Talk:Catherine Helen Spence

Untitled

The claim that CHS was the first woman to stand for public office in Australia seems unlikely. Pete 09:36, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Because "public office" is ambiguous (and perhaps misleading), I have reworded the associated statement. She was indeed Australia's first female political candidate, but whether the Federal Conventions constitute "public office", I am unsure. She never stood for Parliament. In any case, I intend to expand the article - with references ;).--Cyberjunkie 14:57, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I'm still not sure that she was Australia's first female political candidate, whether unsuccessful or not. I have the collection of her writings edited by Helen Thomson (into which I am delighted to find that I had tucked a pristine example of the $5 note to serve as a bookmark and then forgotten), but Helen the editor doesn'5t say whether CGS was the first candidate or not, and CHS in the portion of her autobiography included gives herself no more than a line on the subject, merely saying that she was unsuccessful.

She was a remarkable woman, and has long been one of my heroes. It is a shame that she was not elected, for then amongst the generally white male bearded middle class Founding Fathers, we would have had a Mother!

She certainly deserves more room in Wikidedia than she currently occupies, but I fear that I would find it hard to know when to stop, because I would like to sing her praises endlessly. However, I shall at least roll up my sleeves and make a start. Pete 23:38, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)

South Australia was the first in the world to grant women the right to political candidacy, and indeed, the only place in Australia to have granted said right at the time of the Federal Conventions. From my reading on the web so far (I haven't had time to access literature), this website (see 1897) prepared by the State Library of South Australia, showing significant dates for South Australian women, concurs.--Cyberjunkie 07:57, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Fair enough. Makes her all the more courageous! Pete 08:50, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)

What does this bot entry mean - Simple: Catherine Spence. I have never seen that form and Wikipedia should reflect current and past usage not push it in new directions. It's not something to go to the barricades over, but it seems pointless.--Doug butler (talk) 15:25, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

External links modified

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Portrait

Is there no portrait of Spence as a young woman? We have three similar pictures of her as a dowager. Doug butler (talk) 23:51, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

GA review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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This review is transcluded from Talk:Catherine Helen Spence/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: MCE89 (talk · contribs) 11:54, 11 October 2025 (UTC)

Reviewer: LEvalyn (talk · contribs) 04:10, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

Claiming this review-- though it may be a day or two before I can finish my comments. Thanks for your work with WiG, this looks fascinating. As usual, I prefer to make smallish prose edits myself and only place comments here when I have questions, though of course as always you should feel free to change or discuss any edits you happen to disagree with. Looking forward to it! ~ L 🌸 (talk) 04:10, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

Good Article review progress box

Criteria: 1a. prose () 1b. MoS () 2a. ref layout () 2b. cites WP:RS () 2c. no WP:OR () 2d. no WP:CV () 3a. broadness () 3b. focus () 4. neutral () 5. stable () 6a. free or tagged images () 6b. pics relevant () Note: this represents where the article stands relative to the Good Article criteria. Criteria marked are unassessed

Comments

Notes / optional ideas

• Made a pass through the prose, and made almost no edits-- very interesting, too! I do have a few optional thoughts about flow, mostly to do with wrangling the chronology of things:
  • What do you think about moving the "journalism" section to be the first part of "career"? I think some level of disjointedness is inevitable given that she did so many things simultaneously that we want to discuss thematically, but I found it particularly disorienting to jump backward to 1840 after the novels section. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 23:20, 17 October 2025 (UTC)
  • Would it be possible to move the info about the orphans she adopted somewhere in the chronological flow of her life when she did it, or maybe in the section about her work with early foster care? Having it at the very end makes it feel more like an obituary than a biography (eg, she is survived by...) ~ L 🌸 (talk) 23:20, 17 October 2025 (UTC)
• The two books are fine as-is as "notable works", but I also think it would make sense to move basically all that info over to the respective book articles and just allow the wikilinks in her bio & bibliography to bring people there as desired. With maybe a few more sentences about the general kind of fiction she wrote, in the "fiction" section of her career. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 23:20, 17 October 2025 (UTC)
• All the images have appropriate licenses. The placement sometimes feel a little awkward, since the image dates are a bit before the date in the nearby bit of text, but I tried rearranging them and hated the effect it had on the overall article layout so I think it works as-is. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 00:52, 19 October 2025 (UTC)
• Sourcing-wise, the article relies very heavily of Magarey 2010, but since that's the only book-length biography & fairly recent, seems appropriate. Other sources all high-quality RS. I actually think it could bring some fun spice to the article to quote a tiny bit from her autobiography, but it's very good that the article does not rely on her account of events. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 00:52, 19 October 2025 (UTC)
• For the source check I looked at cites 1a-d, 13, 23, 37, 47 as numbered in this diff. Everything verifies nicely with no copyvio or close paraphrase. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 00:52, 19 October 2025 (UTC)
• The source check raised some questions for me about the autobiography, but I got a little carried away and just added the info to the article myself, so it's not a breadth question after all... ~ L 🌸 (talk) 00:52, 19 October 2025 (UTC)
• Overall, the article looks wonderful! Since all of my notes above are optional, I will pass the article as-is. Thanks for again expanding our knowledge about Australian women writers! ~ L 🌸 (talk) 00:52, 19 October 2025 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. You can locate your hook here. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Darth Stabro (talk) 21:55, 21 December 2025 (UTC)

(

• Comment or view
• Article history

)

Catherine Helen Spence

• ... that by the time of her death, Catherine Helen Spence (pictured) was known as the "Grand Old Woman of Australia"?

• Source: Magarey, Susan (2010) [1985]. Unbridling the Tongues of Women: A Biography of Catherine Helen Spence. Adelaide: University of Adelaide Press. p. 163. ISBN 978-0-9806723-1-2. Retrieved 6 October 2025. and Eade, Susan (1976). "Catherine Helen Spence (1825–1910)". In Nairn, Bede (ed.). Australian Dictionary of Biography. Vol. 6. Carlton: Melbourne University Press. ISBN 978-0-522-84108-4. Retrieved 5 October 2025.

• • ALT1: ... that the final novel by Catherine Helen Spence (pictured) remained unpublished for over a century after being labelled "socialistic" and "dangerous"? Source: Walston Joseph, Terra (2011). "A 'curious political and social experiment': a settler utopia, feminism and a greater Britain in Catherine Helen Spence's Handfasted". In Wagner, Tamara (ed.). Victorian Settler Narratives: Emigrants, Cosmopolitans and Returnees in Nineteenth-Century Literature. London: Routledge. p. 207. doi:10.4324/9781315655796. ISBN 978-1-315-65579-6. and Magarey, Susan (2010) [1985]. Unbridling the Tongues of Women: A Biography of Catherine Helen Spence. Adelaide: University of Adelaide Press. p. 45. ISBN 978-0-9806723-1-2. Retrieved 6 October 2025.
  • Reviewed:

Improved to Good Article status by MCE89 (talk). Number of QPQs required: 0. Nominator has fewer than 5 past nominations.

MCE89 (talk) 04:21, 20 October 2025 (UTC).

•  Working, I'll review this. TarnishedPath^talk 10:40, 20 October 2025 (UTC)

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems
Adequate sourcing: Neutral: Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:

Hook eligibility:

• Cited: - ?
• Interesting:

Image: Image is freely licensed, used in the article, and clear at 100px.
Freely licensed: Used in article: Clear at 100px:

QPQ: Done.

Overall: All good to go with ALT0. @MCE89: if I can get a quote for ALT1. Once that is provided I'll approve that hook also. TarnishedPath^talk 10:50, 20 October 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for the review @TarnishedPath! Here's the quote for ALT1 with the relevant bits bolded:

It is understandable, then, that when Spence submitted the manuscript of Handfasted to The Sydney Mail in 1879 hoping to win a £100 prize, she was informed by the judge that her novel ‘was calculated to loosen the marriage tie – it was too socialistic, and consequently dangerous’. Spence’s frank acknowledgement of pre-marital sex and her failure to criticize it no doubt was largely responsible for the manuscript’s rejection and its consequent obscurity, which remained so until 1984 when the first and only edited version was published

The fact that it was her final novel is supported by p.45 of the other listed source, which should be freely accessible.MCE89 (talk) 11:01, 20 October 2025 (UTC)

@MCE89 thanks for that, it wanted me to create an account when I attempted to access the source and I wasn't up for that. Anyway, both hooks approved with a preference for ATL1, which I think is more interesting. TarnishedPath^talk 11:30, 20 October 2025 (UTC)

@MCE89: I was about to promote this, but was intrigued by details in that quote like "calculated to loosen the marriage tie" and the depictions of pre-marital sex. I think leaning into that angle could make for a hookier hook, if you're interested in proposing an ALT2. If not, no worries, and we can move forward with ALT1. (please  mention me on reply; thanks!) —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 04:22, 17 December 2025 (UTC)

@TechnoSquirrel69: Sure, thoughts on these? Happy to go with any other variations if you have suggestions:

• ALT2a: ...that the final novel by Catherine Helen Spence (pictured) was accused of being "calculated to loosen the marriage tie" due to its depiction of trial marriages and pre-marital sex?
• ALT2b: ...that the final novel by Catherine Helen Spence (pictured) remained unpublished for over a century after its depiction of trial marriages was labelled "socialistic" and "dangerous"?
• ALT2c: ...that the final novel by Catherine Helen Spence (pictured) remained unpublished for over a century after it was accused of being "calculated to loosen the marriage tie"?

MCE89 (talk) 04:41, 17 December 2025 (UTC)

Thanks! I'll go ahead and approve all of these with a preference for ALT2c (reviewing the hooks only) since I'm probably too involved to promote them. —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 04:55, 17 December 2025 (UTC)