A group of delegates at the conference of Societies for the
Protection of the Health of Women and Children held in
Dunedin. Top row: Mrs Armytage (Temuka), Miss Beswick
(Napier). Centre row: Mrs Massey, Mrs Edmonds (Dunedin),
Mrs Carr (Dunedin), Mrs Moore (Christchurch), Mrs Joachim
(Dunedin). In front: Mrs Hosking (Dunedin), Mrs Young
(Christchurch), Miss Gow (New Plymouth), Mrs Truby King
(president), Mrs S.F.Smithson (Timaru), Mrs Theomin
(Dunedin). - Otago Witness, 9.3.1910.
The announcement that there will be at least two women
candidates for election as members of the Hospital and
Charitable Aid Board for the Otago district will, we believe,
be regarded with a considerable amount of satisfaction by those
who have bestowed careful thought on the question of the
administration of charitable aid and hospital relief.
There is hardly any sphere of public activity into which
women are better qualified to enter than that connected with
the administration of charities.
The voluntary agencies that exist in our midst for the relief
of distress, for the alleviation of suffering, and for the
protection of the weak were, as a matter of fact, mainly
organised and are largely controlled by women, and the record
of their management is worthy of warm commendation.
In this city, as in other cities, there are a number of
public-spirited, noble-hearted women engaged in philanthropic
and charitable work, any of whom, if they could only be
persuaded to submit to the ordeal of a public election for
membership of the local authority that controls the
administration of hospital and charitable relief on behalf of
the community as a whole, would prove valuable members of the
Board.
The experience they have acquired in the voluntary service
they have performed in the past and the insight they have
gained into the complexities of the problem that is involved
in the efficient and discriminating administration of relief
furnish them with an equipment which might with distinct
advantage be placed at the service of ratepayers.
The monumental report last year of the Poor Law Commission,
which itself included three women - Mrs Bosanquet, Mrs Sidney
Webb, and Miss Octavia Hill - in its personnel, makes
frequent reference to the importance of the service that may
be rendered by women and one of the recommendations of the
Commission is that in future the members of the local
authority should be nominated from amongst men and women.
In all the circumstances the candidature of Mrs Blair and Mrs
Gibson Turton for seats on the Otago Board as representatives
of Dunedin City and West Harbour is to be welcomed.
• ODT, 9.3.1910
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