[6] People in the latter part of the nineteenth century, due to industrial and societal changes in the status of women, became increasingly interested in, and appreciative of, products of female domestic and paid labour.

With more radically feminist aims, the exposition internationale des arts et métiers féminins and its associated conference the Congrès du travail, organised by Pauline Savari, had taken place in Paris over four months from 25 June to 30 October 1902.

[15] Each day it attracted around 3,000 visitors who attended lectures, demonstrations, concerts and plays and its award ceremonies,[16] was supported by patrons including the Chief Justice Frederick Darley, Governor Charles Wynn-Carington, and Premier Sir Henry Parkes.

Carrington was joined by principle organiser, the philanthropist Lady Mary Elizabeth (Bolton) Windeyer who was also Foundation President of the Womanhood Suffrage League of New South Wales.

Competitions in needlework, lacemaking, knitting, cooking and confectionary, typewriting, box and toy making, sick nursing and ambulance work, horticulture and fine arts including photography and pottery, were open to female schoolchildren, girls and women of all backgrounds.

The Australian Exhibition of Women's Work was ostensibly administered under an all-male honorary secretariat,[19] which included chairman John Grice,[14] manager Theo W. Heide,[20] and C. Morrice Williams as secretary.

[1] However, the inspiration and driving force for Victoria's truly international exhibition, subsequent to Sydney's 1888 state-based exposition, was Alice, Lady Northcote, wife of the UK Conservative politician, who invited Alexandra, Queen of the United Kingdom, to be the patron.

[22]Kerr reports that a preliminary, promotional 'Australian Exhibition of Women's Work' was opened by Louise, the Duchess of Argyll at Rumplemayer's, St James' St., London on 10 July 1907,[25] which included works by Princess Victoria, and by Margaret Preston and other Australian expatriates, 'the painters Agnes Goodsir, Iso and Alison Rae, Dora Meeson and Mary Stoddard, and sculptors Theo Cowan and Dora Ohlfsen.

'[26] In preparation for the Melbourne event, entries were received from around the British Empire; Canada,[27] Madras and Bloemfontein, South Africa,[21] and the United Kingdom from whence in early August 1907 the R.M.S.

[31] A horticultural section, in which, as for other categories, prizes were offered in numbers of classes, specified in that case that plants 'must have been grown by the competitor, or else have been in her possession and under her care for at least six months preceding the date of the opening of the exhibition.'.

[40] The Australian Exhibition of Women's Work has been credited with being the 'largest', 'most comprehensive'[26] and "the most complete expression of the state of decorative arts at the start of the century",[30] though advisedly in the Australian context; 1907 was the year in which Pablo Picasso painted his Les Demoiselles d'Avignon and Kolomon Moser with Josef Hoffmann had, three years previous, founded the Wiener Werkstätte which, preceding the Bauhaus, produced functionally designed household goods in severely geometric minimalist decoration.

[21] Hannon and McKay note that despite contemporaneous media attention on the Exhibition and preparations for it, the executive committee left unpublished its history and the documentation was subsequently lost.