The Simpsons had their last child before they left Davis Street, so their whereabouts immediately afterwards are a mystery. Eventually they settled on Holden Street in North Fitzroy. Walter must have been a hard worker; he is still listed in the rate books as a confectioner just before his death in 1925 at the age of 73. Like most of his neighbours from Davis Street, he owned his own home at the time of his death. He wrote his will just a day before he died, leaving everything to Ada. She followed him a year and a half later, passing her house and 'furniture very old in use for 50 years' to her children.¹⁷

It seems unsurprising that a woman who travelled halfway around the world for a better life would sign a petition for women's rights, but each of the 30,000 who signed the Monster Petition did something extraordinary. We must not forget that many of the women at the time could not read or write; there are many places on the petition where several neighbours are all signed by the one hand. We should also remember that for some of them it may have been risky if their husbands were unsupportive. Whether or not Walter would have approved, Ada's signature moved her towards gaining the right to vote that women in her native England would have to wait an additional ten years to achieve.¹⁸ The promise of new opportunities is most likely what brought the Simpsons to Australia; Ada found at least two of them in the Monster Petition of 1891 and the Adult Suffrage Bill of 1908.

Finally, there is Jessie. Jessie McKay married Adam Ferguson in Glasgow, Scotland in 1885, a bit later than most of her peers. At twenty-four, she would have been a fairly mature woman when she married. Jessie and Adam arrived in Pitt Street, Carlton in time for their daughter Elizabeth's birth in 1886 after what appears to have been another pregnancy at sea. They had eight children together between 1886 and 1901, including one named Jessie and another named Stanley Adam. The Fergusons appear to have progressed fairly steadily through life. Adam was a bootmaker, and they left Carlton for Davis Street shortly after their arrival. They rented 49 Davis Street, the five-roomed house next to Ada's, for a few years, before moving to the six-roomed house across the road in 1894. When Adam died in 1926, they owned their home as well as a piece of land in Spotswood.¹⁹

Jessie's will, written just two years before her death in 1931, pays special attention to the debtor among her progeny. While Alexandra May received the piano and Olive the dining-room table, William James could only receive his portion of the inheritance after the £26 he owed his brother Stanley Adam had been deducted. Jessie wrote that 'such deduction is a condition to my said son William James Ferguson receiving anything under my WILL and not subject to any objection by him'.²⁰ We can only speculate about the origin (and length!) of the debt that required her to intercede, but though her signature is shakier than when she signed the Monster Petition, Jessie Ferguson's spirit seems just as strong as that day in 1891.

Jessie's records also tell us something about the Great Depression in Australia. Her son, Stanley Adam, was the executor of her estate and his notes in her probate file paint a sobering picture. Although the family wanted to sell the house and divide the proceeds (minus £26 for William James, of course), they had trouble getting a good price. Stanley Adam wrote that the family had decided to rent the house for a while to see if 'things will get better and [we] might get a fair price for it'.²¹ Jessie's real estate was valued at £780, but the family eventually took £500 for it nine months after her death.²²

It is Jessie's forcefulness in her will that makes her stand out, but she was not alone in her attention to detail. Another woman, Louisa Lettis Robb, whose residence on Lee Street leaves her mostly out of this story, also left detailed instructions to her children. Specifically, she left eleven pages of handwritten notes, detailing some two hundred items that were to be doled out to assigned individuals. Door mats were divided up among the children, while the silver smelling salts went to Valerie alone. Next to 'back brush' she has written 'anyone'.²³ What is striking here is the care with which these women treated their possessions. On the long, slow climb up from renting to owning, they learned the value of their belongings and their familial relationships. It is difficult to imagine that women like Jessie and Louisa took something like signing a petition lightly.²⁴ More likely, they thought carefully before signing, understanding the impact of their names on the lines.

Leaving Davis Street
What purpose is there in learning about the lives of seven women who appeared for a moment in history and disappeared again? What do their stories, pieced together through public records and some speculation, have to offer the study of the women's suffrage movement? Despite the fragmentary nature of some of the records and the numerous dead ends, I have been surprised at the attachment I have formed to these women. I was sad going over Sarah's probate records. I smiled when I learned that Ada's husband ran a sweets shop. I laughed out loud at Jessie's will. Too often we forget to look for the extraordinary in people's ordinary lives. While these women were certainly ordinary, average and representative, they were also funny, sad and wonderful. In 1891 they did something extraordinary by anyone's standards: they participated in one the largest petitions ever presented to Parliament. They stood up for themselves, for their neighbours and for women all around the world. Maybe Eliza understood the enormous impact her small signature would have on the lives of future generations of women. Perhaps she had more important things to do that day, and only signed to get the petition collector off her doorstep. That does not make her life any less significant or less worthy of study.

These seven women help us paint a more complete picture of women's suffrage, one that includes all women and not just those who made the headlines and gave the famous speeches. It was working-class women like Agnes, Eliza, Ellen, Helen, Sarah, Ada and Jessie who formed the basis of the 1891 Monster Petition and, ultimately, the popular support that swayed politicians. The women of Davis Street represent only a tiny proportion of those who made women's suffrage a reality in Victoria. Though they laid only a few small bricks in the road to 1908, we know that every brick was essential. It is important that we thank and remember equally those who laid them.