Australian $50 note

The $50 note obverse side features Australia's first published Aboriginal author, David Unaipon, and as its reverse it features Edith Dircksey Cowan O.B.E., the first woman to hold a seat in an Australian Parliament.

David Unaipon was born at Port McLeay Mission in South Australia on 28th. September 1872, son of a Ngarrindjeri Aboriginal evangelist, James Ngunaitponi and his wife Nymbulda. During his lifetime David was obsessed with science and inventions and, even though higher education was denied to him, his natural talent for 'making things that worked' shone through.

In 1909 he patented an improved handpiece for shearers and invented a centrifugal motor amongst many other things, but could never get any financial backing to develop his ideas. He had married a Tangani woman, Katherine Carter (nee Sumner) in 1902, and because of his background, and a knowledge of several of the aboriginal dialects, he won acceptance by many local tribes and became prominent as a spokesperson for them.

In the late 1920's, Unaipon was involved in several Royal Commissions and inquiries into Aboriginal welfare and he wanted to see the Commonwealth take control of aboriginal affairs instead of them being left to the individual states that had no resources, and in some cases no inclination, to act sympathetically in this area of social justice.

David Unaipon was an advocate of 'sympathetic co-operation' between all races and, in an effort to create a spirit of understanding, he wrote several articles for a newspaper, the Sydney 'Daily Telegraph' and a magazine, 'The Home' as well as several books about native legends that gave him the honour of being the first Aboriginal author to be published internationally.

He died on 7th. February 1967, at the age of 94, and was buried where he was born, at Port McLeay.

There is a hint of sadness in the portrait of Edith Cowan, on our Fifty Dollar note, which highlights the compassion of the woman, but does nothing to show the resolve that powered her to achieve great things in the cause of women's rights.

Edith Brown had a traumatic childhood which started on 2nd. August 1861, at Glengarry in Western Australia. Her mother, Mary, died in childbirth when Edith was only an impressionable 7 year old and then when she was aged 15, her father, Kenneth, murdered his second wife!

When she turned eighteen Edith married the man who would eventually become City of Perth police magistrate, James Cowan, on 12th. November 1879 and, by 1891, they were raising five children. Because of her husband's involvement, through the courts, with all sorts of disadvantaged women and children who had been handed a poor deal in life, Edith started to become active in numerous voluntary organisations in an effort to better their lot.

Her first priorities included health and hygiene, state schools to provide free education (including sex education to be taught in schools), equal citizenship rights for both sexes, as well as day nurseries for working mothers.

Over the next fifty or so years until her death at age 70, on the 9th. June 1932, Edith Cowan achieved an impressive number of 'firsts' in her fight to champion the cause of the underdogs. From 1891-1906 she worked with several organisations to get her day nurseries accepted as well as the Children's Courts, of which she became one of the first women to be appointed to the bench in 1915.

During World War I, she worked tirelessly for the Red Cross and was awarded the O.B.E. (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) in 1920, the same year she was appointed one of the first female Justices of the Peace in the country.

In 1921 Edith decided to stand for the Western Australian Parliament as a National Party member, and was successful in becoming the first woman to win a seat in any Australian Parliament. Her contribution during her only term in office included putting forward several private member's bills, which were accepted, that helped promote women's inheritance rights and the equal opportunity for women to enter the legal profession.

Edith Cowan has been remembered in several other more tangible ways as well; a memorial clock tower in Perth's King's Park, a Federal electorate, and a University have all been named after this remarkable woman.

Page maintained by Grant Schmarr,
Copyright © 1997-99 Grant Schmarr.
Created: 25th October 1997. Updated: 24th November 1999