Millie Peacock

Millie Gertrude Peacock, born Holden ( born August 3, 1870 in Framlingham East, Victoria, Australia; † February 7, 1948 Victoria, Australia) was the first Member of Parliament and at the same time Speaker of the Parliament of the State of Victoria.

Family

She was the daughter of an auctioneer in Port Fairy on the Great Ocean Road and married on January 1, 1901, exactly on the anniversary of the " Commonwealth of Australia ", the then Prime Minister Alexander Peacock, a descendant of a Scottish family and a member of the United Australia Party.

Life

Millie Holden grew up in the whaling port of Port Fairy and later attended the " Methodist College Lady " in Melbourne.

As a politician - wife, she was active from 1914 for 26 years with the Red Cross, which she was president from 1915 to 1941 in Creswick, and several other charities.

After the death of her husband encouraged Sir Robert Menzies ( board member of the United Australian Party ) it to run ( constituency Allandale ) in the now rendered necessary by-election for the former parliamentary seat of her husband. Although she led absolutely no campaign because of bereavement, it was - ten years after the introduction of the passive female suffrage - the first woman in the Victorian Parliament on 11 November 1933 and immediately took over the office of her husband as Speaker of the House of Representatives, which they to led to her resignation in 1935. The Australian women's movement was, however, no real help: She held in Parliament in 1934 their first and only speech. On the contrary, in her resignation she said, " Parliament is no place for a woman."

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