Suffrage, the Wolstenholmes and Maybanke House, Marrickville

Maybanke Anderson at AllExperts

Maybanke Susannah Anderson also known as Maybanke Wolstenholme (February 17, 1845 - 1927) was a Sydney reformer involved in women's suffrage and federation.

Maybanke Susannah Selfe was born at Kingston-upon-Thames, Surrey. Her family emigrated to Australia as free settlers when she was nine years old. Twelve years later in September 1867 she married Edmund Kay Wolstenholme, a timber merchant. The couple had seven children between 1868 and 1879, four of them died form a heart condition before the age of five. The Wolstenholmes built a large house called ‘Maybanke' in Marrickville. The later years of the marriage were unhappy, Edmund had a number of business failures and became and alcoholic, leaving the family in 1884. Maybanke has to wait for the passage of the Divorce Amendment and Extension Act in 1892 before she could divorce Edmund on the grounds of desertion, the divorce was finalised in 1893.