Frances Madeline Jane was born to Edward Crawford and his wife Frances (nee Mitchell) in Adelaide. Madeline (her preferred name) married John Edward Kelsey, at the Katherine Telegraph Station on 10 December 1886 and it is assumed she moved with her husband as he moved within the Northern Territory. The couple had at least one daughter, Dorothea, who married in Melbourne in 1922. John was appointed as a Returning Officer for Daly Waters in 1892. The couple was registered on the Electoral Roll at Pine Creek for the 1896 election. In 1895 when Madeline was 42 and living in Pine Creek, she was one of the 82 women who enrolled to vote after the franchise was granted to South Australian and Territory women in 1894. Her occupation was listed as 'married woman'. John was also an appointed Commissioner of the Peace for Pine Creek from 1898. Madeline was taken off the Roll again in 1900 when she left the Pine Creek District. John remained at Pine Creek as the Postmaster and in 1905 he was also appointed Electoral Registrar to keep the rolls for the polling-places in Burrundie, Pine Creek, Union, Brock's Creek and Eureka, in the Electoral District of the Northern Territory. John was not to leave the Territory until 1906, 33 years after arriving, when he went south due to his failing health. John died at sea on the voyage. Madeline was registered on the 1914 Electoral Roll for Balaclava in Melbourne but died in Melbourne (Oakleigh?), Victoria, in that year.,
Subject
Women,
Suffrage,
Northern Territory,
History,
Related materials
James, Barbara. Occupation : Citizen. The Story of the Northern Territory Women and the Vote (1894 – 1896), Darwin : Barbara James, 1995.
NTC 324.623 JAME,
Related links
http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article4271512 ["Electoral Revision Court Division and District of Northern Territory", Northern Territory Times and Gazette, 5 October 1900, p.4.],