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Henrietta Dugdale Wikipedia

Henrietta Augusta Dugdale (1827 - 1918) was a pioneer suffragist and radical in the Australian state of Victoria, Australia|Victoria.

Henrietta was born in London, married at age 14, she and her husband Davies moved to Melbourne. Following the death of Davies in 1859, she married William Dugdale and they had two children.

From 1869 she was involved in women's rights, a letter she wrote endorsing the franchise of women was published in The Argus, this was the first occasion that an Australian woman discussed suffrage in a public forum. Henrietta Dugdale, wrote the utopian booklet A Few Hours in a Far Off Age which was published in 1883.

In 1884 she and Annie Lowe founded and became president of the first Victorian Woman???s Suffrage Society. In addition to her involvement in women's rights she was also a member of the Eclectics, a group devoted to the discussion on controversial subjects and the Australian Secular Association. She publicly attacked the monarchy and Christianity as a "despotism formed by men to humiliate women".

In 1903 she married her third husband, Fredrick Johnson. Henrietta died in 1918, at the age of ninety-one.

A street in the Canberra suburb of Cook, Australian Capital Territory|Cook is named in her honour.

Last Modified:   2005-12-19