The Australian Women's Register

Jeanne Young was born Sarah Jane Forster, one of eight children of John Goodman and Sarah Jane Forster. She became a freelance journalist with the Register and joined Catherine Helen Spence in 1896 in campaigning for proportional representation in parliament. On 23 January 1889, she married the Foreign Editor of the South Australian Advertiser, Alfred Howard Young. They were to have three sons and one daughter.

Jeanne Young was the first and only woman on the Board of Governors of the South Australian Public Library, Museum and Art Gallery (1916-1928). She was appointed to the Magistracy in 1917 and stood for parliament on a non-party ticket in 1918. During the First World War, Young was a member of the Central Red Cross and later became an administrator of the South Australian Soldiers’ Fund. She stood for the Senate in 1937 and was elected president of the Democratic Women’s Association of South Australia.

After the death of Catherine Helen Spence in 1910, Young completed Spence’s autobiography. She founded the C H Spence Scholarship for Women, and in 1937 wrote Catherine Helen Spence: a study and an appreciation.

Young produced several pamphlets on proportional representation, and wrote variously under the pen names of Jeanne F. Young, Sarah Jane Forster and Goodman Forster. On 9 June 1938, Jeanne Young was appointed to The Order of the British Empire – Officer (Civil) (OBE) for her services to social welfare. She died at Rose Park, South Australia in 1955.

In 1994, as part of celebrations for the South Australian Women’s Suffrage Centenary, the centenary committee published Jeanne Forster Young’s novel, Jenifer.