The Australian Women's Register

Although nominally under the control of men, in practice the Society was administered by women. Constitutionally the Ladies’ Committee was an ‘advisory body’, but became increasingly powerful and by 1870 the women were firmly entrenched and resisted encroachment on to their sphere. In accordance with Protestant evangelical ideas all members of the Ladies’ Committee were required to be married as a way of presenting to the inmates of the refuge the ideal of the respectable marriage.

The tasks of the Ladies’ Committee were numerous. For example two women visited the refuge twice a week; four met as a subcommittee each week and all met once a month. The Ladies’ Committee employed and determined the salaries of all the employees, for example a matron, teacher, bible woman and laundress, supervised their work and made all the decisions affecting the domestic economy of the refuge. They decided upon the admission and discharge of each inmate, found work for those who required it on discharge and supervised the progress of each inmate. The Men’s Committee produced the annual reports, ran the annual meetings and the subscriptions were generally made in the husbands’ names only.