People Australia

Anne Howard (Annie) Toohey, née Collins (1885-1956) costumiere, milliner and political activist 

Birth: 1885 at Ballarat, Victoria, daughter of Abraham Jackson (James) Collins (1846-1910), born at Marlborough, Wiltshire, England and native-born Dinah Jane, née Naisbitt (1863-1922). Marriage: 1905 at Clunes, Victoria, to native-born Simon Toohey (1871-1940), a blacksmith, of Irish Catholic ancestry. They had no children. Death: 7 September 1956 at Home of the Little Sisters of the Poor, Northcote, Melbourne, Victoria; usual residence Wellington Street, Kew, Melbourne. 

• Honorary organiser of Ballarat League, encouraging women to vote for Labor, in about 1904.
• Moved to Sydney, New South Wales, about 1913 continuing activities solidifying Labor vote. Member of the NSW Political Labor League (Australian Labor Party) central executive in 1917.
• Secretary of the anti-conscription committee in Cook division. Vice-president of Enmore anti-conscription league in 1917. Worked in Wagga district opposing conscription in referendum campaign.
• In August 1919 left the ALP, which she described as having “ceased to be a working class party”, and was elected member of the executive of the Socialist Party of Australia, led by A. C. Willis, S. A. Rosa and others.
• Was Socialist Labor candidate for the seat of Botany in the State Parliament on 20 March 1920; among her successful Labor opponents were W. J. McKell and Tom Mutch. Three other women candidates contested the election, Dr Mary Booth, Grace Scobie, and D. G. Loughran also an executive member of the SPA.
• A conservative newspaper described her that year as “calmly revolutionary in speech, and, sitting in her somewhat modish gown, with its Oriental beading and her black tulle hat, she advocated a revolution in Australia as placidly as she might have prophesised rain would fall tomorrow”.
• Ran a business as “costumiere and milliner” in Oxford Street, Bondi Junction. Was bankrupted on 19 January 1926.
• Returned to Victoria with her husband about 1939.
• Cause of death: congestive cardiac failure (months) and hypertension (years).

Sources
Information from Sue Tracey 1997.