It is difficult to say exactly how this quotation should be read. One could argue that the women were sincere, and that they appreciated Munro's efforts on their behalf. Historians have noted, however, that Munro's attention to women's suffrage may have been a mere 'token gesture', as it was quickly dropped from the bill before it went to the Upper House.⁵ Might there be a double entendre in the Sun's 'almost pathetic' or a hint of contempt towards men who attempted to placate the suffragists with poems instead of action? Sadly, we cannot know exactly what went through the minds of women when their calls for suffrage in 1891 were refused. Given the sharp wits and tongues in the suffrage movement, however, it is not surprising that they did not end their struggle there. Suffragists had to fight for another seventeen years to gain the right to vote in Victoria, but in the end, of course, they were successful.

Women's suffrage is generally seen throughout the world as a middle- and upper-class movement. Vida Goldstein in Victoria, Elizabeth Cady Stanton in the United States of America and other well-known names all come from the higher echelons of society. While it may be true that at the leadership and organisational level most suffragists came from middle-class homes, when we look at the Monster Petition these are not the only names we see. The petition is now searchable online, and keying in Carlton, North Carlton, Collingwood, Footscray or St Kilda, all working-class and slum areas at the time, yields many names. There are significantly fewer results when entering Armadale, Kew or Toorak, examples of more affluent suburbs. Perhaps the reputation of Munro, who originally entered the Legislative Assembly as the member for Carlton, encouraged many working-class and poor women to sign. Perhaps the signature collectors took advantage of the women's lack of education. Perhaps they simply wanted to vote! Ironically, many of the women who signed the petition, including the seven on Davis Street, would have been ineligible to vote had the measure alone passed. The women's franchise clauses were tied to a provision that would have removed property restrictions to voting, a tactic decried by many suffragists as a hindrance to their chances.⁶ We can only wonder what the signature collectors told the women of Davis Street and those like them. Without property, they would have been as ineligible to vote at the time as their husbands. Did the suffragists explain this to the women in the rented houses and tenements? Or did they emphasise the 'one-person one-vote' proposal, even though they knew it would be likely to fail? Why was it easier to get the signatures of the poor than the signatures of the affluent? Were working-class women simply bolder than their wealthier sisters? These are broad questions that we may never be able to fully answer. Instead, we can look at a number of the women who did sign, to see what their personalities and lives can tell us about the ordinary women who became suffragists.

Davis Street and North Carlton
Davis Street sits at the southern end of Carlton North. The one-block street is sandwiched between Rathdowne and Canning streets east to west, and Lee and Princes streets north to south. Though Melbourne and surrounding suburbs developed around it, Davis Street did not even exist until 1873. The area bordered by Princes Street to the south, Rathdowne Street to the west, Fenwick Street to the north and Canning Street to the east was known as the Collingwood Stockade from 1853 until 1866. The area included a large bluestone quarry that provided work for prisoners 'not utterly steeped in crime'.⁷ The actual prison barracks sat half a block north of later-day Davis Street, but were expanded when the gaol grew from a modest sixty prisoners to nearly 300 in 1854. When the prison closed in 1866, the City of Melbourne happened to be looking for a place to house some of its overflow: 'quiet, harmless, incurable lunatics'.⁸ Originally, the conversion from gaol to asylum was conceived as a temporary arrangement, and few structural changes were made to the buildings. As the barracks had consisted of 'tiered canvas hammocks', this must have been an interesting situation for the new residents and their caretakers! Melbourne's booming growth, however, was quickly converting rural land into city streets. In 1873 the asylum closed and the property was converted into blocks, including Davis Street.⁹

Davis Street, North Carlton, showing where each of the seven women featured in this article lived. MMBW Detailed Plan No. 1158, PROV, VPRS 8601/P1, Unit 24

By 1891, Davis Street had forty-five residences, nearly all of them three-, four- and five-roomed brick houses. Most of the people on Davis were renters, while their neighbours on Rathdowne, Canning and Lee tended to own their homes. Of the surrounding blocks, only Princes Street had a comparable number of renters.¹⁰ Many landlords had multiple homes for rent: Jessie Ferguson shared a wall and a landlord with fellow signatory Ada Simpson. Ellen Louisa Langley and Eliza Emma Manders lived down the block; they also shared a landlord and an interest in women's rights. Helen Morrison lived in the smaller house just next door.

Housing conditions at the time were dismal, at best. Houses were small and families large. Melbourne did not have a viable sewerage system until 1897, and Carlton as a whole was known for its dirty water, widespread disease and frequently pungent aroma.¹¹ North Carlton seems to have escaped some of the fate of the southern part of the suburb. The presence of single family homes, instead of the tenements and share houses of Carlton, would have helped the crowding and resulting human waste. North Carlton, however, would not have been considered an elegant address. It is unsurprising, then, that so many families were transient. Some only lived on the block for a year or two; perhaps they moved on once they could. The Lewis family moved out, only to move back during the Depression of the 1890s. Other families seem to have made a life for themselves on the street: the Fergusons chose to move to a bigger house on the street rather than leave. Perhaps they could not afford to leave, or perhaps they had ties in the community. It is easy to romanticise these women as living simple, honest lives but there can be no question that their day-to-day existence was difficult. Over half the women we will look at lost at least one child; Helen Morrison lost four of her six. Perhaps this can help us account for why so many working-class and poor women signed the petition. Perhaps they understood better than some of their middle- and upper-class contemporaries how important having a voice would be in legislating to change the conditions of women's lives.