In politics, Enid Lyons went first

The saying goes that behind every great man is a great woman; and this sentiment could not be more accurate when it comes to the story of Enid Lyons. She was introduced to the Australian public as a prime ministerial wife. It was 1932 and she was the tender age of 33. Unlike many men at the time, her husband, Joseph Lyons, recognised her greatness and the first act he carried out as prime minister was to write her a letter. ‘Whatever honours or distinctions come,’ he wrote, ‘are ours, not mine.’ Neither of them knew it yet, but Enid would later claim her own distinctions and many firsts: first woman elected to the House of Representatives, first woman to serve in federal cabinet, one of the first two women elected to Australian parliament. 

Enid Lyons was born in 1897 at a sawmilling settlement outside Smithton, Tasmania. Raised by a mother who instilled both ambition and a civic duty in her, she was politically minded from a young age. After school, she was encouraged to study teaching at the Training College in Hobart. While visiting one week, her mother took Enid and her sister to state parliament, where Enid, then 15, met Joseph Lyons who was then a sitting Labor member. The two stayed in contact and time passed. Lyons became State treasurer and minister for education. Enid was posted to a state school as a junior teacher. Two years later, when he was 35 and she was 17, they wed. 

It wasn’t long before Enid became a mother, although she fractured her pelvis during the birth of her first child. By the time her husband became Tasmanian premier, she was a mother to six. By the time he was elected prime minister, she was a mother to eleven. She had the couple’s twelfth child while her husband was in office. 

Australian prime minister Joseph Lyons and his wife Enid arrive at their new house in Canberra with their children, 1932. Image credit: Fox Photos/Getty Images

After moving to the Lodge, Enid Lyons fulfilled her domestic duties, but this didn’t prevent her from being politically active. She toured the country and made, on average, three speeches per week. She was made a Dame Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire. During the year of 1938, the subject of peace was something she spoke about frequently – while also acknowledging the need to prepare for war. Many have argued that while Lyons was in office it was not he, but his wife, who made the decisions. This is something she dismissed but what remains clear is that she was his closest political ally. As Enid once recalled, “Joe and I worked like partners in a game of bridge.”

It was 1939 and Good Friday when Joseph Lyons suffered from a heart attack, becoming the first Australian prime minister to die in office. The country was devastated and Enid Lyons returned to Tasmania, retreating from public life. She fell into a deep depression which only lifted years later, when her daughter – who noticed the member for the local Tasmanian seat of Darwin was retiring – persuaded Enid to run. She was no longer ‘in the thick of things’, it was said, which was contributing to her apathy.

Enid Lyons listened to her daughter. She ran and won and, on August 21, 1943, she became the first woman elected to the House of Representatives. She stepped onto the floor of the house the same day Dorothy Tangney joined the Senate — and they became the first two women elected to Australian parliament. 

“No one had ever made men weep. Apparently I had done so, without desire or intention.”

“This is the first occasion upon which a woman has addressed this House,” Lyons said during her Maiden Speech on September 29. “For that reason, it is an occasion which, for every woman in the Commonwealth, marks in some degree a turning point in history. I am well aware that as I acquit myself in the work that I have undertaken for the next three years, so shall I either prejudice or enhance the prospects of those women who may wish to follow me in public service in the years to come.”

The magnitude of this moment left politicians and the public teary-eyed. But it was also a testament to Lyons’ presence, sharpness and oratory skills. “In that place of endless speaking… no one had ever made men weep. Apparently I had done so, without desire or intention,” she later reflected. 

Over the next eight years, the widow and mother to 12 would use these skills to advocate for women’s rights. When discussing and debating policy, she would always turn the lens to the effect it would have on family life. She spoke out about maternity care, pensions for widows, equal pay and workforce discrimination against married women. She also raised her voice on issues relevant to all Australian citizens, from finance and social services to immigration and international affairs. She successfully extended the child endowment and was partly responsible for free medical treatment for pensioners. She was admired by prime ministers, in and out of office. Robert Menzies called her ‘remarkable and talented and beautiful’, confessing that she could move him to tears while speaking about the condition of a railway track. Billy Hughes called her a ‘bird of paradise among the carrion crows’.  

She was re-elected twice and, in 1949, became Vice President of the Executive Council in the Menzies government. And with that, Enid Lyons became the first woman to serve in federal cabinet. But her cabinet position didn’t have a portfolio and this was something she dubbed a ‘toothless position’. “They only wanted me to pour the tea,” she said. 

In 1951, Enid Lyons resigned from cabinet and did not contest the next election. Ongoing health problems related to the pelvic fracture she sustained during the birth of her first child, a thyroid problem and a cancer on her nose were responsible for this retreat from political life. However, her career and public life did not end there. The widow and mother wrote two memoirs, became a social commentator penning regular newspaper columns, and served as a Commissioner on the board of the ABC for eleven years. Her late husband, Joseph Lyons, had set up the ABC and, at the time, stipulated that at least one woman serve on the board.

Even between worlds, it seemed, they worked together – just two partners playing bridge.

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