What was edith cowan famous for

Cowan used her term to promote migrant welfare, infant health centres and women's rights: she 'was convinced of the necessity of motherhood endowment', even defended the idea, in parliament, of a housewives' union, and continued to press for sex education in state schools. The Women's Legal Status Act, which she introduced in as a private member, opened the legal profession to women. She had taken seriously the wartime Nationalist claim to be a non-party organization, and voted sometimes with the government and sometimes with the Opposition, impressing neither.

In the elections West Perth business interests stood a strong candidate in T. A Labor candidate and the continuing conflict between the two major women's organizations further depleted her support and she lost. She failed again in Cowan was a founder of the Royal Western Australian Historical Society in and contributed to its journal—her daughter Dircksey was its first keeper of records. She was active in planning the State's centenary celebrations. Until her last illness she maintained her committee and social work.

Survived by her husband d. Colleagues erected a clock tower memorial at the King's Park gates to indicate her place as 'one of Australia's greatest women'.

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Children's University Edith Cowan. She campaigned for a specialist maternity hospital for Perth and children's courts with female officers. She assumed active leadership of many social reform organisations, including the Children's Protection Society and the National Council of Women.

Cowan believed in enlightened and rational self-control and self-determination. She was known for her severe pragmatism, her skill, intellect, tact, untiring energy and indomitable courage. But such commitment took its toll. In , and again in , Cowan went to England and Switzerland to recover from debilitating health concerns, probably nervous exhaustion or depression.

She travelled alone, attending suffragette meetings as a well-respected Australian sister, but did not take the opportunity to speak. After her husband's retirement in , Cowan intensified her public activities, becoming one of Western Australia's first female Justices of the Peace. As an ardent pro-conscription campaigner, she was an active member of the Perth Recruiting Committee.

Cowan had always argued the need for women in public life rather than just their right to it, and, in , one year after Western Australia lifted the legal bar to women's parliamentary representation, she stood for the seat of West Perth. Though her platform included many radical measures including state kitchens, child endowment payments to mothers and day nurseries for working women she stood as an endorsed Nationalist - the conservative party of the day.

One of the many things I admire about Edith is that despite such a traumatic childhood she rose to be a champion for social justice for others.

In , when she was 18 years old, Edith married James Cowan, a postmaster, and together they raised four daughters and one son. James went on to be appointed as a Perth police magistrate. It gave the couple permanent social and economic status, but it also gave Edith insight into wider society's problems.

She followed her husband's career assiduously, studying the sad and sorry cases that daily walked through his courtroom. Alive to the injustices created by poverty and lack of education, especially for girls and women, Edith soon set her serious and critical faculties to relieving their distress.

She believed in the importance of economic independence and higher education for women—which is, perhaps, not surprising for a mother of four daughters. Edith strongly argued against the levying of university fees. She helped to found the Children's Protection Society, which led to the establishment of the Children's Court in , where she was appointed one of its first justices.

She campaigned for the appointment of women as justices of the peace and was herself one of the first women to achieve this status in She worked with the House of Mercy for unmarried mothers and continued to press for sex education in state schools; and with the Red Cross, supporting the idea that people who had returned from the war should be given priority for jobs. In , at the age of 59, she became the first woman to be elected to an Australian parliament—the legislative assembly in WA.

Her election platform included such radical measures as state kitchens, child endowment payments to mothers and day nurseries for working women.