Emma Miller

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Emma Miller

Emma Miller (born June 26, 1839 in Chesterfield , Derbyshire , Great Britain , † January 22, 1917 in Toowoomba , Queensland , Australia ) was a suffragette , pacifist , trade unionist and founding member of the Australian Labor Party .

Personal

Emma Miller grew up in a family of Unitarian beliefs and was active in England with her father in the Chartist movement, a movement that campaigned for workers' rights. Her father was an active chartist who had a strong influence on her political career. Miller worked twelve hours a day, six days a week in Manchester, married three times in her life, had four children, and emigrated to Queensland in March 1879 , where she worked as a shirt maker and seamstress.

Politics and union

Emma Miller was president of the Woman's Equal Franchise Association (WEFA) from 1894 to 1905 , which campaigned for equal rights for women with the slogan "one woman, one vote" (German: "one woman, one vote"). Women were given equal rights under the Federal Electoral Act of April 9, 1902 and were able to vote for the first time in Australia on the occasion of Australia's first national election in 1903. From the WEFA, the conservative Queensland Woman's Christian Temperance Union split off, which was led by Eleanor Trundle, who lost to Emma Miller in the election for president. Furthermore, the Queensland Woman's Suffrage League split off from the WEFA, which was led by Léontine Cooper , because - in the opinion of Cooper - the WEFA was oriented too closely to the Australian labor movement and they sought a broader women's alliance. However, the three organizations worked together selectively.

In September 1890, Emma Miller formed the first Brisbane women’s union , with the assistance of William Lane , who published Workers magazine in Brisbane. In the same year, at her initiative, an official commission of inquiry, a Royal Commission , was set up to examine Queensland's clothing and tailoring factories. Because of the poor working conditions there, Miller referred to these as sweatshops (German: welding shops).

In 1908 she was one of two women who took part as delegates to a national conference of the Australian Labor Party in 1908, the second time that women had ever been delegated there.

In the sheep shearers strike of 1891, she supported the twelve union leaders who had been arrested by the government and sentenced to long prison terms for hard labor on the infamous prison island of St. Helena near Brisbane.

Emma Miller founded the Women Workers' Political Organization in 1903 , of which she became president. After the election, she resigned as president and founded the Political Labor Council in Brisbane and again campaigned successfully for women's suffrage in the parliamentary elections in Queensland on January 25, 1905. In the following years she was active at events and as a speaker for the Australian Workers' Union of Queensland.

Police camp in Brisbane during the 1912 general strike

She became famous in the course of the general strike in Brisbane in 1912 , which led to violent clashes between demonstrators and the police. When Emma Miller led a group of 600 women from 15,000 people in a demonstration on February 2, 1912 and was attacked by mounted police who were supposed to disperse the demonstration, the women beat the horses with their umbrellas. Miller, then 73 years old, stabbed a horse with her hatpin , which then threw off the chief of operations, William Geoffrey Cahill , the highest-ranking police officer in Queensland, who later limped permanently as a result of fall injuries. Even when her son tried to hold her back, she didn't back down.

During World War I , she joined the Women's Peace Army , which joined forces with other political forces, including the suffragette Adela Pankhurst , to oppose the introduction of compulsory military service in Australia , which was rejected in a referendum. In 1916 she was a delegate to the Australian Peace Alliance Conference in Melbourne .

In Australia she was also called "Mother Miller" and "the grand old labor woman of Queensland" (German: "the great old lady of the Queensland labor movement").

memories

There is a marble bust of Emma Miller in the Queensland Council of Unions building and a bronze statue in King George Square . Emma Miller Square in Brisbane is also named after her. An Emma Miller Award is presented annually by the Queensland Council of Unions to women who have done service for the union.

literature

  • Pam Young: Proud to be a rebel: the life and times of Emma Miller . University of Queensland 1992. ISBN 0-7022-2374-3

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ hiddenheroesofaustralianhistory.wetpaint.com ( Memento of the original from April 10, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Emma Miller, accessed March 28, 2011  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / hiddenheroesofaustralianhistory.wetpaint.com
  2. ↑ a b redsites.alphalink.com.au ( Memento of the original from April 7, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. : Emma Miller, accessed March 29, 2011  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / redsites.alphalink.com.au
  3. ↑ a b c d e f adbonline.edu.au : Miller, Emma (1839 - 1917) (English), accessed on March 29, 2011
  4. ↑ atua.org.au : Australian Trade Unions Archives. Miller, Emma (1839-1917), accessed March 28, 2011
  5. ↑ a b c d womenaustralia.info : Miller, Emma (1839 - 1917) (English), accessed on March 28, 2011
  6. ↑ womenaustralia.info : Women's Equal Franchise Association (1894-1905) (English), accessed April 1, 2011
  7. ↑ sa.org.au : Tom O'Lincoln: Rebels and revolutionaries: Emma Miller (English), accessed April 5, 2011
  8. ↑ adbonline.anu.edu.au Cahill, William Geoffrey (1854–1931) (English), accessed March 29, 2011
  9. ↑ nla.gov.au : Portrait of Mrs. Emma Miller: [suffragette movement in Queensland] (English), accessed on March 29, 2011
  10. ↑ Barbara Williams ( memento of July 7, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ): The Emma Miller Award for Women Unionists, October 2000, accessed on March 28, 2011
personal data
SURNAME Miller, Emma
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Calderwood, Emma; Holmes, Emma; Silcock, Emma
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British-Australian suffragette
DATE OF BIRTH June 26, 1839
PLACE OF BIRTH Chesterfield , Derbyshire , UK
DATE OF DEATH January 22, 1917
Place of death Toowoomba , Queensland , Australia