Following the re-organisation of the Shire of Doncaster and Templestowe in 1926, a Warrandyte Riding was included, and five candidates were nominated for the new riding at election time. One of these was Mrs. Angela Booth. The idea of a woman on the Council caused quite a sensation in the district, and there was some apprehension among the Councillors, but as Angela Booth said, “If the London County Council could have three women members, then surely there could be no objection to a woman on our Council."
Mrs. Booth was the wife of Dr. James Booth, of North Melbourne. On his retirement from his Collins Street practice in 1921, they purchased land on the banks of the Yarra in Speer’s Lane, and built a house as a country home. Speer's Lane was renamed Alexander Road after Alexander Spears.
Mrs. Booth had studied Sociology at Melbourne University, and had given lectures on social problems both in Sydney and Melbourne. She had published a brochure with the title, "The Payment of Women's work". Angela Booth was well experienced in public life and was the first president of the Women's Citizens Movement, and an executive of the National Council of Women.
In her election speech, Angela Booth showed a clear knowledge of the financial problems of road construction and the installation of electricity. Her policy was for kerbs, footpaths and channels in Warrandyte. She would claim grants to build electric lighted tennis courts and believed that councillors should confer with ratepayers. She considered that before any work was done, an overall plan should be formed. She also wanted a "League of Young People".
At the elections, Mr. C. Hemsworth, Mr. J. Coleman and Mrs. Angela Booth were elected to represent Warrandyte. At the first Council meeting Angela Booth showed that she was there to work. After congratulating the new Shire President, Mr. J. H. Smith, she told him that the success of a President was shown by his ability to get through the business of the evening with a minimum of unnecessary delay so that they could all go home early. Within days, Cr. Angela Booth had brought the town planning committee to Warrandyte to meet the Progress Association and inspect the township.
In Council, Angela Booth was well liked and was respected and admired by the local people. She was friendly and understanding, but would not tolerate any nonsense. When two Crouch boys on a walk borrowed her boat without asking permission, she sent one of her men to bring it back leaving the boys on the opposite bank. They had to walk to the Heidelberg bridge to get home. In the elections of 1933, Angela Booth was defeated by H. G. Adams. She had served two terms on the council and proved herself to be a capable and valuable Councillor.
Muriel Green writing in 1973 11 DTHS Newsletter
Muriel Green writing in 1973 11 DTHS Newsletter
AGAPANTHUS REMOVAL AT ‘NILJA’
Ken CrookThe TAG team has been very active in removing agapanthus from ‘NILJA’.
The Aboriginal name, ‘Nilja’ means ‘Blue Hills’. It is believed that the Aborigines used the place below the house as a regular means of crossing over to the other side of the Yarra as it was quite easy to cross when the river level was down.
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| Nilja 1988 http://fowsp.org.au/docs/News_2015/33_04_May.pdf |
When the Booths bought the land, there was no house on it and they moved a building from Port Melbourne in one piece to its new location.
The house was of weatherboard construction with a corrugated iron roof.
Angela Booth was a fascinating woman, well ahead of her time. She fought for social justice for women and was the first woman councillor to be elected in the Shire of Doncaster and Templestowe. Angela was only the third woman councillor to be elected in Victoria.
The Ruttledge family bought Nilja in the spring of 1948 from the Booths.
In 1953, part of the land was sectioned from Nilja. This new property was called ‘Mulloka’ and Margot Bennett and Dorothy Ruttledge ran it as a children’s home, opening in May of that year with ten children in residence. The home was destroyed in the 1965 bush fires.
In 1975, the land was transferred to the Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works (MMBW).
Dorothy Ruttledge met and married Sir George Reid (who was a family friend and Member of Parliament for the area) in 1973, following the death of his first wife. The Nilja property became their home until November 1988.
Sir George and Lady Reid maintained their interest in Warrandyte through their Church and membership of the Warrandyte Historical Society of which they were Foundation members.
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| Nilja: Driveway to house looking northwest to Alexandra Road Entrance 2007 Photo: Ken Crook. http://fowsp.org.au/docs/News_2015/33_04_May.pdf |
Unfortunately, the house was destroyed by a suspicious fire in 2007. However, the property’s beautiful trees and wonderful view has been preserved for everyone to enjoy.
Reference:
Excerpts from a monograph on Sir George and Lady Reid, Warrandyte Historical Society, written by Bruce Bence
Friends of Warrandyte State Park (FOWSP) May 2015 Volume 33 Number 4 http://fowsp.org.au/docs/News_2015/33_04_May.pdf
NILJA
Alexander Road WARRANDYTE, Manningham City. Of local significance for its historical associations with Angela Booth; and architecturally as a particularly intact, simple, Edwardian timber house in a spectacularly beautiful setting, perhaps surrounding an earlier cottage, with residual plantings of the same period.
Booth, Angela Elizabeth Josephine (1869–1954)
Angela Elizabeth Josephine Booth (1869-1954), eugenicist, was born on 27 October 1869 at Liverpool, Lancashire, England, and registered as Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Plover, labourer, and his illiterate wife Eliza, née Hall. Despite her humble origins, Elizabeth claimed to have been educated at Liverpool and 'on the Continent'. In 1896 she migrated to Australia and on 7 January 1897, styling herself Angela Elizabeth Josephine, married a medical practitioner and divorcee James Booth (1861-1944) at St Andrew's Anglican Cathedral, Sydney.In 1901 the Booths moved to Broken Hill where they took a keen interest in community affairs: James served as a non-Labor alderman (1909-16), founded the local art gallery and co-founded the Broken Hill Nursing Society. Angela was concerned with the role that women might take to improve social and political conditions: she joined the Women's Political Association and the Liberal Education Society, and addressed audiences on the need for women to participate in public life.
Shortly before World War I the Booths settled in North Melbourne where Angela involved herself in the middle-class, activist community. Resigning from the W.P.A. in 1915 in protest against its pacifist stance, she supported conscription and saw the war as morally correct. Like many others, however, she was alarmed at the spread of venereal diseases and wanted to rebuild a stable and healthy postwar society.
In her writing and lecturing Booth held that the wise management of sexuality was essential. A dedicated eugenicist, she called for the eradication of venereal diseases, the elimination of prostitution and the planned birth of healthy, wanted children. During World War I she had founded the Association to Combat the Social Evil and delivered an address on prostitution to a large Workers' Educational Association conference in Sydney. Optimistic that the 'sex problem' could be remedied by social reform, she maintained that women were forced into prostitution through economic necessity and that prostitution was encouraged by a double standard of morality. Booth's solution was threefold. Women must receive equal pay; they must become active in government; and the public must be educated in 'racial responsibility': sexual restraint and planned parenthood would lead to a better society.
While her husband was president of the Australian Literature Society (1927) and of the Playlovers' Club (1929), Angela was politically active as a conservative. President of the North Melbourne branch of the National Federation and a leading member of both the Australian Women's National League and the Women's Citizen Movement, she enjoyed the support of such groups as the Housewives' Association. She was councillor (1926-33) for the Warrandyte riding of the Doncaster and Templestowe shire where the Booths owned a property, Nilga. In 1927 she was appointed a justice of the peace. Later that year she unsuccessfully sought Nationalist endorsement for State parliament and in 1929 failed to win the Legislative Assembly seat of Brighton as an Independent Nationalist. In her campaigns she urged women to vote together, believing that the concerns uniting them were more important than party politics.
The Depression seriously damaged Angela's faith in liberal reform. Rather than criticizing the capitalist system, she grew convinced that the alleged proliferation of 'mental defectives' in society was the greatest single cause of unemployment and crime. From the late 1920s the Booths argued that legislation should be enacted to provide for 'the sterilisation of the unfit'. As chairman of the North Melbourne Children's Court, James introduced psychological testing of delinquents. He warned that 'Moron breeds Moron'. The Booths met like-minded reformers through the Racial Hygiene Association of New South Wales.
In 1936 James and Angela became founding members of the Eugenics Society of Victoria, a body which included prominent citizens dedicated to the promotion of selective breeding. In its early years Angela served as the society's vice-president. With its president W. E. Agar, she was one of the group's major proponents of sterilization, which she presented as an altruistic operation to spare the unfit from the burden of parenthood and to protect society from racial degeneration. In 1938 the Eugenics Society published her lecture, Voluntary Sterilization for Human Betterment, a policy for which it unsuccessfully lobbied the Victorian government next year.
Following James's death in 1944, Angela remained on Nilga. Age and distance curbed her activities. She returned to Melbourne about 1950 to live at Toorak and later at Sandringham where she died on 5 September 1954 and was cremated. A stepdaughter survived her.
Select Bibliography
- M. Lake and F. Kelly (eds), Double Time, Women in Victoria, 150 Years (Melb, 1985)
- Housewife (Melbourne), 5 Dec 1929
- Woman Voter, 8 July 1915
- Herald (Melbourne), 27 Aug 1926, 4 May 1929, 3 Sept 1931
- Age (Melbourne), 7 Aug 1944, 10 Sept 1954
- Argus (Melbourne), 7 May 1921, 28 Aug 1926, 14 Nov 1929, 10 Apr 1934.
This article was first published in hardcopy in Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 13, (MUP), 1993
http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/booth-angela-elizabeth-josephine-9540
Died: 5 September 1954 Sandringham, Victoria, Australia
Occupation: Educator, Local government councillor and Political candidate
Alternative Names: Plover, Elizabeth (birth name)
Angela Booth served in local government while she attempted to gain a seat in the Victorian state parliament. She served as councillor for the Warrandyte Riding of the Doncaster and Templestowe shire from 1926-33. In 1927 she unsuccessfully sought Nationalist endorsement for state parliament before standing in 1929 as an Independent Nationalist candidate for the Legislative Assembly seat of Brighton in the Victorian state election.
In 1936 she and her husband James, were founding members of the Eugenics Society of Victoria. She served as its vice president.
Angela Booth was born in Liverpool, England and migrated to Australia in 1896. In 1897 she married James Booth, a medical practioner and divorcee, at St Andrew's Anglican Cathedral, Sydney.
In 1901 they moved to Broken Hill. While she was there she joined the Women's Political Association, emphasising the need for women to participate in political life. She remained a member until 1915, when she resigned over its pacifist stance in World War 1. She was also a member of the Liberal Education Society.
Before the outbreak of World War 1, the Booths settled in Melbourne where Angela became active in conservative politics, She was president of the National Federation and a prominent member of the Australian Women's National League.
Sources used to compile this entry: McBurnie, Grant, 'Booth, Angela Elizabeth Josephine (1869-1954)', in Australian Dictionary of Biography Online, Australian National University, 2006, http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A130249b.htm
Booth, Angela Elizabeth Josephine (1869 - 1954)
Born: 27 October 1869 Liverpool, Lancashire, EnglandDied: 5 September 1954 Sandringham, Victoria, Australia
Occupation: Educator, Local government councillor and Political candidate
Alternative Names: Plover, Elizabeth (birth name)
Angela Booth served in local government while she attempted to gain a seat in the Victorian state parliament. She served as councillor for the Warrandyte Riding of the Doncaster and Templestowe shire from 1926-33. In 1927 she unsuccessfully sought Nationalist endorsement for state parliament before standing in 1929 as an Independent Nationalist candidate for the Legislative Assembly seat of Brighton in the Victorian state election.
In 1936 she and her husband James, were founding members of the Eugenics Society of Victoria. She served as its vice president.
Angela Booth was born in Liverpool, England and migrated to Australia in 1896. In 1897 she married James Booth, a medical practioner and divorcee, at St Andrew's Anglican Cathedral, Sydney.
In 1901 they moved to Broken Hill. While she was there she joined the Women's Political Association, emphasising the need for women to participate in political life. She remained a member until 1915, when she resigned over its pacifist stance in World War 1. She was also a member of the Liberal Education Society.
Before the outbreak of World War 1, the Booths settled in Melbourne where Angela became active in conservative politics, She was president of the National Federation and a prominent member of the Australian Women's National League.
Sources used to compile this entry: McBurnie, Grant, 'Booth, Angela Elizabeth Josephine (1869-1954)', in Australian Dictionary of Biography Online, Australian National University, 2006, http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A130249b.htm
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