Maybanke Anderson
Maybanke Susannah Anderson also known as Maybanke Wolstenholme (
February 17,
1845 -
1927) was a
Sydney reformer involved in
women's suffrage and
federation.
Maybanke Susannah Selfe was born at Kingston-upon-Thames,
Surrey. Her family emigrated to
Australia as free settlers when she was nine years old. Twelve years later in September
1867 she married Edmund Kay Wolstenholme, a timber merchant. The couple had seven children between
1868 and
1879, four of them died form a heart condition before the age of five. The Wolstenholmes built a large house called ‘Maybanke' in
Marrickville. The later years of the marriage were unhappy, Edmund had a number of business failures and became and alcoholic, leaving the family in
1884. Maybanke has to wait for the passage of the
Divorce Amendment and Extension Act in
1892 before she could
divorce Edmund on the grounds of desertion, the divorce was finalised in
1893.
In
1885 Maybanke opened Maybanke School, it a girls' school that she operated in her home preparing girls for the
University of Sydney entrance examination. Operating for 10 years, the school was later known as Maybanke College.
Following her divorce Maynbanke took an active role in the promotion of women's and children's rights. She became active in the women's suffrage movement, she believed that the vote ‘the kernel for all reform'. She was vice president of the Women's Literary Society started by her friend
Rose Scott, many of the societies members would go on to form the Womanhood Suffrage League of
New South Wales (WSL) on
May 6,
1891. In
1893 she was elected to the WSL presidency, in the same year she founded the Australasian Home Reading Union, the Union was a program to promote induction by organising small study groups in rural areas.
In
1894 she began publishing the fortnightly newspaper
Woman's Voice. The paper ran for 18 months drawing women's attention to suffrage issues at the national and international level. In
1895 she established the first free kindergarten at Woolloomooloo as the president of the Kindergarten Union, helping the children of working mothers.
The WSLs attempts to have suffrage implemented by the New South Wales government were not fruitful, however in
1897 Maybanke conceived to petition the 1897 Federal Convention in
Adelaide. She reasoned that by having the women's vote written into the Federal agenda. Thus the women from
South and
Western Australia who already had the vote could not have it taken from them, and if there was suffrage at the federal level it would flow down to the states. At this time she also became involved in th pro-federation movement. Marybanke resigned form the WSL in 1897. Suffrage was extended to the women of New South Wales in
1902.
In
1899 Maybanke married her second husband, Sir Francis Anderson. Anderson was the first Professor of Philosophy at the University of Sydney. They travelled and worked together on voluntary projects, including campaigning to have women stand for local government. Mayabanke died outside
Paris in
1927.
*Nugent, A. 2001.
Maybanke Anderson Feminist, Suffragist and Federationist, National Library of Australia News, Volume XI Number 8
