Eva Seery

Eva Seery was born on 27 February 1874 at Tangmangaroo near Yass, New South Wales to farmer and goldminer Edwin Joseph Dempsey and Mary, née Kelly.

Eva and her family moved to Temora and then West Wyalong, where she and her sister Sophia Beatrice "Sophy" (1872–1946) became dressmakers.

[1] By 1889, Eva Dempsey and her sister Sophy had joined the Australian Labor Party (then called the Labour League in New South Wales) in the Grenfell electorate in 1889, the only female members.

A founding member of the Labor Women's Central Organising Committee (LWCOC) (1904), she succeeded Edith Bethel as secretary in 1909 and served until 1922.

[1] Together with Kate Dwyer and May Matthews, Seery contested Labor Party preselection for the Senate in 1916 but was unsuccessful, ultimately being endorsed instead as the candidate for the safe conservative seat of Robertson; she and Henrietta Greville were the first women endorsed by a major party to contest the Australian Parliament.