Cecilia Downing MBE (née Hopkins; 1858–1952) was an Australian temperance and women's rights activist and leader.
Cecilia Hopkins attended the Training Institution in Carlton, and earned a teaching certificate for primary education.
[1] In 1885, she married John Downing, a Baptist pastor who had studied with Charles Spurgeon, a well-known British preacher.
[1] Downing worked as a child-probation officer in 1907, become one of the first people to hold this newly formed government role.
The organization was established to help women find cheaper prices for goods, by forming a co-operative.
[1] Her son Walter Hubert Downing was a lawyer and author of two books, including Digger Dialects, on words and expressions coined by Australian soldiers in WWI.