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The Australian Local Government Women's Association was created in Canberra on October 15, 1951, at a meeting held in the hotel suite of Councillor Mrs Violet Lambert of Fern Tree Gully Shire Council, Victoria, by 16 local government women drawn from all States of Australia then attending the Jubilee Women's Convention in the Jubilee Year of the Commonwealth of Australia (19/01/1951). It was probably the only far reaching outcome of this great conference.
ALGWA measures its success by the number of women encouraged to join Local Government. In 1951, when ALGWA was first organised, only 54 women had been elected. By December 1974 a total of 877 women had been elected in Australia, of whom 460 were then sitting members.
While South Australia had the first woman in local government with Mrs Susan Grace Benny, JP, elected in 1919, NSW has been the most successful state. In 1974, 169 women were elected, the highest number elected up to that time in any one State, and the first woman Lord Mayor in Australia (Alderman Lilian M Fowler, MBE, MLA, JP, Newtown Municipal Council) was elected. At the 1995 elections 406 women were elected in NSW (22.5%). There were 27 women Mayors (15%) and 37 Deputy Mayors but there were still 12 Councils with no women at all.
http://www.algwa.org.au
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