Rose Scott (1847–1925)

Feminist, pacifist and social reformer, Rose Scott was a leading figure in the NSW suffrage movement and an ardent campaigner for political, economic and social reform. On retiring from public life she exhorted: 'Be passionate in earnest and loyal to your womanhood and to your sex and in the end you will certainly win'.¹

Scott was born at Glendon, NSW, one of eight children of pastoralist Helenus and his wife Sarah Ann. Educated at home, Scott never married, having decided that life was 'too short to waste in the service of one man'.² However, she adopted her nephew Harry after the death of her sister Gussie.

Scott moved to Sydney in 1880 and became involved in its philanthropic, intellectual and political life, holding weekly salons attended by writers, thinkers and politicians. Having helped establish the Women's Literary Society in 1889 she was also a founding member of the Womanhood Suffrage League (in 1891) and the NSW National Council of Women (in 1896). However, Scott opposed Federation, describing it as 'the gravest danger which had ever threatened Australia',³ and condemned party politics and militancy. 

After the Commonwealth Franchise Act 1902 was passed, Scott continued campaigning for reduced factory working hours, improved women's wages and conditions, and legal, political and social reforms. These included property rights and prisoners' aid, and her report on conditions in Darlinghurst Gaol was instrumental in establishing a women's prison in 1908. Scott also advocated strongly on behalf of unmarried pregnant women and promoted women's art, music and literature. 

In 1902 Scott commenced as the founding President of the Women's Political Education League. By the time she ended this role in 1910, the League finally achieved its goal of raising the age of consent from 14 to 16. Scott also presided over the London Peace Society’s Sydney Branch and was a long-serving international secretary of the National Council of Women in NSW. A strong proponent of education, she established a financial prize at the University of Sydney for women law students.

Scott retired from public life in 1921 and died in Sydney.

Artist's note
The beautiful portrait of Rose Scott, taken by May Moore in 1913, set the tone for this screen print. Australian author Miles Franklin wrote that,

Rose Scott had beauty and charm. She was the personification of all that was most desirable and commendable in femininity … It was claimed by wags that her complexion and her bonnets did more than her arguments to win the vote.⁴

However, it was definitely not only her complexion, clothing or social status that made Scott stand out; it was her conviction that the status of women had to change, drawing her to the suffrage movement. Scott realised that to achieve anything, women needed control over their own destiny. She wrote,

What is the Australian woman going to do with her vote? … Who is to guide woman? … Certainly not man … Woman must be guided by her own conscience and her wonderful perceptive powers … We must in fact think for ourselves.⁵

In this period of enormous social upheaval I imagined Scott maintaining a calm demeanour whilst forcefully agitating for a female revolution. I kept the colours strong and warm in the hand-painted background to signify the swirling forces of change and enable a clear focus on her face. I printed the names of her organisations in gold using a typeface similar to those found on the numerous brochures and pamphlets circulated by the Women's Political Educational League of which she was President.

References
1. Quoted in Susan Magarey, 'Scott, Rose', in Graeme Davison, John Hirst, and Stuart Macintyre, eds., The Oxford Companion to Australian History, Oxford University Press, 2001, published 2003. Information in this biography is also taken from Judith Allen, 'Scott, Rose (1847–1925)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University; 'Rose Scott 1847-1925', National Portrait Gallery; Ingeborg van Teeseling, 'History shorts: The Womanhood Suffrage League of New South Wales – breeding ground for exceptional women', Australia Explained, 23 June 2021. Websites accessed 28 June 2024.
2. Allen, op. cit.
3. William Coleman, Their Fiery Cross of Union. A Retelling of the Creation of the Australian Federation, 1889–1914, Connor Court, Queensland, 2021, p. 204.
4. Audrey Oldfield, Women Suffrage in Australia: a gift or struggle, Cambridge University Press, New York, 1992, p. 81.
5. B Searle, Silk & Calico: Class, Gender & the Vote, Hale & Iremonger, Marrickville, NSW, 1988, p. 85, citing  ‘Miss Rose Scott’, Table Talk 19 March 1903, p. 12, accessed 31 January 2025.