Brettena Smyth

Bridgetena "Brettena" Smyth (née Riordan; 1845[1] – 15 February 1898) was an Australian women's rights activist.[2]

The daughter of John Riordan and Bridgetena Cavanagh, she was born in Kyneton. She was largely self-taught but an avid reader. In 1861, she married William Taylor Smyth, a greengrocer; the couple had five children. After he died in 1873, she converted the family store into a drapery business and drug store.[3]

Following her husband's death, she became an active member of the Victorian Women's Suffrage Society. In 1888, she formed the Australian Women's Suffrage Society. An advocate of birth control, she lectured on contraceptive techniques and sold a women's contraceptive device, a rubber pessary from France, in her shop. She advocated a more balanced partnership between men and women in marriage.[3]

She planned to study medicine at the University of Melbourne but was thwarted by the financial crisis during the 1890s.[3]

Smyth died of Bright's disease at the residence of her son, Charles Smyth, Cricketers' Hotel, Morwell. "Fortified by rites of Holy Church",[4] she was buried in Melbourne General Cemetery.[3]

Publications
  • Love, Courtship and Marriage (1892)
  • The Limitation of Offspring (1893)
  • The Social Evil (1894)
  • What Every Woman Should Know: Diseases Incidental to Women (1895)

Further reading
  • "Brettana Smyth (1840–1898)" in De Vries, Susanna (1998), Strength of purpose : Australian women of achievement from Federation to the mid-20th century, HarperCollins, ISBN 978-0-7322-6784-1
  • "Feminism and the Family: Brettena Smyth" by Farley Kelly in Fry, E. C. (Eric Charles), 1921-2007 (1983), Rebels and radicals, George Allen & Unwin, ISBN 978-0-86861-285-0CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  • "Brettena Smyth: Sex and Politics" by Kathryn Sutherland in University of Melbourne. School of Historical Studies (2007), 'They are but women' : the road to female suffrage in Victoria, School of Historical Studies, The University of Melbourne, ISBN 978-0-646-47727-5

References
  1. Australia, Birth Index, 1788-1922
  2. "Smyth, Brettena (c. 1840 - 1898)". Australian Women's Register.
  3. Kelly, Farley. "Smyth, Bridgetena (Brettena) (1840–1898)". Australian Dictionary of Biography.
  4. "Family Notices - Death & Funeral". Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 - 1957). 1898-02-16. p. 1. Retrieved 2018-11-22.
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