Melbourne statue to honour Victorian suffragette Vida Goldstein

Attempts are under way to honour one of the nation’s great suffragettes, using modern fundraising efforts to build Vida Goldstein’s statue.

Deputy Lord Mayor of Melbourne Nick Reece at the Queen Victoria statue in Queen Victoria Gardens. He is pushing to get a statue for the suffragette Vida Goldstein. Picture: Aaron Francis

In the very old days the money needed to honour civic leaders via a grand statue might have included passing the hat around at the Melbourne Club or hitting up members of the well-heeled upper class as they wandered around the Paris end of Collins St.

In 2024, the City of Melbourne will use modern technology and a taste of old-school public subscription to fund a new statue for pioneering female activist Vida Goldstein, one of the key drivers behind securing the vote for women at the turn of last century but also a fighter for the rights of the less privileged.

Vida Goldstein. Picture: State Library of Victoria

Goldstein, who died in South Yarra in 1949 aged 80, was the first woman in the world to nominate for election to a national parliament, making several unsuccessful attempts at being elected to the Senate and then the House of Representatives.

When her statue is built she will become the 11th woman honoured this way in Melbourne, compared with 581 memorials to men.

Goldstein travelled to the US in 1902 to give evidence to congress on the right of women to vote and talked to president Theodore Roosevelt, a rare meeting in the Oval Office at the best of times.

Failing to get elected did not dent her enthusiasm for reform, and she used her magazine, Woman’s Sphere, in the late 1800s, to spread the word that women should be allowed to vote and deserved greater rights and freedoms.

Melbourne Deputy Lord Mayor Nick Reece said a driving force for raising the $270,000 for the new statue was the vigour with which Goldstein campaigned.

“You will be able to see that it’s Vida. She will be on a human scale,’’ Mr Reece said of the statue, which may end up in Melbourne’s parliamentary precinct.

“As a suffragette and a feminist, Vida was celebrated internationally as a leader of the ‘votes for women’ movement.

“She travelled to Europe and the US and became a mentor and inspiration for many of the leading suffragettes.

“In 1903 she went on a barnstorming tour of the US and spoke in packed theatres and auditoriums. She was even invited to the Oval Office at the White House by president Theodore Roosevelt. She was the first Australian ever to meet a US president.

“The president met Vida because he wanted to see what a fully enfranchised woman looked like – and fully-enfranchised she most certainly was.’’

The council decided to fund the statue through so-called public subscription in a modern way that reflects how some of the prominent 1800s-era statues were funded. When council sought submissions on who the new proposed statue should honour, Goldstein’s name was dominant.

The Portland-born activist has a federal electorate – Goldstein – named after her, and it is in the hands of teal MP Zoe Daniel.

The Melbourne Art Trust has built an online donation page in partnership with the Lord Mayor’s Charitable Foundation, which Mr Reece said made it easier for any gift to be tax-deductible.

South Australia allowed women to vote and stand for election in 1894 and the Commonwealth Franchise Act of 1902 gave most Australian and men women the right to vote and to stand in federal elections.

Gifts can be made via http://lmcf.link/GoldsteinStatue