Sarah Baines

Sarah Jane Baines (30 November 1866 – 20 February 1951) was a British-Australian feminist, suffragette and social reformer. She was the first suffragette to be tried by jury, at the age of eleven. At age fourteen, Baines joined her parents in working with the Salvation Army. Upon attaining the rank of lieutenant at age twenty, she was sent to work as an evangelist in an independent working men's mission in Bolton. three of whom survived childhood. the feeding of school children committee and the unemployed committee. and another in her wheelchair [May Billinghurst perhaps] The protest was witnessed by Annie Barnes who was inspired to join the East London Federation and influenced by Sylvia Pankhurst. Adele Pankhurst would later arrive in 1914.

Upon settling in the Melbourne suburb of Fitzroy, the Baines family joined the Victorian Socialist Party and the Labour Party while Sarah busied herself working with the Women's Political Association as early as January 1914 and co-founded the Women's Peace Army. With Adele Pankhurst, Baines campaigned against World War I conscription in 1916-1917 and against the spiralling cost of living, as profiteering. Both were sentenced to nine months imprisonment but both were freed on appeal on a legal technicality.

Baines was again jailed in March 1919 for flying the prohibited red flag on the Yarra Bank and became the first prisoner in Australia to undergo hunger strike. A special Federal Cabinet meeting was held and her release after four days starving was secured on the advice of the Attorney-General. In 1920, Baines helped establish the Communist Party in Victoria. Five years later, she would be expelled and this saw her rejoin the Labour Party. In 1926, the family relocated to Port Melbourne and Baines was appointed special magistrate to the Children's Court there from 1928 to 1948.

Death and legacy Although her post Second World War activities were curtailed by her failing sight, Sarah Jane Baines continued her "fiery eloquence on the hustings" until her death from cancer, only giving up public speaking a few months before she died on 20 February 1951 in Port Melbourne.

Survived by her husband and her three children, Baines's legacy could perhaps be summed up in her own words:

'To fight for that which is better and nobler in this world is to live in the highest sense, but to submit and tolerate the evils which exist is to merely vegetate in the sewers of iniquity'. Jennie Baines quoted in The Socialist, 11 April 1919.