by Sorrel Pompert Robertson
Our series of stories, Know Your Park Lands Art, guide you through various creative displays within your Adelaide Park Lands. This time, we’re focused on the statue of Catherine Helen Spence in Light Square / Wauwi, by late sculptor Ieva Pocius.
The impressive life-size, bronze statue of Catherine bears the inscription, ‘Catherine Helen Spence, 1825-1910, social and political reformer, writer and preacher, who worked for children.’
The statue of Catherine Helen Spence in Light Square / Wauwi.
But what this doesn’t cover is perhaps her most significant contribution to Adelaidean history, and that is as a feminist.
Catherine Helen Spence was born in 1825 in Scotland, moving to South Australia in 1839 with her family.
Her career began in teaching, first as a governess, and then she was committed to improving the education and welfare of children.
In 1872, she established the Boarding-Out Society, a campaign that aimed to put orphaned or destitute children in the care of country families rather than within the Industrial School or city homes. But she didn’t stop there.
Left: Photographer unknown. Right: The original bust of Catherine Helen Spence, created by artist Ieva Pocius. Photo: State Library of Australia.
She founded kindergartens, a secondary school for girls, and wrote Australia’s first social studies textbook, The Laws We Live Under (1880).
It was her childhood ambition to be “a teacher first and a great writer afterwards”, and true to her word, she became a celebrated journalist, novelist and public speaker, beginning with her first work of fiction, Clara Morison: A Tale of South Australia During the Gold Fever (1854).
Her defiant spirit was noted early on with the Sydney Mail rejecting her manuscript, Handfasted, for a prize because it “calculated to loosen the marriage tie … too socialistic, and therefore, dangerous”.
Left: Catherine and her mother, Helen Brodie Spence. Photo: State Library of South Australia. Right: her statue in Light Square. Photo: Light Force Photography.
The seeds of her political leanings were beginning to show, and by 1878, she was a regular contributor as a literary reviewer and political commentator for titles like the Cornhill magazine, Fortnightly Review, and Melbourne Review.
A talented speaker, she often preached in Adelaide, Sydney and Melbourne for the Unitarian Christian Church, and used this skill to lecture and preach across the US in 1894.
Photo: History Hub.
Using her capacity for speaking, she campaigned for electoral reform and proportional representation, and in 1897, ran for the Federal Convention.
In 1891, she began her campaigning for women’s suffrage, becoming vice-president of the Women’s Suffrage League of South Australia. After women’s enfranchisement, first in South Australia in 1894, she continued to support the Women’s League across the rest of Australia to improve political education of women.
Photo: Monument Australia.
Her life was defined by firsts: the first female novelist to publish a story about Australia, the nation’s first professional female journalist, creator of the country’s first social studies textbook, the first woman to read papers to the South Australian Institute, and Australia’s first female political candidate.
She was also instrumental in perhaps the greatest achievement of all: South Australia becoming the first Australian colony to give the right to vote to women and the first in the world to allow women to stand for parliament.
Her legacy has created an Adelaide where feminism thrives, with 55 per cent of the workforce made up of women, a plethora of female-led acts fuelling the Fringe Festival annually, and where her biographer, Susan Margery, could found and lead the University of Adelaide’s Research Centre for Women’s Studies.
Dubbed ‘The Grand Old Woman of Australia’ for her tenacity and unwavering support for social reform, Catherine’s statue in Light Square stands resolute, upright and bold.
The sculptor, Ieva Pocius, like Catherine, was a migrant to Australia, a teacher, and also one for firsts. Born in Lithuania in 1923, she migrated in 1951 and became the first student to major in sculpture at the South Australian School of Art.
She then lectured at the school for over a decade and became a celebrated artist, who used her sculpture to reflect her thoughts on women and other interests.
Described by her granddaughter, Diana Pocius, as “unpretentious” and a “strong independent woman, of body and mind”, it’s difficult not to see the reflection of the artist in her subject.
Ieva’s Light Square statue was unveiled by Queen Elizabeth II on March 10, 1986, to commemorate 150 years of European settlement in South Australia.
Created by a woman, about a woman, and for women, Catherine Helen Spence’s likeness stands proudly in Light Square / Wauwi of your Adelaide Park Lands, as a symbol of Adelaide’s feminist legacy.
Photo: Shane Sody.
See more articles in our ‘Know Your Park Lands Art’ series.
Main image, top, of the Catherine Helen Spence statue, care of Experience Adelaide.
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Sorrel Pompert Robertson is a Falkland Islander, who has been travelling around Australia on a Working Holiday visa for the past year-and-a-half.
She recently visited Adelaide for several months. With her background in wildlife conservation and communications, she enjoyed supporting the Adelaide Park Lands cause for the short time she was here.
