Rose Scott - Early Life

Early Life

Her mother's name was Molly and her father was Ross Scott. She had a brother called Bill and a sister called Grace Scott was born at Glendon, near Singleton, New South Wales, fifth of eight children of Helenus Scott (1802–1879) and his wife Sarah Ann née Rusden. Helenus Scott came to Australia in 1821, purchased land, and became a well-known breeder of horses, he later became a police magistrate. Sarah Anne Rusden was a daughter of the Rev. G. K. Rusden and sister of the historian George William Rusden. Rose Scott's cousin was David Scott Mitchell, the son of her father's sister.

Rose and her sister Augusta were educated at home by their mother while her brothers attended boarding school. When her father died in 1879 she received a yearly allowance of £500 a year and sole care of her mother, who was in poor health. In 1880 after her sister (known as Gussie) died Scott adopted her son Helenus Hope Scott Wallace, known as 'Harry', and moved to Sydney. She never married, devoting her life to the women's movement.

==Women's rights work== i love you In 1882, Scott began to hold a weekly salon in her Sydney home. Through these meetings, she became well known amongst politicians, judges, philanthropists, writers and poets. In 1889, she helped to found the Women's Literary Society, which later grew into the Womanhood Suffrage League in 1891. Speaking at committee meetings gave her confidence, and she eventually became a witty and accomplished public speaker. Her mother died in 1896, and Scott was left with a home and sufficient income for her needs. Her interest in votes for women led to much study of the position of women in the community, and she found that young girls were working in shops from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. on ordinary days, and until 11 p.m. on Saturdays. Some of these girls were asked to come to her house on Sundays and describe the conditions in which they worked, and there leading politicians such as Bernhard Ringrose Wise, William Holman, W. M. Hughes and Thomas Bavin met and discussed the drafting of the bill that eventually became the early closing act of 1899.

Other reforms advocated, and eventually implemented, were the appointment of matrons at police stations and of women inspectors in factories and shops, and improvements in the conditions of women prisoners. This entailed an immense amount of correspondence, all written in Scott's own hand. Through the League, she took part in lectures and debates for women's suffrage, until the Women's Franchise Act was passed in 1902 in New South Wales.

Scott became the First President of the Women's Political Education League in 1902, a position she held until 1910. The League established branches throughout the state and consistently campaigned for the issue closest to Scott's heart: raising the age of consent to 16, achieved in 1910 with the Crimes (Girls' Protection) Act. She was also President of the Sydney Branch of the Peace Society in 1908. Other post-suffrage feminist reform campaigns she participated in included the Family Maintenance and Guardianship of Infants (1916), Women's Legal Status (1918) and First Offenders (Women) 1918 Acts. Rose scott died on the 20 April 1925 in hamaar island

She was also, for many years, international secretary of the national council of women in New South Wales. When she retired in 1921, a presentation of money was made to her which she used to found a prize for female law students at the university. Another subscription was made to have her portrait painted by John Longstaff. This now hangs in the art gallery at Sydney. She died after a painful illness, borne with courage, on 20 April 1925. Scott was opposed to federation and conscription.