People Australia

Anastasia Maud Woodbury, later Hitchen (1882-1953) writer, Socialist, Communist and political activist

Birth: 1882 at Wollombi, New South Wales, daughter of native-born parents Thomas Joseph Woodbury (1843-1928), carpenter and builder, and Eleanor Mary, née Lynch (1843-1920). Marriage: 1923 in Sydney, NSW, to John (Jack) Hitchin (1897-1965), a miner and trade union official, born at Wigan, Lancashire, England. They had one daughter. Death: 29 August 1953 in usual residence at Sandhurst Street, Bulli, Wollongong, NSW. 

• She was a descendent of Richard Woodbury (1777-1867), born in Bristol, Gloucestershire, England, who arrived in Sydney as a convict aboard the Neptune on 12 July 1806, of Matthew James Everingham (1768-1817), who arrived as a convict aboard the Scarborough in the First Fleet, and of Elizabeth Rhymes (1774-1841) who arrived as a convict in the Second Fleet aboard the Neptune in 1790.
• Ran a boarding house at Cessnock, NSW. Socialist Labor Party (SLP) activist, writer and poet.
• Although frail by World War I, and suffering from incurable cacoethes scribendi, she wrote ‘A Woman's Impressions’ column in the SLP newspaper, The People, during 1914-1915, combined feminist concerns with those of class struggle and industrial unionism.
• Organised speakers from the Anti-Conscription League to visit the Cessnock area during World War I. From 1916 to 1919 she was acting secretary of various anti-conscription, free speech and one big union committees formed in Cessnock. She clashed frequently in the press with members of various Christian denominations.
• Expelled from SLP in 1919 over a dispute on the social role of inventors, subsequently joining the Communist Party of Australia.
• Wrote articles under the pseudonym ‘Moon Leigh’ for Cessnock Eagle in 1919-1920. Contributed a series of articles to the Miners’ Federation paper Common Cause entitled ‘Revolutionary Loveletters’. Also contributed to the Labor Daily (Sydney) and in the 1930s to the Windsor and Richmond Gazette.
• Remained an active socialist.
• Cause of death: “senility, chronic & completed disabling rheumatoid arthritis”.

Sources
Joy Damousi, Socialist Women in Australia, c.1890-c.1918, Ph D thesis, ANU, 1987; information from J. Damousi, 1991, and T. Laffin, 1996.