Mrs A. V. Roberts
Mrs A. V. Roberts JP, ( – 15 August 1969)[1] was a feminist and social activist in Sydney, New South Wales, best known as a leader, speaker and organiser, active in the 1920s and 1930s.
[20] He leased, from Closer Settlement Ltd, land at "Ferrodale", an estate near Raymond Terrace, for subleasing, but lost on the deal.
[23] She was one of several women Justices, including Miss Preston Stanley, Annie Golding, and Mrs Edwards-Byrne,[d] opposed to capital punishment.
[24] In 1920 Roberts was elected secretary of the North Sydney branch of the Housewives Association,[25] in which context she was known as "the woman who brought the prices down".
[29] In 1921 she addressed the Citizens' Association of New South Wales (affiliated with the National Council of Women) on the subject of housing,[30] and was a committee member 1921[31]–1926.
In 1921 Roberts was Secretary to the Lady Mayor's (Mrs A. E. Whatmore) Clothing Appeal Fund,[37] and a member of the executive in 1922.
secretary of the North Sydney committee of the Blind Institution when her sister Emilie Draper entertained at a charity concert.
The Women's Union of Service (WUS) was founded in 1920,[43] and Mrs Roberts came to the fore, investigating the price of meat and milk.
[45][46] The WUS was largely responsible for the election of Mrs Margaret Dale as delegate to the 1923 League of Nations conference at Geneva.
[48] Roberts was the WUS delegate to the 1923 Melbourne convention of the National Council of Women, convened to discuss maternity allowance.
organisations affiliated with the Australian Equal Citizenship Federation, the others being the Feminist Club, the Women's Christian Temperance Union (W.C.T.U.
When they put the proposition at a women-only meeting at Trades Hall, Adela Pankhurst Walsh was pilloried as a class traitor and Roberts was howled down, Littlejohn left the stage, and Page, whose husband was the Federal treasurer had to be shielded from the mob.
Roberts held that by the principles of feminism, if men were chosen at random and compelled to serve, then women jurors should be treated in the same way.
[67] In June 1929, a year ahead of the retirement of S. H. Smith, they urged appointment of a woman Director of Education, on the grounds that women teachers outnumbered males by a factor of three to two.
Roberts was president of the Council of Social and Moral Reform which, inter alia, campaigned against immodest bathing costumes.
In September 1930 Lady Philip Game founded auxiliary for blind association, and Roberts was elected organising secretary.
In 1926 she was invited to a meeting at Beaumont House of the Australian Mothercraft Society, a Sydney charity whose president was Cara, Lady David, and whose aim was the reduction of deaths of infants from gastro-enteritis by the Plunket system[80] Three months later Roberts was a member and, at their General Meeting, was elected vice-president.
[87] While living in Cavendish, Victoria, Mrs Roberts was active in Hamilton church life: in the choir[88] and as a fundraiser.
[f] She declared herself a candidate at the 1922 North Sydney municipal elections,[96] but failed to register, someone claiming she was late with her nomination papers due to death of a soldier brother, "a widower with four young children",[97] clearly A.
Roberts is not known to have published a book, but was author of numerous newspaper essays, including: On 2 August 1905 at Shepparton, Anna Maude Draper married Albert Victor Roberts (died 25 August 1944),[9] hotelier of Nathalia,[102] previously farm manager of Murchison and Rushworth, Victoria in the 1890s.
