Emma Miller (1839–1917)

Suffragist, trade union organiser and social reformer, Emma Miller was born in Chesterfield, England.¹ Leaving school at 14, she trained as a seamstress.² She was strongly influenced by her father Daniel Holmes, marching with him as a child and inheriting his 'spirit of rebelling against injustices'.³

In 1857 Miller married bookkeeper Jabez Mycroft Silcock, bookkeeper and they had four children. Widowed in 1870, she married stonemason William Calderwood four years later. The family migrated to Queensland in 1879 and quickly became active in the labour movement, helping establish a female workers' union. Miller became an organiser for the Australian Workers' Union, and the first woman to join the Brisbane Workers' Political Organisation.⁴ Calderwood died in 1880 and in 1886 she married widower Andrew Miller. 

A champion of equal pay and equal opportunity, Miller was the inaugural president of the Woman's Equal Franchise Association. She later became President of the Women Workers' Political Organisation, and in 1908 was one of two women to participate in the Commonwealth Labor Party Conference.⁵

Though mostly remembered for her advocacy for female suffrage, Miller remained an activist throughout her life, leading a contingent of women in the march on the Queensland Parliament during the general strike in 1912.⁶ As state president of the Women's Peace Army, she was active in the anti-conscription movement and was a delegate to the 1916 Australian Peace Alliance Conference in Melbourne.

Miller died in Toowoomba.

Artist's note
Emma Miller's experience as a tailoress working 12 hours a day, six days a week inspired her to seek better working conditions for women. Her 11-year campaign for female suffrage made her a prime candidate for inclusion in this series.

I employed the colours of the labour movement in Miller's poster with her headline, 'The world is my country',⁷ mimicking the typographic style utilised on union banners held aloft during parades, such as during the 1912 Brisbane general strike in which Miller was a participant.⁸

The grainy newspaper image of Miller sits alongside an engraving of tailoresses at work. Originally published in the Illustrated Australian News in May 1882, the engraving was re-published in the film and book For Love or Money: A history of women and work in Australia.⁹ The film, and the promotional poster designed and printed by Australian artist Jan MacKay,¹⁰ strongly influenced me as a young artist starting out in the early 1980s.

1. Pam Young, 'Miller, Emma (1839–1917)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, Canberra, published first in hardcopy 1986, accessed 27 June 2024.
2. 'Emma Miller(1939–1917)', Queensland Government, accessed 27 June 2024.
3. Pam Young, 'Emma Miller and the Campaign For Women's Suffrage in Queensland, 1894–1905', Memoirs of the Queensland Museum, Cultural Heritage Series 2(2), 2002, 223–30, accessed 27 June 2024.
4. Shops, Factories, and Workshops—Royal Commission on Inquiry, Report of evidence taken before the Royal Commission appointed to Inquire into and report upon the conditions under which work is done in the shops, factories and workshops in the colony, Queensland Government Printer, Brisbane 1891, accessed 27 June 2024.
5. Young, op. cit.
6. State Library of Queensland, 'Centenary of the General Strike of 1912', accessed 27 June 2024.
7. 'The world is my country, to do good is my religion', is inscribed on Miller's headstone.
8. A Stephen and A Reeves, Badges of Labour, Banners of Pride: Aspects of Working Class Celebration, Trustees of the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences in association with George Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 1985.
9. 'Local industries Messrs. Beath, Schiess and Co.'s Clothing Factories', Illustrated Australian News, 13 May 1882, p. 69; M McMurchy, M Oliver, M and J Thornley, For Love or Money: a pictorial history of women and work in Australia, Penguin, Ringwood, Vic, 1983, p. 47; For Love or Money: A History of Women and Work in Australia, Directors M McMurchy, M Nash, M Oliver, and J Thornley, Ronin Films, 1983.
10. J Chlanda, 'The near at hand: the art of Jan Mackay', HESTER, August 2014, accessed 17 December 2024.