Geelong and District : 1891 Women's Suffrage Petition

This is a "work in progress" and although care has been taken to include accurate information, some data may be incorrect or missing. If you can add information about the signatories in our area, please contact Susie Zada.


The Petition	In an extraordinary effort to gain the right to vote for all Victorian women, a handful of dedicated women took to the streets in 1891 to collect signatures for a petition to present to the Parliament of Victoria. The result was an impressive collection of close to 30,000 signatures from women from all walks of life. See further details.
The Petition and the WCTU	Vicki Court has put together some terrific documents and background information to help us all understand the history of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union and the movement for the right to vote. It is well worth exploring this site.
Geelong & District Project	Volunteers are helping to check the signatures from towns within our area and (with "local" knowledge) correcting transcriptions, identifying the women and researching their details.
CAN YOU HELP?	Volunteers can adopt pages for either or both of the two main tasks
Steps	Check which pages (and therefore towns / suburbs) are available to adopt for Task 1 or Task 2 Email me and nominate the page(s) you wish to adopt and whether you are volunteering for Task 1 or Task 2 or both for that page I will email you an Acrobat (.pdf) file of the entries for that page in line number order You can then download the digital image of the page from the official government web site by searching for the first person on your page. Complete the task(s) and email the results back to me for updating the database
Task 1	Check for any missing line numbers between the Geelong & District report and the official digital image of the page Check for and note any transcription corrections - names or address If we don't have the page before or after that page on our list of pages, check to see if "local" people are on either of those pages Email me any corrections or additions
Task 2	Identify the women - this is usually best if you have "local" knowledge of the area covered or a particular interest in the area or the project Use BDM indexes, directories, cemetery records, newspapers, rate books, or a myriad of other resources to identify the women [they generally had to be 20 or older] Don't research women not in the Geelong & District region on the page - this is generally obvious as the entries from different areas are on a different section of paper pasted on the petition Email me the details you have found
The database	Corrections, additions and details are being recorded in a database which will be continually updated with the data provided by the volunteers and people submitting their ancestors' details. Periodically the output will be updated on the web for "The Women" below.
The Women	Updated: 1st September 2008 <A A B C D E F G H I J K L M/Mc N O P Q R S T U V W Y
Individual information	If you don't want to adopt a page for Task 1 or Task 2 but have information on an individual on this list, we would welcome your contribution to this project. Basic information being collected which can be sent in an email: Maiden name Father's name Mother's name Husband's name Date and place of birth Date and place of death Comments - anything about this person or their life Additional information: photo and family group sheets for parents, her family and children etc. It would be nice to profile some of these women - such as Mary LAUDER from Winchelsea. Two petitioners appear together in a photo: Mrs John HUMPHRIES [Sarah Ann DEAN] and her mother Mrs DEAN [Ellen DAY]
Current Stats	As at: 1st September 2008 Entries in database: 2045 Number identified: 1273 Percentage identified: 62.25% Digital pages in our region: 104 Pages adopted: 56 Percentage adopted: 53.85%
Other Victorian sites	Other Victorian sites identifying the signatories of the 1891 Women's Suffrage Petition: Casterton & District [Daryl Povey & Casterton & District Historical Society] Williamstown, Newport and Spotswood [Ada Ackerly]