People Australia

Edith Williambury Wauhop, née Wheelock (1891-1974) telephone exchange manager, community worker and political activist

Birth: 28 March 1891, at Carnarvon, Gascoyne, Western Australia, daughter of Charles Thomas Wheelock (1858-1916), and Jessie Nevin McJannet (1863-1946). Marriage: 12 October 1911 in the Congregational Church at Carnarvon, WA, to William Wauhop (1887-1971), blacksmith, born in Victoria. They had four daughters and two sons. Death: 12 March 1974 at Fremantle, WA. 

• Edith was employed in the post office at Carnarvon before her marriage. She moved to Fremantle in 1914 and, with her husband, joined the East Fremantle branch of the Australian Labor Party.
• She was prominent in the Fremantle Labor Women’s Organisation and was president in 1936. Though “an amiable person of a retiring disposition, who does not court publicity”, she took an interest in the Labor Women’s Central Executive and represented Labor organisations at the Annual Conference of Labor women.
• She was active in the local branch of the Red Cross and “always had bundles of sewing at home”.
• From 1944 to 1964 she was an active mayoress of East Fremantle. She and her husband were both granted the title Freeman of East Fremantle in 1968.