The Australian Women's Register

Summary

The daughter of inn-keepers, Jessie Grover dabbled in sericulture before turning to journalism. In 1873 Jessie and her friend Mrs Sara Florentia Bladen-Neill thought that the silk production industry would be a fit one for women, and so formed the Victorian Ladies’ Sericultural Co. Ltd, with Jessie as managing director. The company articles specified that ‘No person but a woman shall be eligible as a Director’. Prominent Melbourne women took up most of the £4 shares. The government made a grant of 600 acres (242.8 ha) of hilly land at Harcourt, near the Mount Alexander diggings, where bluestone buildings were erected and thousands of mulberry trees planted. The surveyor had fixed on the wrong location, however, and the enterprise collapsed after several years of intensive effort.

When her mother died in 1879 she left the bulk of her estate to her daughters. This meant that Jessie and her husband, Harry, were now able to buy a large house at St Kilda and live mainly from their investments. Harry contributed humorous items to Melbourne Punch. Jessie was social editor of the Melbourne Bulletin in 1880-86, and Australian correspondent for the Queen (London). She covered events at Government House, garden parties, charity bazaars and a few scandals in a human and personal style. She wrote under various pseudonyms such as ‘Gladys’, ‘Iris’, ‘Humming Bee’ and ‘Queen Bee’. Her son, Montague continued the journalist tradition she established.

Events

• 1970 - 1900