Bessie Mabel Rischbieth, OBE JP (née Earle; 16 October 1874 – 13 March 1967)[1] was an influential and early Australian feminist and social activist.

She returned, along with her sister, to Adelaide to continue her schooling, living with her uncle William Benjamin "Ben" Rounsevell, a politician, also of Cornish Australian parentage,[4] who was influential in the formation of his niece's social consciousness.

[5] She attended the Advanced School for Girls in Adelaide and participated in debate within her home on the topics of the day, including federation and women's emancipation.

The Rischbieths did not have children which led to Bessie engaging in child welfare and social reform, and eventually to her role in the women's movements of the early 20th century.

[9] Women's suffrage was a dominant topic in Britain at this time; a mass rally, subsequent public debate and prosecutions of activists were occurring.

After hearing Emily Pankhurst speak for the Women's Social and Political Union, she wrote to her sister, "... as I listened, I felt my backbone growing longer, as though you gained courage and freedom from her".

[10][11][12] After attending the suffrage meeting in London in 1913, she became an active feminist through the WSG and helped to found the Australian Federation of Women's Societies (AFWV) in 1921, becoming its first President.

She was also the first woman appointed a Justice of the Peace at the Perth Court after a successful campaign to alter remnant legislation forbidding women to be seated at the bench.

She pointed out to Prime Minister Joseph Lyons in 1934 that Australia was a signatory of the League of Nations Covenant and had acquired a responsibility to the indigenous people.

The WSGWA was a conservatively based and politically independent organisation that helped to advance projects such as a maternity hospital (KEMH) that accepted single women, despite widespread opposition.

[citation needed] Despite differences between Rischbieth and Street regarding politics the two shared much in common which resulted in cooperative or parallel campaigns addressing issues relating to women, indigenous Australians, and pacifism.

[citation needed] Rischbieth was an important member of the Theosophical movement; a group that overlapped with feminist and conservation activism in post-federation Australia.

[3] This was published in the West Australian newspaper and succeeded in generating public discussion of development, although it failed to stop land reclamation of the Perth foreshore.

In 2023 The West Australian newspaper identified the 100 people who had shaped the state of Western Australia and they included senator Jo Vallentine, politician and businessperson Carmen Lawrence, health activist Fiona Stanley, writer Sally Morgan, Dr Roberta Jull, women's leader Amy Jane Best and Rischbieth.

[39] Rischbieth, Bessie Mabel (1964), March of Australian women : a record of fifty years' struggle for equal citizenship, Paterson Brokensha, retrieved 3 February 2016