Jessie Webb - Community Activities

Community Activities

Aside from her academic employment, Webb was involved in a variety of community activities during this time. When the Royal Historical Society of Victoria was founded in 1909, it met in Webb's rooms in the Block Arcade. Webb was a founding member of the Lyceum Club in 1912, and from 1920 to 1922 was the Club's president. In 1922 Webb was a founding member of the Victorian Women Graduates' Association (now the Australian Federation of University Women, Victoria); she was president of this body also, from 1924 to 1925. During the First World War, Webb campaigned for conscription along with a group of other university staff; she and Harrison Moore produced a pro-conscription pamphlet.

In late 1922 and early 1923 Webb joined Dr Georgina Sweet, fellow lecturer and also a founding Lyceum Club and Women Graduates' Association member, on a journey through Africa, crossing the continent from Cape Town, Cape Colony to Cairo, Egypt. Webb had a strong interest in Greek history, and following her trip to Africa, she spent eight months at the British School at Athens. During this time she visited archaeological sites in Mycenae and Knossos (where she was taken on a tour by Arthur Evans), and toured Crete on the back of a mule. Later in 1923, Webb was an alternate delegate for Australia to the League of Nations.