Vivienne Newson

Vivienne Elizabeth (Viv) Newson born Vivienne Elizabeth Dobney (21 September 1891 – 16 August 1973) was an Australian women's rights activist and editor. She was vice-president of the United Associations (of Women) (UAW) and she edited a related news sheet from 1945 to a year before she died.

Life Newson was born in 1891 in Goulburn. Her parents were Agnes May Fleming (born Browning) and Thomas Dobney and she was their first child. She had five younger siblings and in 1900 they moved to Wagga Wagga. Her father was a commercial traveller.

In November 1941 she gave a talk on the Burma Road on ABC radio and this was reported in ABC Weekly. Her trip had been with Princess Hteiktin Ma Lat on a shooting expedition to Kutkai. She reported on the indigenous people she saw and the 160,000 people working to improve the road and its bamboo bridges.

In 1942 she became a vice-president on the UAW. She was very close to Jessie Street and she supported her when she contested the federal election. The Digest continued until 1947 but she continued to work on the UAW's Newsheets which she had begun privately in 1945 and it was available until 1972. Newson died in a hospital in the Sydney suburb of Mosman in 1973.