by those with the education and the in­come to turn their passions into political action. Emmeline Pankhurst in Britain, Vida Gold­st­ein in Australia and others all came from educ­ated society. But look at the suburbs in the Monster Petit­ion eg Car­l­ton, Collingwood, Foot­s­cray or St Kilda, all working-class then. There were fewer signatures from affluent Armadale, Kew and Toorak.

One page of signatures and addresses

Collected across Victoria in 1891

A copy of the petition was inserted into the Alliance Record on July 11, 1891

State Library, Victoria

Ironically, many of the women who signed the pet­it­ion would have been ineligible to vote, had the measure alone passed. The women’s fran­­ch­ise clauses were tied to a provision that would have removed property restrictions to voting! And without property, women would have been as in­el­igible to vote. Did the suffrag­ists ex­plain this to the women in the rented houses? Why was it easier to get sig­nat­ures of the poor? Were working-class women bolder than their wealthier sisters? Many of the women then were ill­it­er­ate; there were places on the petit­ion where several neighbours were signed up in one handwriting. And NB that for some, it may have been risky if their husb­ands were hostile.

The petition was presented to Parliament in Sept 1891 together with a bill that included a women’s suff­rage amendment. The monster pet­ition required several men to carry it into Parl­ia­m­ent and present it to Prem­ier James Munro. Tabled with the support of Munro, the petition sought that Women should Vote on Equal terms with Men. Munro, a firm supporter of the temperance movement and women’s franchise, spoke on the floor for the proposal. But Duncan Gill­ies, Leader of the Op­pos­it­ion, arg­ued against the proposal saying that women should not be given the vote; they couldn’t perform some of the services required by the State eg as soldiers, sailors and police. A contingent of women attending the reading of the bill even de­parted from the ordinary decorum observed by Strangers and applauded the Premier’s key issues. When Gillies ar­oused the antag­onism of his female critics, they loudly hissed. 

Great Petition sculpture, Melbourne

Created 2008

The  high-quality Age Newspaper thought that there was no logical reason why women should not vote at pol­itical elections if they were generally minded so to do. However The Age believed that women’s suffrage should be presented to the voters at the next election, not in Parliament. Historians have noted that Munro’s attention to women’s suffrage may have been a perfunctory effort, as it was quickly dropped from the Bill before it went to the Up­per House. While unsuccessful in gaining women the right to vote in Vic­toria in that year, it was clear that the women would not end their strug­gle there; they had to fight for anot­h­er 17 years to gain the right to a state vote.

Federation (1901) was important because, in that year, Australia became the first nation in the world to give women the fed­er­al vote and the right to stand for Parliament.

In 2008, on the 100th anniversary of Victorian women getting the vote in state elections, an impressive sculpture was placed in the gardens near the Victorian State Parliament Building. The 20ms sculpture was designed by artists Susan Hewitt and Penelope Lee, and made from bluestone and steel, with the plaque at the end of the base.

In 2014 Eureka's Museum of Australian Democracy in Bal­l­arat publicly displayed the original, giant 1891 Women's Suffrage Petition.