Pioneer Woman Politician

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31323, 20 March 1967, Page 2

Pioneer Woman Politician

Although more than 15 years have gone by since she retired from active political life, Dame Enid Lyons, Australia’s first woman member of the Federal Parliament and first woman Minister in that Parliament, still holds a special place in the hearts of Australians—men as well as women.

This is not surprising. Dame Enid Lyons, wife then widow of a Prime Minister, politician in her own right, mother of 12, grandmother of 47, great-grandmother of four, is one of Australia’s most outstanding women.

Now nearing 70, she Is a tiny woman, just topping sft. Her hair is white and her former plumpness has given way to the slender frailty of long years of serious illness. But her warm blue eyes still shine as indomitably as ever and she retains the great charm, wit and womanly common sense which won Ker the love of thousands of Australians when she was at the peak of her fame.

Dame Enid Lyons was born Enid Muriel Burnell on July 9, 1897, at Duck River in north-west Tasmania, where her father worked in a timber mill. She was educated at a small country school and at a teachers’ training college in Hobart, the State capital. But she did little teaching because in 1915, at the age of 17, she married Joseph Aloysius Lyons, a 35-year-old former schoolteacher who had just been appointed Treasurer and Minister for Railways and Education in the Tasmanian State Government. Several years later he became Premier of the state.

Mr and Mrs Lyons built themselves a house, in which Dame Enid Lyons still lives, at Devonport in northern Tasmania. Enid Lyons took an active interest in politics in spite of a rapidly increasing family. At the Tasmanian elections in 1925, as a mother of seven children, six of them under the age of six, she first stood for Parliament She admits she did it reluctantly, but a principle for women was at stake. In the previous year her husband as Premier had Introduced legislation entitling women to sit in the Tasmanian Parliament. They had long had the right to vote for members but not to be members themselves.

Few women seemed willing to exercise their new right so Mrs Lyons, with the support of her husband, stood for one seat and her husband stood for another. Her mother also stood. Mr Lyons was elected. Mrs Lyons and her mother were defeated but not dis-

couraged. The margins were narrow, Mrs Lyons losing by only 60 votes. From that campaign she emerged as a polished and courageous public speaker, able to win the attention of the rowdiest audiences with her fluency, good humour and sound sense.

Ths ability stood her husband in good stead for the rest of his political career. Four years later he was elected to the Australian Federal Parliament in Canberra, the national capital. In 1932, in the world depression when Australia, too, suffered severe economic hardships, he became Prime Minister, an office he held until he died in April, 1939. Difficult Years In those seven difficult years, when crises both at home and abroad were common, Mrs Lyons, in spite of frequent ill health and a still increasing family, accompanied her husband on all his electioneering tours or made her own speaking tours on his behalf. She often addressed five or six different audiences a day, some of them women’s groups but many of them general groups of electors who were sometimes hostile to the speaker when she began but almost invariably were cheering her before she had finished. In 1937 she was created a Dame Grand Cross ot the British Empire, the equivalent of a knighthood. When Mr Lyons, worn out with work and strain, died in office his wife was brokenhearted. The Lyons were an exceptionally close and devoted couple and Dame Enid Lyons felt that without the support of her husband she could take no further place in public life. One of her six sons had died in infancy and at her husband’s death she had 11 children ranging in age from 23 to five. She withdrew to the old family home in Devonport to devote herself to them. But five years later, with Australia at war and many of her children grown up, she yielded to the wishes of many of her husband’s former colleagues and returned to politi-

cal life. In 1943 she stood as a Tasmanian candidate for the Federal Parliament. Won Election She won convincingly and became the first woman member of the House of Representatives, the lower of the two Houses in the Australian Parliament. As was to be expected, she was a successful Parliamentarian. She has never been a fanatical feminist, but her great knowledge of, and sympathy with, the young, the defenceless and the underprivileged made her a fearless and forceful Parliamentary champion for social justice for widows, children, the aged and the sick.

After six years as a private member, she was appointed vice-president of the Execu.tive Council, thereby becoming the first woman to hold Ministerial rank in the Australian Parliament. But her health, never good, was deteriorating and in 1951 she was forced to resign both her Ministerial office and her seat in Parliament 11l Health For nine years she continued less arduous public work as a member of the Australian Broadcasting Commission but in 1962 continuing ill health forced her to resign from that, too. Now she lives in quiet retirement in the big old house which she entered as a young wife more than 50 years ago. Ten of her children are married and several of them live nearby. Visits from them, their children and grandchildren keep her busy and in her spare time she writes. In 1965 she published the first volume of her autobiography. Entitled “So We Take Comfort,” it is an engrossing, often moving, and always entertaining account of the first 42 years of the life of a remarkable woman and her remarkable family living in remarkable times.