Jessie Cooper

Jessie McAndrew was born and grew up in Sydney. She married Geoffrey D T Cooper, who was the youngest appointed Australian Lieutenant Colonel in World War II, commanding officer of the 2/27th,{{cite web | url=http://www.rusinsw.org.au/Papers/2010W07.pdf | title=Conflict in Command During the Kokoda Campaign of 1942: Did General Blamey Deserve the Blame? | work= Royal United Services Institute of New South Wales| author=Tracey, Rowan | page=7 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110303174314/http://www.rusinsw.org.au/Papers/2010W07.pdf | url-status=live | archive-date=3 March 2011}} and a fourth generation member of the Adelaide Cooper family (Coopers Brewery). They had one son who qualified M.B.B.S. and PhD and worked in immunology research before taking his father's seat on the Cooper's board of directors in 1989 and working as a general medical practitioner.[https://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/people/person.asp?personId=13651665&capId=9672984&previousCapId=9672984&previousTitle=Coopers%20Brewery%20Limited James McAndrew Cooper MBBS, Ph.D., MA], www.bloomberg.com

Ironically, South Australia was the last state to elect a female representative; at the 1896 election, South Australian women became the first in Australia to be given the right to vote and the first in the world to be given the right to stand for election to Parliament. Cooper and Joyce Steele were elected to the Parliament of South Australia at the 1959 election.{{Citation | author1=Jenkins, Cathy | title=No ordinary lives : pioneering women in Australian politics | year=2008 | publication-date=2008 | publisher=Australian Scholarly Publishing | isbn=978-1-74097-156-0 }}

In 1959, attempts were still being made to prevent women entering Parliament. In an action brought by Frank Chapman and Arthur Cockington, Jessie Cooper and Margaret Scott (the Liberal party and Labor party candidates respectively, running for the Legislative Council in the South Australian election), had to show that they were "persons" in the sense intended by the State Constitution to be eligible to stand. The South Australian Supreme Court found in their favour and Jessie Cooper went on to win a seat in the Legislative Council.{{cite journal | url=http://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/prod/parlment/publications.nsf/0/8e817c955283f747ca2572d100087573/$FILE/WomenParliamentMediaFinal.pdf | title=Women, Parliament and the Media | author=Drabsch, Talina | journal=NSW Parliamentary Library Research Service |date=April 2007 | page=4 | isbn=978-0-7313-1819-3 | issn=1325-5142 | oclc=225645404 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110524173229/http://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/prod/parlment/publications.nsf/0/8e817c955283f747ca2572d100087573/$FILE/WomenParliamentMediaFinal.pdf | url-status=dead | archive-date=24 May 2011}}{{Cite SA-parl|pid=2585|name=Jessie Mary Cooper|former=yes|access-date=14 November 2022}}

Reporters asked Joyce Steele and Jessie Cooper how they would combine their domestic duties with politics: Steele said that she would have to get a housekeeper to help with the housework, while Cooper replied that "... she would fit in her housework in the same way as a male member fitted in the running of an orchard or an accountant's office." (Sydney Morning Herald, 9 March 1959. p. 1){{cite journal | url=http://ejournalist.com.au/v2n1/cathy.pdf | title=The More Things Change: Women, Politics, and the Press in Australia | author=Jenkins, Cathy | journal=EJournalist: A Refereed Media Journal | year=2002 | volume=2 | issue=1 | pages=1–22 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110706103715/http://ejournalist.com.au/v2n1/cathy.pdf | archive-date=6 July 2011 | url-status=dead | oclc=669644339}}

Molly Byrne was Labor's first female elected to the Parliament of South Australia, at the 1965 election, and the third behind Steele and Cooper.

• Women and government in Australia
• Women in the South Australian Legislative Council

{{Reflist}}

• [http://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/827852 Jessie Cooper interviewed by Amy McGrath], [sound recording, ca. 43 mins.], 1 May 1980.
• [http://www.flinders.edu.au/scholarships-system/main-display-scholarship-rules.cfm?scholarship_id=184 Jessie Cooper Study Grants for Mature Entry Women], Flinders University of South Australia.
• [http://www.slsa.sa.gov.au/women_and_politics/parl3.htm The important supportive role of the League of Women Voters], State Library of South Australia.

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Category:1914 births

Category:1993 deaths

Category:Liberal and Country League politicians

Category:Members of the South Australian Legislative Council

Category:Politicians from Sydney

Category:20th-century Australian politicians

Category:20th-century Australian women politicians

Category:Women members of the South Australian Legislative Council