Dorothy Vaughan push for reform in early 20th Century Adelaide social justice, sexual equality, children/youth welfare
Dorthy Vaughan's concern for “wayward” girls contributed to the Barton Vale reformatory at Enfield being closed and reopened as the Vaughan House Training School for Girls in 1947. (The building is pictured restored to its 1850s origins as the Bowman family's Barton Vale house.)
Dorothy Vaughan image courtesy State Library of South Australia
Dorothy Vaughan’s early 20th Century devotion to reform in Adelaide centred on social justice, sexual equality and the welfare of children/youth. Born in the suburb of Norwood in 1881 to civil servant Alfred and wife Louisa, Vaughan was proud of her Chartist ancestry and took part in her family's wide-ranging political and social discussions.
Like her brothers Crawford (a South Australian premier) and John Howard (lawyer and politician), Vaughan joined the United Labor Party and in 1910 organised a women's branch at Norwood. She was secretary of an All Nations fair to raise funds for Labor's newspaper, the Daily Herald, and backed country Labor women's committees.
In 1913, under Howard Vaughan's presidency, she was one of three women elected to the United Labor Party executive. As Unitarian representative on the British Girls' Welfare League in 1912-14, Vaughan helped immigrant “domestic helpers” and took part in the Unitarian Women's League from its start in 1912. Appointed a justice of the peace in 1917, she later presided over the Women Justices' Association. In 1927-29, she was one of three female directors of the Adelaide Co-operative Society Ltd and showed her concern for poor families.
Vaughan helped redraft the Women's Non-Party Political Association's platform in 1912. President in 1932-35, she envisaged a new social order: she guided campaigns for equal parental guardianship, improved children's courts, women appointed to public boards, and, with Jeanne Young, for proportional representation in parliament.
With the Woman's Christian Temperance Union 1936-54, Vaughan was variously state superintendent of equal citizenship, petitions and legislative, and prison work. President of the Henley Beach Union in 1949-54, she also supported single-tax leagues.
In 1916, the Crawford Vaughan government appointed her to the state children's council. It was responsible for wards of the state being in detention or placed in private homes, their release, and supervising foster mothers and illegitimate children. Vaughan was the visitor for Rose Park and an active council member. Lacking the expertise and resources to meet the children's needs, the councillors were derided by A. A. (Bert) Edwards for their ineffectual gentility.
In 1927, Vaughan was an assiduous foundation member of the children's welfare and public relief board that replaced the council. Her concern for “wayward” girls contributed to the Barton Vale reformatory being closed and reopened as Vaughan House Training School for Girls in 1947. Its girls often stayed overnight with Vaughan and visited her after their release. Appointed an MBE (Most excellent order of the British empire) in 1954, Vaughan retired from the board in 1962
