Annette Ellen (Bear) Bear-Crawford (1853 - 1899)

Born 27 Feb 1853 in Collingwood, Colony of Victoria

Ancestors

Wife of William Crawford — married 28 Jul 1894 (to 7 Jun 1899) in South Yarra, Colony of Victoria

Died 7 Jun 1899 at age 46 in St Giles, Middlesex, England, United Kingdom

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Biography

Annette (Bear) Bear-Crawford is Notable.

Annette (Bear) Bear-Crawford was a part of the Suffragette Movement.

Annette Bear-Crawford was a women's suffragist and women's and children's activist in the colony of Victoria, Australia. A leading figure in the women's movement in Australia, Annette worked tirelessly to improve the status and conditions of women and children in the late nineteenth century.^[1]

Born into a wealthy family on 27 February 1853 in Collingwood, Victoria, Annette was the eldest daughter of English immigrants John Pinney Bear and Annette Eliza Williams.^[2][3] Her father believed in giving his daughters every educational advantage, and so Annette's schooling included the prestigious Cheltenham Ladies College in Gloucestershire, England.^[4][5] The principal at the time was the prominent suffragist and educational reformer, Dorothea Beale, who was likely a great inspiration to Annette.

Following some time in France and Germany, Annette trained in social work in England, gaining experience of work in city slums and in London's New Hospital. There she became involved in the women's movement and the National Vigilance Association,^[4][6] a society established in August 1885 "for the enforcement and improvement of the laws for the repression of criminal vice and public immorality", following the publication of articles exposing child prostitution.^[7] She was also a member of the Women's Liberal Federation, a part of the Liberal Party in the United Kingdom, the objectives of which included promoting just legislation for women.^[8][9]

In 1890 Annette returned to Melbourne and became a leading figure in the women's movement in Australia, joining the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) and, with its support, forming the Victorian Women's Suffrage League.^[10] She believed that the vote would be the most effective instrument for improving conditions of life.^[4]

In 1891, determined women from the Woman's Christian Temperance Union and the Victorian Temperance Alliance, together with other suffrage groups, went door-to-door with a petition to gain the right to vote for Victorian women. Thirty-three thousand signatures to the Suffrage petition were obtained in less than six months, including that of Annette Bear.^[11] It was the largest petition that had ever been presented to Parliament on any question, measuring 260 metres in length by 20cm wide, and several attendants were required to carry the bulky document into the legislative chamber when it was tabled in September 1891. Despite the dedication of the petitioners and the obvious support of tens of thousands of Victorians, the Victorian Upper House firmly refused to give the women of Victoria the same voting right as men.^[12] Annette saw a need for their lobbying activities to be coordinated by a new body, the United Council for Woman Suffrage,^[13] which was founded in 1894, with Annette as its first president, and later honorary secretary.^[14] Sadly, Annette did not live long enough to see the enfranchisement of women in Victoria. It would take 17 years and 19 private member' bills, before Victorian women finally gained the right to vote when the 19th Bill was passed on 18 November 1908.^[12][15]

Annette also helped to educate and encourage women for undertaking public work, attending speaking engagements and standing for election on all-male boards and committees.^[1]

As one of the earliest members of the Victorian Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children and the Victorian Vigilance Association,^[16] Annette helped obtain amendments to legislation affecting women, including successfully raising the age of consent for girls to sixteen years and the appointing of women as factory inspectors and to the Benevolent Asylum Committee. She also campaigned for police matrons and for women to administer the Infant Life Protection Act 1890.^[4][1][17]

One of Annette's most enduring achievements grew out of her concerns for the welfare of unmarried mothers and their children. Annette led the fundraising campaign to establish the Queen Victoria Hospital and as a result, the Queen’s Shilling Fund raised 63,250 shillings from the women of Victoria, equivalent to around $2.5 million in 2007.^[1][18]

Annette married William Crawford, a solicitor nine years her junior, on 28 July 1894 when she was 41. The ceremony took place in Christ Church, South Yarra, Victoria, with her sister Beatrice as her only attendant.^[19][20][21] The couple had no children.

The English social reformer Beatrice Webb described Annette as a 'gentle-tempered intelligent woman who keeps me company in the dowdiness of her dress'. Domestic, affectionate and well-read, she had a 'lovable, sunny nature', but as an ardent feminist she believed strongly in women's equality with men.^[1]

The Age reported in an editorial of 22 September 1897 that Annette had uttered the rather astounding dictum that most things worth having were originally produced by women. Man, she said, is destructive, while woman is constructive.^[22] Her point appears to have been lost on the author, who considered that women are the equal of men. If that was true then clearly women's activism would not have been necessary.

In November 1898 Annette left for England to attend the Women's International Conference. Her husband joined her in London only three weeks before she died of pneumonia, on 7 June 1899, aged 46.^[4][23] She was interred in the Kensal Green Cemetery in Kensington.^[24]

On 4 July a memorial service for Annette was held in St Paul's Cathedral, Melbourne,^[25] in 1902 a statue was unveiled in London to her memory, and her English friends placed a bronze plaque, in tribute to her work in England and Australia, on the wall of Christ Church, South Yarra.^[1][26]

One tribute to her life, by someone known only as Cynthia, stated: ^[27]

In her person she represented one of the best types of "woman with a mission". Gentle, conciliating, and invariably just, she was everything the "shrieking sister" is not, and while her spirit was practically indomitable, the means she adopted to attain her ends were always in accordance with the highest traditions of womanliness. Added to this, she was blessed with an amount of personal magnetism that rarely failed to evoke enthusiasm in her co-workers, so that in every sense of the word she was eminently fitted to stand at the head of a movement especially affecting the members of her own sex.

In the words of her favourite poet, Robert Browning, she was:^[27]

One who never turned her back but marched breast forward, never doubted clouds would break, Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph, Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, sleep to wake.

Sources

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5} Victorian Honour Roll of Women 2007. Page 4. (Her Place Women's Museum Australia, https://herplacemuseum.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/2007-HonourRoll-boolet-1.pdf : accessed 5 Apr 2021)
2. ↑ Registry of Births, Deaths & Marriages, Victoria. Online index - Birth (https://www.bdm.vic.gov.au/research-and-family-history/search-your-family-history : accessed 3 April 2021 database entry for Bear, Annette Ellen (Father: John Pinney, Mother: Annette Eliza, Birth Place: Collingwood, Registration Number: 27858/1853).
3. ↑ The Argus, Melbourne, Vic., 1 March 1853, page 4, column 3, Births. (Trove, National Library of Australia, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/?type=newspapers : accessed 3 April 2021)
4. ↑ ^{4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4} Janice N. Brownfoot, 'Bear-Crawford, Annette Ellen (1853–1899)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/bear-crawford-annette-ellen-5168/text8681, published first in hardcopy 1979, accessed online 3 April 2021.
5. ↑ "England and Wales Census, 1871", database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:V5B7-JVM : 28 September 2019), Annette Bear, 1871, citing The National Archives; Kew, London, England; 1871 England Census; Class: RG10; Piece: 2671; Folio: 13; Page: 19; GSU roll: 835333. Ancestry Record 7619 #1841208
6. ↑ London Evening Standard, England. 9 Jun 1899. Page 3. Column 5. (British Newspaper Archive, Obituary for Annette Bear-Crawford, accessed 4 Apr 2021.)
7. ↑ Wikipedia contributors, "National Vigilance Association," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=National_Vigilance_Association&oldid=1011622566 (accessed April 4, 2021).
8. ↑ Kilburn Times, London, England. 24 May 1889. Page 5. Column 6. (British Newspaper Archive, Lady Liberals in Conference, accessed 4 Apr 2021.)
9. ↑ Wikipedia contributors, "Women's Liberal Federation," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Women%27s_Liberal_Federation&oldid=1004706741 (accessed April 4, 2021).
10. ↑ Victorian Woman's Suffrage League (1894 - 1908) (The Australian Women's Register, https://www.womenaustralia.info/biogs/AWE0736b.htm : accessed 5 Apr 2021)
11. ↑ Signatories to the 1891 Women's Suffrage Petition, Victoria (Parliament of Victoria, https://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/static/WomensPetition/pdfs/666.pdf : accessed 5 Apr 2021) Annete Bear of Tahbilk, page 666, line 1.
12. ↑ ^{12.0 12.1} Women's Right to Vote (State Library of Victoria/Ergo, http://ergo.slv.vic.gov.au/explore-history/fight-rights/womens-rights/womens-right-vote : accessed 5 Apr 2021)
13. ↑ Magarey, Susan. Passions of the First Wave Feminists. University of New South Wales Press. 2001. Page 62. ISBN 0868407801. (Google Books, https://books.google.com.au/books?id=CTuwsR6a4YgC&pg=PA62&lpg=PA62 : accessed 5 Apr 2021).
14. ↑ United Council for Woman Suffrage (1894 - 1908) (The Australian Women's Register, https://www.womenaustralia.info/biogs/AWE0735b.htm : accessed 5 Apr 2021)
15. ↑ Smart, Judith. Women's Suffrage Organisations. (eMelbourne, https://www.emelbourne.net.au/biogs/EM01637b.htm : accessed 5 Apr 2021)
16. ↑ The Age, Melbourne, Vic., 7 April 1892, page 1, column 8, Meetings. (Trove, National Library of Australia, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/?type=newspapers : accessed 5 April 2021)
17. ↑ The McIvor Times and Rodney Advertiser, Heathcote, Victoria, 22 September 1892, page 2, column 6, Victorian Vigilance Association. (Trove, National Library of Australia, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/?type=newspapers : accessed 5 April 2021)
18. ↑ The Argus, Melbourne, Vic., 19 December 1896, page 9, Editorial (Trove, National Library of Australia, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/?type=newspapers : accessed 5 April 2021)
19. ↑ The Argus, Melbourne, Vic., 20 October 1894, page 1, column 1, Marriages. (Trove, National Library of Australia, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/?type=newspapers : accessed 5 April 2021)
20. ↑ Registry of Births, Deaths & Marriages, Victoria. Online index - Marriage (https://www.bdm.vic.gov.au/research-and-family-history/search-your-family-history : accessed 5 Apr 2021) index entry for Wm Crawford and Annette Ellen Bear (Registration number: 3844/1894)
21. ↑ Table Talk, Melbourne, Vic., 29 September 1894, page 18, column 2, Marriages. Crawford-Bear. (Trove, National Library of Australia, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/?type=newspapers : accessed 5 April 2021)
22. ↑ The Age, Melbourne, Vic., 22 September 1897, page 4, column 8, Editorial (Trove, National Library of Australia, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/?type=newspapers : accessed 5 April 2021)
23. ↑ England & Wales General Register Office, GRO Online Index - Death (https://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content : accessed 5 April 2021) database entry for Crawford, Annette Ellen Bear (Age: 46) GRO Reference: 1899 Q2 in St Giles, Volume 01B, Page 373.
24. ↑ Burial Record (Deceased Online, https://www.deceasedonline.com : accessed 5 Apr 2021) burial record (image) for Crawford, Annette E.B. (Burial Date: June 1899, Cemetery: Kensal Green, Residence: 23 Gower Street, Plot: 37555)
25. ↑ The Age, Melbourne, Victoria, 5 July 1899, page 5, column 8, Memorial Service at the Cathedral. (Trove, National Library of Australia, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/?type=newspapers : accessed 5 April 2021)
26. ↑ The Tocsin, Melbourne, Victoria, 6 February 1902, page 3, column 4, The Late Mrs Bear-Crawford. (Trove, National Library of Australia, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/?type=newspapers : accessed 5 April 2021)
27. ↑ ^{27.0 27.1} Leader, Melbourne, Victoria, 24 June 1899, page 37, column 5, What we owe Mrs Bear-Crawford. (Trove, National Library of Australia, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/?type=newspapers : accessed 5 April 2021)

See Also:

• Australian Suffragettes

• Wikidata: Item Q4769050

• Wikipedia contributors, "Annette Bear-Crawford," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Annette_Bear-Crawford&oldid=951514222 (accessed April 4, 2021).