People Australia

Phyllis Benjamin, n.d.

Phyllis Jean Benjamin, née Allsopp (1907-1996) parliamentarian 

Birth: 30 August 1907 at Mosman, New South Wales, daughter of native-born parents Frederick George Allsopp, miller, and Ethel May, née Barnes. Marriage: 10 March 1936, Sydney, to Albert Hansen Benjamin (1900-1965), an electrical engineer, born at Ashfield, Sydney. They had three daughters and one son. Death: 6 April 1996 at Hobart, Tasmania. 

• Educated in Sydney at Allerton Primary School, Presbyterian Ladies College, and CEGGS, she moved to Hobart, Tasmania, in 1940, where her husband was appointed chief electrical engineer for the Tasmanian Hydro-Electric Commission. Phyllis became active in numerous cultural and philanthropic causes.
• She joined the Australian Labor Party in 1944 and was member of the State ALP executive from 1950 to 1954.
• Benjamin was elected a member of the Legislative Council for Hobart from May 1952 to May 1976. First woman in Australia to lead a party in an Upper House, in 1968-1969. She was deputy leader in 1956-58 and 1972-1976. She was Federal and State president of the Australian Federation of Housewives.
• Her son-in-law, Bill Neilson, was Premier of Tasmania in 1975-1977. 

Sources
Scott Bennett & Barbara Bennett, Biographical Register of the Tasmanian Parliament, 1851–1960, (Canberra, 1980), p. 13; ALP Woman Magazine, Special Diamond Jubilee Issue, February 1964; Marian Sawer & Marian Simms, A Woman’s Place. Women and Politics in Australia (Sydney, 1993).