The Famous Five: Canada’s Crusaders for Women’s Rights

The Famous Five

Canada’s Crusaders for Women’s Rights

BARBARA SMITH

For my great-granddaughter,

Cait Deborah Marie

Contents

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER 1 Who Were These Women?

CHAPTER 2 Working Together (The 1910s) 

CHAPTER 3 The Political Battle (1917 to 1927)

CHAPTER 4 The Legal Battle (1927 to 1929)

CHAPTER 5 The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (1928 to 1929)

CHAPTER 6 Later Years 

CHAPTER 7 Looking Back 

CHAPTER 8 The Famous Five 

TIMELINE

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

NOTES

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY AND REFERENCES

INDEX

Never retract, never explain, never apologize:

just get the thing done and let them howl.

-NELLIE MCCLUNG, a proud member of the Famous Five

Prologue

Early in the afternoon of Saturday, August 27, 1927, Emily Murphy was busy preparing to receive visitors. Four of her most respected friends would be joining her to enjoy tea and slices of date and nut loaf on the front porch of her home on Edmonton’s south side.

She had chosen her clothes carefully, knowing that her friends would have as well. All of them would want to show every respect for the importance of their mission that afternoon. Emily also knew that each of her friends would be wearing a hat, while the etiquette of the day dictated that she, in her own home, would not.

Of course, Emily Murphy had hosted many gatherings that were larger and more formal than this one, but she knew today’s gathering held considerable significance. These friends were all accomplished women who knew and admired one another, and the five shared an important common purpose. Henrietta Muir Edwards was a social activist, a reformer, and a legal expert. Nellie

McClung was an internationally respected author and speaker, who had been a key figure in winning the vote for Western Canadian women. Louise McKinney was one of the first two women elected to a Canadian legislature and was president of the powerful Women’s Christian Temperance Union in Canada. Irene Parlby was a member of Alberta’s legislative assembly and by 1927 had served as minister without portfolio for six years, tirelessly fighting for the law’s protection of women and children.

This short guest list had been chosen with great care. Emily could have called on her husband, one of her daughters, a neighbour and a colleague, all of whom would have fulfilled the requirement of being interested parties, but the occasion called for as substantial an impact as possible. And for that, Emily Murphy knew exactly who to choose. Individually, each one of these women was strong, determined, and intelligent. Collectively, they were a force to be reckoned with, and Emily realized she would need that sort of support because this was a battle that would likely become contentious.

Later that afternoon, when all five women were settled into wicker chairs on the screened-in sunporch, Murphy showed her friends a letter she had written to the Governor General in which she asked two questions of critical importance to all Canadian women. Her guests were not surprised. They all knew the purpose of this get-together was not merely social. After they had each read the letter, they nodded in agreement and, in alphabetical order, signed their names.

Years later, Nellie McClung recalled the occasion and wrote, It was a perfect day in harvest time. Blue haze lay on the horizon. Wheat fields, now dotted with stooks, were waiting for the threshing machine. Bees droned in the delphiniums and roses. We sat on her verandah and talked the afternoon away. Then we put our names to the petition and it was sent to Ottawa.1

And with this action, the long slow process that would see Canadian women finally legally recognized as persons was set in motion.

Emily Murphy’s Recipe for Date and Nut Loaf

Emily Murphy rarely spent time preparing food, but on August 27, 1927, she may have baked her popular date and nut loaf to serve to Henrietta Edwards, Nellie McClung, Louise McKinney, and Irene Parlby before they all signed the letter that began the process that would become known as the Persons Case.2

4 cups of flour

4 teaspoons of baking powder

1 cup of white sugar

1 cup of chopped walnuts

1 cup of chopped dates

1 egg, well beaten

2 cups of sweet milk

Pinch of salt

Let rise 20 minutes. Bake 1 to 1½ hours slowly. Makes two loaves. For one loaf use half the amounts and bake for ¾ of an hour.

Chapter

1

Who Were

These Women?

Who were these five exceptional women who became known as the Famous Five? All of them lived in Alberta, although none had been born there. Three of the women came from Ontario, one from Quebec, and one from Britain via India and Ireland. Three were born in 1868, the year after Canada became a country. All five women were married and mothers. Three were provincial politicians. All were devout Christians, accomplished public speakers, feminists, activists, and social reformers.

Despite their impressive individual credentials, some historians have called the group The Famous One plus Four,1 because there is no denying that Emily Murphy was the driving force in the campaign to have women recognized as persons under the terms of the British North America (BNA) Act and thereby be granted the right to be appointed to the Senate. But all five of the women contributed to women’s, and human, rights in Canada.

Henrietta Louise Muir Edwards

Henrietta Edwards, the oldest member of the Famous Five, was born into a large and prosperous family on December 18, 1849. Her parents were forward-thinking people who were well-connected

politically and often sponsored public talks that provided information about progressive issues such as women’s rights. They were also devout Christians who had financed the construction of

St. Helen’s Chapel, the first Baptist church in Montreal.2

Henrietta Edwards’s legal texts were utilized and admired

throughout Canada. Glenbow Archives NA 2607-7

Before Henrietta’s parents married in 1844, they prepared and signed what today would be considered a pre-nuptial agreement, guaranteeing that her mother would be exempt from any financial obligations to her father’s businesses and that she would have her own property. In addition, the Muirs’ wills divided their estate evenly among their children at a time when it was traditional for daughters to be excluded from inheritances.

Henrietta was a talented artist who studied art in Canada, the United States, and Europe. She specialized in painting miniatures and was so accomplished that she was commissioned to paint a set of dishes as part of the Canadian exhibit at the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago.

She was also active in many of the women’s organizations that were forming across the country at the time. She was a feminist and a prohibitionist who strongly believed in the power of women helping women. In 1875, while still living in Montreal, Henrietta and her sister Amelia helped to establish the Working Girls Club (later the Working Women’s Club), which provided girls and women with rooms, meals, and opportunities to study and learn. The club was a forerunner to the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA). Together the sisters also formed the Women’s Baptist Missionary Society East.

Not surprisingly, given the era, there were no magazines specifically published for working women. Henrietta and Amelia filled that void by opening a company they called the Montreal Women’s Printing Office. They employed only women and trained them as typesetters, printers, and compositors. The company published a periodical known variously as The Working Woman of Canada and Woman’s Work in Canada, which Henrietta illustrated. Remarkably, this endeavour was fully supported by sales of Henrietta’s other illustrations and paintings, with her popular likenesses of Sir Wilfrid Laurier and Lord Strathcona consistently earning the most revenue.

As a devout Christian, Henrietta would have been taught that motherhood was a woman’s highest calling, so it wasn’t surprising that in 1876 she married Dr. Oliver Edwards. Henrietta made a copy of her parents’ pre-wedding contract, but the agreement never had to be put in place because, like her parents’ marriage, the Edwardses’ union flourished. The couple moved to Indian Head and then Fort Qu’Appelle, Northwest Territories (now Saskatchewan), where Henrietta assisted her husband in his medical practice among the local First Nations people. She also created a chapter of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union and helped to build a maternity hospital. In 1883, the Edwards family relocated to Fort Macleod (in what is now Alberta), near Lethbridge. By then they had three children, Alice, William Muir, and Margaret.

Having been raised to a life of privilege, Henrietta was shocked at the grinding poverty she saw in Western Canada. She began to investigate the legal system and found that there were no laws to protect women and children who had been abandoned, an all-too-common situation. This would not change unless people became aware of the injustice, so Henrietta set out to educate herself about the law.

When, in 1901, the National Council of Women of Canada (NCWC) published Women of Canada: Their Life and Work, it contained one chapter, The Political Position of Canadian Women, that Henrietta had written. She also assisted with the chapter

Professions and Careers.3 By 1908 her research led to the publication of her first book, Legal Status of Canadian Women, about the situation that had first drawn her attention. It was used as a resource across the country for many years.

Through her legal research, Henrietta came to meet Emily Murphy, who was also looking into the lack of laws protecting women in Alberta, as well as the other women who would gather at Murphy’s home for tea in 1927.

National Council of Women of Canada

The National Council of Women of Canada (NCWC) was founded in 1893 by Lady Aberdeen, Ishbel Maria Hamilton-Gordon, Marchioness of Aberdeen. Lady Aberdeen was married to Sir John Campbell Hamilton-

Gordon, who was Canada’s Governor General from 1893 to