Christina Elizabeth Clark (1861–1959)

Few personal details are known about Christina Clark, but 'it was to a large degree due to her zeal and untiring efforts that Women's Franchise was achieved' in Western Australia.¹ A 'broadminded woman … interested in all social and industrial problems', Clark wrote to suffragist Rose Scott, 'You have no idea what a difference it has made to us having the vote! They give us as much consideration in their political calculations as men, or almost as much'.²

Clark's family life remains elusive, but she likely left London for Australia in 1891 'as a result of domestic trouble'.³ By 1892 she was in Western Australia where she became prominent in the colony’s Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU). Serving as state secretary of the WCTU from 1892 to 1897, Clark was appointed superintendent of its suffrage department at the 1897 Convention. Here she successfully moved a resolution that a deputation 'wait upon Sir John Forrest … to have the franchise extended to women on the same lines as it is now, and may hereafter be, granted to men'.⁴ Additionally, in 1899 Clark became the inaugural secretary of the Women's Franchise League and in 1900 was the first vice-president of the Woman's Electoral League.⁵

Clark left for NSW in 1901 to become national president of the WCTU. From 1901 until 1906 she was also secretary for the NSW Alliance, which supported political candidates sympathetic to the temperance movement. During this time she lectured in NSW, Tasmania, and New Zealand.⁶ She subsequently joined the Sydney Rescue Work Society which provided housing for women and children.

Clark seems to have gone to Melbourne around 1907, but there are no more references to her involvement with suffrage or temperance. She died at Sunbury, Victoria.⁷

References
1. Australian Women's History Forum, 'Western Australia'; Evening News, 4 June 1907, p. 5, accessed 27 June 2024. See also Audrey Oldfield, Women Suffrage in Australia: a gift or struggle, Cambridge University Press, New York, 1992.
2. V Goldstein, 'Woman's Sphere', The Australian Woman's Sphere, 10 June 1903; CE Clark to Rose Scott, 15 December 1900 in State Library of NSW, Scott family papers, vol. 13, 'Rose Scott correspondence relating to woman suffrage, 1900–1902', 9PQWVgln, accessed 9 July 2024.
3. The Daily Telegraph, 5 June 1907, p. 10, accessed 7 July 2024.
4. Australian Women's History Forum, op. cit.; 'Woman's Christian Temperance Union', The West Australian, 1 October 1897, p. 3, accessed 9 July 2024.
5. The Daily News, 28 April 1899, p. 4; The Woman's Electoral League of Western Australia, 'Officers for 1900'. Websites accessed 7 July 2024.
6. The Daily Telegraph, 2 October 1901, p. 9; The Dictionary of Sydney, 'New South Wales Alliance'; Dubbo Dispatch and Wellington Independent, 9 January 1904, p. 6; Hawke's Bay Herald, 8 October 1902, p. 2; Evening News, 4 June 1907, p. 5. Websites accessed 7 July 2024.
7. The Age, 26 September 1959, p. 21.