Parliamentary Service |
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MLA |
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Labor
President
Perth Labor Women
President and secretary
Labor Women’s Central Executive
1927–1939
President
Labor Women’s Organisation from 1929
Federal President
Labor Women’s interstate Executive
State delegate to ALP Congress
Canberra
1930 |
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3 April 1925 |
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Forrest |
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Electorates
- MLA Forrest, 3 April 1925 (by-election)–20 March 1939
Office
- Secretary, Parliamentary Labor Party, 1933–1939
Royal Commission
- Member Royal Commission to inquire into sanitation, slum clearance, health and housing regulations
Historical Notes
- First Labor woman MP in Australia and the Commonwealth
- Second woman MP in Australia
- Married to Joseph Gardiner, politician who also served in the Parliament of Western Australia
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1939 |
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Personal Information |
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18 July 1893 |
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Broken Hill, New South Wales, Australia |
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20 March 1939 |
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Car accident on 17 March 1939 |
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St John of God Hospital, Bunbury, Western Australia |
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Karrakatta Cemetery, Western Australia |
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Daughter of John Holman, journalist, union secretary and politician, and Katherine Mary Row
Sister of Edward Holman, printer and politician |
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Married 9 May 1914, District Registry Office, Perth, WA to Joseph Gardiner, son of Joseph Frances and Annie Annis
No children
Divorced 9 May 1919 (18 June 1920) |
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Catholic |
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Educated Dominican Convent, Cue, Dongara and Sacred Heart Convent, Perth
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Union official |
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Typist at Trades Hall, 1911
In Pierrot show
Worked at Westralian Worker, 1914
Worked as a cinema pianist in Kalgoorlie, 1917
Assisted her father at timber workers’ union in clerical and bookkeeping and arbitration from 1918
Briefly acting secretary union, 1925 |
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Moved to Nannine, Murchison goldfields, WA with family 1896, to metropolitan area, 1905
Lived nine months in Victoria
Justice of the Peace, 1925
Member, Board of Management, Perth Hospital from 1925
Substitute delegate to League of Nations Assembly in Geneva 1930
Gifted musician, licentiates in singing and pianoforte
Had own band ‘The Entertainers’ and in 1935 founded and conducted Labor Choral Union
The Superannuation Building, 32 St George's Terrace, Perth was named the May Holman Centre in 1985 but was renamed Golden Square in 2015 when purchased by a private company
On 24 August 2019, Premier Mark McGowan announced that 189 Royal Street, East Perth, which houses the departments of Communities and Health, will be renamed the May Holman Building |
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'189 Royal Street, East Perth to be renamed May Holman Building', Government of Western Australia, Department of the Premier and Cabinet, Media Statement, Saturday 24 August 2019.
D Black and G Bolton, eds, Biographical Register of Members of the Parliament of Western Australia: volume one 1870-1930, Parliamentary History Project, Perth, WA, 2001, p. 100. |
| Bibliography |
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Margaret Brown, 'Holman, Mary Alice (May) (1893–1939)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/holman-mary-alice-may-6711/text11585, published first in hardcopy 1983, accessed online 22 December 2015
Carter, p. 152–157.
R Erickson, ed, Dictionary of Western Australians, 1829-1914. Volume 5. The golden years, 1889-1914, University of Western Australia, Nedlands, WA, 1986.
Hopkins, Lekkie, The magnificent life of Miss May Holman : Australia's first female Labor parliamentarian. Fremantle Press, Fremantle, Western Australia, 2016
Making a Difference, p. 65–69.
West Australian, 2 April 1925, 12 March 1939.
Westralian Worker, 31 March 1939.
Kate White, May Holman: Australian Labor’s Pioneer Woman Parliamentarian, Labour History, 41 (November 1981), p. 110-117.
Wilson, J. Graham. Western Australia's centenary 1829-1929 : first century's progress with antecedent records 1527-1828, p. 328. |