Millicent Preston-Stanley was an Australian feminist, and politician who was the first female member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly. In 1925 she became the second woman to enter government in Australia. She was also among the first women in New South Wales to become Justices of the Peace and served as president of the Women Justices Association from 1923 to 1926. Throughout her life she advocated for women's rights, health reform, and temperance. In 1925 Preston-Stanley became the first female member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly, representing the Eastern Suburbs as a member of the Nationalist Party, one of the historic predecessor parties to today's Liberal Party. After a failed bid in the 1921 election she persevered and picked the seat up in May 1925, and held the seat until September 1927.
Early life
Millicent Fanny Stanley was born in Sydney in 1883. She was the daughter of Augustine Stanley, a greengrocer, and his wife Frances. After her father deserted the family, her mother obtained a divorce and reverted to her birth name, which Millicent Fanny also adopted. She was actively involved in women's groups such as the Women's Liberal League and served as the president of the Feminist Club from 1919 to 1934 and from 1952 until her death in 1955. Preston-Stanley married Crawford Vaughan, former Premier of South Australia, in 1934. She died on 23 June 1955 in the Sydney suburb of Randwick from cerebro-vascular disease.
Political life
Millicent Preston-Stanley served as the member for the Eastern Suburbs from 1925 to 1927, campaigning for maternal mortality, reform in child welfare, amendments to the Health Act and better housing. Millicent Preston-Stanley delivered her inaugural address to the Legislative Assembly of the New South Wales Parliament on 26 August 1925. Millicent Preston-Stanley used the opportunity to address her colleagues who did not believe that women had a role in politics. Some notable quotes include:
"Some hon. members have been kind enough to suggest that women should be protected from the hurly-burly of politics. This attitude of mind may do credit to the softness of their hearts, and I think it may also be taken as prima facie evidence of a little softening in their heads."
"...we are told that Parliament is no fit place for women. I am not prepared to admit that such is the case, otherwise I would not be here; but if it is so it is the most serious indictment which can be lodged against men, because Parliament up-to-date is an institution of their own making."
"Women have a contribution to make to the life of the nation which they only can make. It is an extraordinary thing that men claim that they can interpret women's legislative ambitions better than the women can do it themselves."
"But I want to make it clear that I am not here merely as the representative of one sex. I believe that women's questions are national questions, and that national questions are women's questions, and it may be shown that woman can take her place amongst the representatives of the people in the Parliament of the country and play her part in the political life of the nation."
In addition, Millicent Preston-Stanley's inaugural address argued against reducing the forty-eight hour work week to forty-four hours, and pointed to the fact that the average woman works 112 hours per week. Millicent Preston-Stanley was the president of the from 1919 through to 1934, and again from 1936 to 1938. The club was amongst the organisations that successfully lobbied for the introduction of the Women's Legal Status Act 1918 which entitled women to stand for election in the Lower House and local government, and to become Justices of the Peace. Millicent was one of the first women in New South Wales to be appointed a Justice of the Peace. She was commissioned as a Justice of the Peace in 1921 and was President of the Women's Justices' Association from 1923 to 1926. A fervent supporter of the United Australia Party — a precursor to the Liberal Party — Millicent Preston-Stanley brought the club to prominence in the 1930s. Under her leadership the club stood apart from many other women's organisations that existed in the period in that the latter — like the Australian Women's Guild of Empire — concerned themselves with matters revolving around home keeping, family, and religiosity. Their purpose was primarily evangelical, and social, helping to cultivate resources and gatherings for women to attend and exchange information and skills in craftwork like sewing, knitting and so forth. It was precisely the entrenched notion that politics did not form part of "women's concerns" that the feminist movement of the 1930s was sought to dislodge, and it was this apolitical focus that distinguished the women's organisations of the period from the Feminist Club of New South Wales. The Feminist Club's objective was "to secure equality of liberty, status and opportunity in all spheres between men and women.’ In parliament she campaigned on the issues of women's mortality in childbirth, child welfare, institutional care for the mentally ill, and custody rights in divorce. She also lobbied for the rights of mothers to custody of their children, family planning and sex education, a focus on maternal and child health, and for a chair of obstetrics at the medical school, sarcastically calling for "'Horses' rights for women" after the University of Sydney instead established a course in veterinary obstetrics. She personally took up the cause of actress Emélie Polini, who failed to regain custody of her daughter Patricia when she returned to her native England. Though her private member's bill on equal custody rights failed she continued the campaign. She wrote a play Whose Child? based on this case. She left parliament in 1927 after an electoral redistribution of the newly created seat of Bondi saw her defeated at the polls.
