SHOULD women have the Parliamentary franchise? That was the question under debate at the Holly Mount Social and Literary Society a century ago.

The event turned out to be a "triumph for the fair sex".

"The unanimity of opinion," reported the Gazette, "was foreshadowed in the difficulty that was experienced in getting a member to take the lead in supporting the negative side of the proposition.

"The Rev W Lee, who presided at the debate, remarked that if the franchise were extended to women, the probability would be that there would be more women voters in the long run.

"This weighty warning, however, did not deter many of the men present from voting for the motion."

"Miss Moffett, who took the affirmative side, put before the members in a concise manner all the arguments in favour of women voting."

She said that women could inherit land and estates, could become professional doctors or journalists, could be employed in business, and were as responsible as men for the social conditions around them.

Experience in West Australia and New South Wales showed that when women were given the vote, more men voted as well.

William Wickham, opposing the motion, said it was unthinkable that women should ever become Members of Parliament, an institution which he described as "masculine as the tilling of the land, the navigation of the ocean, masculine as the battlefield".

The chairman asked if women were "competent to bear the strains of political life, might it not tend to take away from them those particularly feminine qualities which they possesses".

But the votes-for-women faction prevailed, and won the debate 15-five.