Hi Walter, I can't help thinking it more likely that the reason would be that the petitions were'lost' or never reached the communities for whatever reason. Whilst I agree that many women would bide by their husbands wishes, there were still widows and single women, plus some married women who could speak up for themselves and were prepared to do so. Some might even had husbands who agreed that women deserved to be heard!! Best wishes, Sandra Hargreaves > Shirley, > > Another reason for non-signing could be dissuasion by a husband or another > individual or group opposed to the cause. > One can only speculate as to why over 100 Warragul women signed - in > contrast to a combined total of one for Sale, Maffra & Stratford. > Perhaps the Warragul Guardian was considerably more sympathetic to the > cause > than the Gippsland Times.

Obviously we've struck a rich lode of speculation as we ponder the reasons why women did not sign the petition. But anyone who has done time in a polling booth on election day will probably have met them all. One woman, apparently intelligent, respectable and old enough to know better, who registered her name with name and took the voting papers I gave her, promptly tore them up saying, 'I've never voted in my life and I'm not going to start now' and dumped the lot in the bin! Interesting topic. Cheers Shirley

Hi All Another thing to look out for is that many saw that the person above them had written the town, so they just wrote the street. I didn't find many among the Portland lot that I'm doing, but I know that Ada found quite a few in her Williamstown research, so tedious as it may be, I ploughed through the whole list with a Portland street directory beside me and then accepted or eliminated the possibilities. Cheers Beryl Beryl O'Gorman Greensborough Victoria Australia ----- Original Message ----- From: "Shirley Westaway" <westaway@dcsi.net.au> To: <aus-vic-gippsland@rootsweb.com> Sent: Thursday, March 20, 2008 12:28 PM Subject: Re: [AVG] Gippsland women on the Suffrage Petition > > Obviously we've struck a rich lode of speculation as we ponder the > reasons > why women did not sign the petition. > > But anyone who has done time in a polling booth on election day will > probably