The Temperance Movement

The South Australian branch of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, formed in April 1886 following the visit of Mary Clement Leavitt, an American world missionary of the international union. Elizabeth Webb Nicholls was the first president of the South Australian branch.

Members believed in a ‘Woman’s Mission’ – that of making society more moral. This drove them into many areas of life and many campaigns. In the late nineteenth century the conservative group joined the Women’s Suffrage League to campaign for votes for women.

State Library of South Australia, SRG 186/114/1