MOORE, Eleanor Mary

Family Name:

Moore

Given Names:

Eleanor May

Gender:

Female

Birth-Date:

10 March 1875

Death-Date:

1 October 1949

Marital Status:

Single

Age Range:

30s-60s

Location:

VIC, Lancefield

Occupation:

Stenographer

Primary Motivation:

Pacifism, Anti-Conscription

Reason for Court Appearance:

Court Name and Location:

Court Hearing Date:

Court Outcome:

Military Event:

WW1and WW11

Further Information:

Eleanor May Moore was born at Lancefield, Victoria on 10 March 1875. She came from a solidly middle-class family environment. She was educated at Hawksburn State School (1880-1886), Presbyterian Ladies College (1887-1892) and Stotts Business College (1893). At Stotts she was trained in stenography and in 1894 was the second woman in Victoria to qualify as a court reporter. Her gender precluded her from building a career in this profession. She did work as secretary at Dalgetty & Co from 1897 until 1905. Elleanor chose to remain unmarried and cared for both parents who lived to an advanced age. She was influenced by the Revd, Dr Charles Strong and his progressive Australian Church. She was particularly attracted by its work with the poor and the needy.

It was during 1915 when Strong founded the Sisterhood of International Peace (SIP). Eleanor became a strong supporter and became an active peace activist. She was secretary of the SIP. During 1920 the SIP became the Australian Section of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF). A major objective was to educate society about the causes and impacts of war. It advocated persuasion over provocation in settling conflicts. She was secretary of the WILPF until 1928.

Eleanor was an impressive speaker and she traveled around Australia representing a diversity of organisations. These included the Australian Union of Democratic Control for the Avoidance of War, the Peace Society of Sydney and the Melbourne section of the World Disarmament Movement. She also travelled to other places including Hawaii and New Zealand. She was also associated with the Australian Peace Alliance, the City Newsboys Society, National Council of Women and the Try Boy’s Society. She had a strong stance on peace but also white Australia and atomic warfare after the atomic bombs were dropped on Japan. Her pacifism was considerably strengthened with the rise of fascism in Europe. She was also anti-communist. Because she was so closely identified with the WILPF when she ceased her involvement with it, the numbers declined significantly with no one found to replace her.

Colligan and Saunders have described her as a, much admired as a calm, gently, self-effacing woman who was an uncompromising pacifist. Old age and ill health did not lessen her activism; she spoke against the manufacture and use of atomic bombs shortly after Hiroshima, and over the next three years attended interstate conferences of the Federal Pacifist Council of Australia. She wrote a book titled, What Shall we Do with the Japanese.Her semi-autobiographical work, The Quest for Peace as I have known it in Australia, was completed only a few months before her death at Toorak in Melbourne, on 1 October 1949. She was 74 years old.

Confirmatory Sources:

Eleanor May Moore (1875-1949), Australian Dictionary of Biography, Vol.10, 1986, by Mimi Colligan and Malcolm Saunders. https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/moore-eleanor-may-7635 accessed 3 February 2024.

‘Quiet Dissenter: The life and thought of an Australian pacifist Eleanor May Moore 1875-1949’ by Malcolm Saunders, April 22, 2022 https://residentjudge.com/2022/04/22/quiet-dissenter-the-life-and-thought-of-an-australian-pacifist-eleanor-may-moore-1875-1949-by-malcolm-saunders/ accessed 3 February 2024.

Moore, Eleanor May,1949. The Quest for Peace, as have known it in Australia, Wilkie & Co, Melbourne.