Plaque presented to Dorothy Tangney

In 1943, aged 36, Dorothy Margaret Tangney was elected to represent Western Australia, becoming the first woman elected to the Senate. 

To honour her election, Tangney's former students and colleagues at Claremont Central School in Perth, presented her with this engraved metal plaque. It represents not just a personal achievement for Tangney, but a significant moment in the history of Australian Parliament. 

Although women in Australia (except First Nations women) had the right to vote and stand for parliament from 1902, 1943 was the first year a woman was elected to either house of parliament. Dorothy Tangney had contested the state seat of Nedlands in 1936 and again in 1939, and stood for the Senate in 1940, before finally being appointed to fill a casual vacancy in 1943.  

Senator Tangney sought to downplay the novelty of being a female parliamentarian. In her maiden speech on 24 September 1943, she declared:  

'I ... realise my great honour in being the first woman to be elected to the Senate. But it is not as a woman that I have been elected to this chamber. It is as a citizen of the Commonwealth, and I take my place here with the full privileges and rights of all honourable senators, and what is still more important, with the full responsibilities that such a high office entails.' 

Tangney took a passionate interest in social policy related to women and children, having experienced poverty as a child, and was a fierce believer in the importance of education. She promoted free university education, pensions for deserted wives and widows, medical benefits, pensions for those with disabilities, and equal pay and opportunity for women.  

Tangney was a tough, canny politician across her 25-year political career. At one stage, she was serving on 23 parliamentary committees, chairing 13 of them. She was made a Dame after her retirement in 1968 and remembered as generous and intelligent, with a good sense of humour and many strong friendships throughout her life.