Doris Blackburn

Who was Doris Blackburn?

Doris Amelia Blackburn was an Australian activist and Member of Parliament.

Born in Hawthorn, Melbourne, Victoria to Lebbeus Hordern, estate agent, and his wife Louisa Dewson, Doris Hordern became involved in women's rights and peace issues from a young age and served as the campaign secretary of Vida Goldstein, the first woman to stand for election to federal parliament in Australia. She married Maurice Blackburn, a fellow firebrand socialist, in 1914 and spent their honeymoon organising anti-war and anti-conscription campaigns. While her husband served at different times as a Labor member of the Victorian and Federal parliaments, Blackburn continued to work on social issues, some of which brought her into conflict with the Labor Party and following Maurice's expulsion from the party in 1937, she resigned from the ALP. Her husband continued to sit in parliament as an independent but lost his seat at the 1943 federal election to the official Labor candidate, and died the following year.

Upset at Labor's treatment of her husband, Doris stood as an Independent Labour candidate for Maurice's old seat of Bourke at the 1946 election, winning it and in doing so became only the second woman to be elected to the Australian House of Representatives.