People Australia

May Matthews, Fairfax Corporation, c.1930

National Library of Australia, 52112354

Susan May Matthews (1877-1935) political activist, feminist and public servant

Birth: 9 March 1877 at Wellingrove, New South Wales, daughter of Australian-born parents John Joseph Matthews (1852-1932), a storekeeper, and Mary Frances, née Lynch (1852-1926). Unmarried. Death: 26 June 1935 in the Community Hospital, Moore Park, Sydney; usual residence Roslyn Street, Darlinghurst, Sydney. Religion: Catholic. 

• In childhood May lived in Dubbo, where her father, a Labor League activist, had stores. She attended school for five years in Dubbo, then for a further two years at North Shore. Delivering her first political speech at Darlinghurst about 1907, she subsequently became a regular speaker and campaigner for Labor candidates. She lived at Darlinghurst, for many years.
• Matthews became a clerk in the Registrar General's Department and the Justice Department, and a representative on the Council of the Public Service Association (1915). She was an advocate of equal pay, nationalisation of the liquor industry, opening of the legal profession to women, and stronger family maintenance legislation.
• Active in the Workers' Educational Association, she was an associate of Kate Dwyer and Eva Seery. She was joint secretary, with Seery, of the Labor Women's Grand Council of NSW, established in 1916 to “preserve the rights of women in the movement they helped to make”. She was a member of the Australian Labor Party’s NSW State executive from 1915 to 1918.
• Appointed inspector and School Attendance Officer with the NSW Department of Public Instruction in 1916, retaining the position until about 1934.
• Appointed justice of the peace in 1921, she attended the Women Justices Conference, 1924. She was secretary Central Committee, Labor Daily Bazaar in 1926. That year she attended the farewell party for Alice Henry.
• In 1932 she contested the seat of Ryde for the Federal ALP. She was a member of the National Council of Women, the Sunshine Club, the Parks and Playgrounds Movement, and the League of Nations Union.
• She campaigned to have superannuation entitlements of single public servants paid to next of kin.
• Cause of death: cancer. 

Sources
Worker (Sydney), 14 October 1915 and 27 July 1916; Labor Daily (Sydney), 29 October 1924, 12 January 1926, 12 February 1926; Labour Women’s Organising Committee Golden Jubilee Souvenir, 1954; P. Allan, BA (Hons) thesis, Sydney University, 1973.