36-650: Sir Samuel James Way, 1st Baronet , (11 April 1836 – 8 January 1916) was an English-Australian jurist who served as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of South Australia from 18 March 1876 until 8 January 1916. Way was born in Portsmouth , England. Reverend James Way , his father, was a clergyman in the Bible Christian Church , who emigrated to Adelaide , South Australia in 1850 along with his wife and four younger children to establish
72-832: A mission . Samuel, the eldest child, remained behind, studying at Shebbear College in Shebbear , a small village in North Devon , and later at a school in Chatham in Kent . He left England to rejoin his family at the end of 1852, arriving in Adelaide in March 1853. He was soon employed in the office of John Tuthill Bagot , at that time a barrister , and in 1856 became an articled clerk to Alfred Atkinson (c. 1825 – 4 June 1861), solicitor of King William Street . On 25 March 1861, Way
108-471: A "happy childhood' and felt "well brought up" with her parents being "of one mind regarding the care of the family". Spence had an early memory of the large funeral for Scottish Borders novelist Walter Scott , in 1832. Spence's schooling from age four to thirteen, was at St. Mary's Convent School, Melrose whose head teacher was a Miss Phinn, whom Spence admired as "a born teacher in advance of her own times". In 1839, following sudden financial difficulties,
144-567: A 32-hectare (80-acre) selection before moving to Adelaide . Her father, David Spence, was elected first Town Clerk of the City of Adelaide . He was important in the City holding its elections using an early form of Single transferable voting , inspiring Catherine to later engage in activism in the cause of proportional representation . In 1843, the municipality of Adelaide collapsed and her father died three years later. Spence wrote later that "after
180-586: A founding shareholder in the South Australian Co-operative Clothing Company. After reading Henry George's book Progress and Poverty , she brought the issue of finsle tax, taxation of land values only, to the attention of the governments of the three most important Australian colonies in the 1880s. Around 1854, having become disillusioned with some doctrines of the Church of Scotland , she began attending meetings of
216-499: A publisher in J. W. Parker and Son, and it was published in 1854. Spence received forty pounds for it, but was charged ten pounds for abridging it to fit in the publisher's standard format. It was given good reviews, and was the first novel written in Australia by a woman. At the same time Spence became employed as a journalist on The Register , but not initially with her own byline . Spence's second novel Tender and True
252-605: A school and orphanage. She never married but did state she had refused two offers to wed. Her brother John Brodie Spence went on to become a prominent banker and parliamentarian, and her sister Jessie married Andrew Murray . Spence had a talent for writing and an urge to be read, so it was natural that in her teens she became attracted to journalism. Through family connections, she began with short pieces and poetry published in The South Australian . Catherine and her sisters also worked as governesses for some of
288-403: A sense of capacity and responsibility, not merely to the family and household, but to the state: to be wise, not for her own selfish interests, but that the world may be glad that she had been born. She was an early advocate of the work of Australian artist Margaret Preston and purchased her 1905 still-life "Onions". In 1911 Preston received a commission to paint a portrait of Spence, now held by
324-750: A young Josiah Symon joined Way as partner. Way continued to be highly successful, travelling to London to argue a number of cases before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council . In 1874, Way was elected as a member of the council of the University of Adelaide , and was also appointed to the South Australian Board of Education. In 1875, Way was elected to the South Australian House of Assembly as
360-663: Is held by the Art Gallery of South Australia . This portrait was used as the basis of her appearance on the commemorative Centenary of Federation Australian five-dollar note issued in 2001, replacing that of the Queen . In 1975 she was honoured on a postage stamp bearing her portrait issued by Australia Post . The Catherine Helen Spence Memorial Scholarship was instituted by the South Australian Government in her honour for women aged 20–46. One of
396-666: The Adelaide Unitarian Christian Church . She preached her first sermons at the Wakefield Street church in 1878, and she filled in for the minister J. Crawford Woods during his occasional absences between 1884 and 1889. Spence was an advocate of Thomas Hare 's scheme of proportional representation (PR), the single transferable voting (STV) system. At one stage, she said she considered this reform more pressing than that of woman suffrage itself. Her 1861 book A Plea for Pure Democracy
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#1732780098653432-549: The Art Gallery of South Australia , from a citizens' committee of Adelaide. She died at her home in Queen Street, Norwood, on Sunday 3 April 1910, at 3.30am, after a fortnight's illness. According to her wishes, her remains were buried in the North Brighton Cemetery , Brighton, South Australia alongside the grave of her brother John Brodie Spence . On her 80th birthday, in 1905, a public gathering
468-455: The Colony of South Australia . In 1902, when Lord Tennyson vacated the role of Governor of South Australia to assume the role of Governor-General of Australia , Way was commissioned as Administrator of South Australia, and remained in that role until 1903. In October 1905, it was Way who publicly pronounced that Catherine Helen Spence , writer and suffragist, social worker and feminist was
504-551: The Federal Convention held in Adelaide. Although sometimes thought to be totally devoted to electoral reform, she herself claimed that that desire arose from her aspiration for wide and varied reforms, all of which, she said, would be aided by the attainment of effective voting (PR). Spence spoke at her 80th birthday in 1905: I am a new woman, and I know it. I mean I am an awakened woman ... awakened into
540-483: The Future , a tour-tract of the utopia she imagined a century in the future might bring; it was one of the precursors of Edward Bellamy 's 1889 Looking Backward . Her final work, called A Last Word , was lost while still in manuscript form. Although Spence rejected marriage for herself, she had a keen interest in family life and marriage, and other people, and her life's work and her writing were devoted to raising
576-724: The age of 80 dubbed the "Grand Old Woman of Australia", Spence was commemorated on the Australian five-dollar note issued for the Centenary of Federation of Australia . Spence was born in Melrose, Scotland , in October 1825, as the fifth child in a family of eight. Her father David Spence was a banker and lawyer, her mother was Helen née Brodie. Her eldest sibling, Agnes, died in infancy, and her sisters were Jessie, Helen, Mary and brothers David, William and John. Spence said she had
612-489: The awareness of and improving the lot of women and children. She successively raised three families of orphaned children, the first being those of her friend Lucy Duval. She was one of the prime movers, with Emily Clark , of the "Boarding-out Society". This organization had as its aim removing children from the Destitute Asylum into approved families and eventually to remove all children from institutions except
648-588: The break up of the municipality and loss of his income, my father lost health and spirits". Spence's mother died in 1886. Of the "land of her adoption", Spence later wrote: "as we grew to love South Australia, we felt that we were in an expanding society, still feeling the bond to the motherland, but eager to develop a perfect society." Unusually for a woman in those times, Spence learned about production, exchange and wealth in this early developing country, "the value of machinery, of roads and bridges, and of ports for transport and export". With her sisters, Spence opened
684-483: The cabinet, it has been suggested that Way probably nominated himself to be Chief Justice. Way soon gained a reputation as an excellent lawyer, and it has been said that none of his decisions were ever successfully appealed to a higher court. Later in 1876 he was appointed as the vice-chancellor of the University of Adelaide, and in 1883 became the chancellor , a position he would hold until his death. In 1877, Way
720-771: The delinquent. At first treated with scorn by the South Australian government, the scheme was encouraged when the institutions devoted to the handling of troublesome boys became overcrowded. Spence and Clark were also appointed to the State Children's Council, which controlled the Magill Reformatory . Spence was the first (and to 1905 the only) female member of the Destitute Board. Spence also got involved in co-operative garment manufacture to employ and give skills to those with no incomes, as
756-463: The family emigrated to South Australia , leaving her brother David in Scotland. Arriving aged 13 aboard Palmyra with her family on 29 October 1839, at a time when the colony had experienced several years of drought, the contrast to her native Scotland made her "inclined to go and cut my throat". Nevertheless, the family farm endured seven months of the drought, an "encampment", growing wheat on
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#1732780098653792-533: The following year in North Adelaide . The baronetcy became extinct on his death. The geological feature Mount Sir Samuel and the town of Sir Samuel in the Goldfields region of Western Australia were named after him. A statue was unveiled on 17 November 1924, located on North Terrace, Adelaide , in front of the University of Adelaide . The Sir Samuel Way Building on Victoria Square, Adelaide ,
828-518: The four schools at Aberfoyle Park, South Australia was named Spence in her honour. That school has since been amalgamated with another school to form Thiele Primary School. The suburb of Spence in the ACT is co-named after Spence, along with the unrelated William Guthrie Spence . The suburb was originally named solely after William Guthrie Spence, but was retrospectively co-named in 2023 to include Catherine Helen Spence. The federal seat of Spence in
864-474: The leading families in Adelaide, at the rate of sixpence an hour. For several years, Spence was the South Australian correspondent for The Argus newspaper writing under her brother's name until the coming of the telegraph. Spence's first work, before the age of 30, was the novel Clara Morison: A Tale of South Australia During the Gold Fever . It was initially rejected, but her friend John Taylor found
900-535: The member for Sturt , and on 3 June of that year joined the Boucaut government as Attorney-General of South Australia . He was only a politician for a short time, however, since in March 1876, at the age of just thirty-nine, he was appointed Chief Justice of South Australia following the death of Richard Hanson on 4 March. Since it is the role of the Attorney-General to recommend judicial candidates to
936-628: The most distinguished woman in Australia. Way was a Freemason and Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of South Australia and Northern Territory from 1884 to 1916, apart from the period 1889–95 when the position was occupied by the Governor, the Earl of Kintore . Way married Mrs. Katherine Gollan Blue (née Gordon) on 11 April 1898. She was the widow of Dr. William Archibald Sinclair Blue (died 18 September 1896) of Strathalbyn . The time and whereabouts of
972-731: The vote was granted, for some women only, in 1918). She helped organize a trial of STV in state elections in Tasmania in 1897. STV was brought into use on a trial basis to elect state legislators in Tasmania's largest municipalities. But STV was not permanently adopted in Tasmania until after her death. STV (sometimes known as the Hare-Spence voting system or the Hare-Clark electoral system ) has been in use in Tasmania elections since that time. In 1897 she became Australia's first female political candidate when she stood (unsuccessfully) for
1008-405: The wedding, which was the subject of great public interest, were a closely kept secret until well after the event. Way became ill in 1914, and was diagnosed with cancer . He travelled to Sydney to have his arm amputated , in an attempt to delay the cancer. The operation failed to prevent his health from deteriorating, but he continued his work as Chief Justice until December 1915. He died early
1044-434: Was a Scottish-born Australian author, teacher, journalist, politician, leading suffragist, and Georgist . Spence was also a minister of religion and social worker, and supporter of electoral proportional representation . In 1897 she became Australia's first female political candidate after standing (unsuccessfully) for the Federal Convention held in Adelaide . Called the "Greatest Australian Woman" by Miles Franklin and by
1080-499: Was admitted to the South Australian Bar to practice law, and when Atkinson died shortly afterwards, Way inherited his practice. Way practised as a barrister and quickly became a leader among the legal community, and in 1868 joined a partnership with another barrister, James Brook. In September 1871, Way was made a Queen's Counsel , despite having been admitted to the bar only ten years earlier. When Brook died in 1872,
1116-518: Was an important stimulus to Australia's adoption of PR. Spence campaigned for both female political involvement and PR. She spoke at events across Australia and to large political rallies. Her pamphlet Effective Voting (1893) received a wide readership. When Spence became vice-president of the Women's Suffrage League , she travelled and lectured both at home and abroad for what she called Effective Voting , also known as proportional representation. She
Samuel Way - Misplaced Pages Continue
1152-421: Was called upon to act as acting Governor of South Australia . In January 1891 he was appointed to the position of Lieutenant-Governor of South Australia , a position subordinate to the state Governor. In January 1897, Way became the first Australian to be appointed to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council . In 1899 he was created a Baronet , of Montefiore , North Adelaide , and Kadlunga Mintaro , both in
1188-515: Was held and South Australia's chief justice, Sir Samuel James Way said that Spence was "the most distinguished woman they had in Australia". There are numerous memorials to Spence around the Adelaide city centre , including: At her birthplace in Melrose, Scotland there is also a memorial plaque to Spence, now part of the Townhouse Hotel. The posthumous portrait of her, by Rose McPherson (later to become famous as Margaret Preston )
1224-625: Was originally a major retail outlet for Charles Moore and Co. In 1983 it was sold to the state government and was named after him. Chief Justice Too Many Requests If you report this error to the Wikimedia System Administrators, please include the details below. Request from 172.68.168.133 via cp1102 cp1102, Varnish XID 572402982 Upstream caches: cp1102 int Error: 429, Too Many Requests at Thu, 28 Nov 2024 07:48:18 GMT Catherine Helen Spence Catherine Helen Spence (31 October 1825 – 3 April 1910)
1260-529: Was published in 1856, and to her delight went through a second and third printing, though she never received a penny more than the initial twenty pounds. Then followed her third novel, published in Australia as Uphill Work and in England as Mr Hogarth's Will , published in 1861 and several more though some were unpublished in her lifetime including Gathered In (unpublished until 1977) and Hand fasted (unpublished until 1984). In 1888, she published A Week in
1296-936: Was recognised as a powerful speaker for feminism, women's suffrage and electoral reform in Britain and the USA. This included speaking in 1893 conferences at Chicago World's Fair . She also addressed a well-attended meeting at Chelsea (London), of which a full report was published. [1] During her North American tour, she contributed a comprehensive essay to a seminal book on electoral reform published by Sandford Fleming in Canada. During her tour she met with prominent electoral reformers in many countries, including Robert Tyson (Canada), Alfred Cridge (U.S.), John H. Humphreys (UK) and Ernest Naville (Switzerland). She returned to Australia, to find women's suffrage won in 1894 South Australia (she did not live to see this in her native Scotland, where
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