Lillie Goodisson | |
|---|---|
 Lillie Goodisson, c.1929 | |
| Born | Lillie Elizabeth Price c. 1860 Holyhead, Wales |
| Died | (1947-01-10)10 January 1947 |
| Occupation(s) | nurse, birth control advocate, racial hygiene and selection proponent |
Lillie Elizabeth Goodisson (néePrice;c. 1860 – 10 January 1947) was a Welsh Australian nurse and a pioneer offamily planning inNew South Wales. Generally referred to asMrs L. E. Goodisson, her surname is frequently mis-spelled as "Goodison".
Goodisson was born inHolyhead,Wales. She trained as a nurse and at age 19 married London physician Lawford David Evans. Soon after they moved toAuckland, New Zealand, where they started a family.[1] Her first child,Evelyn Paget Evans, was born in 1881[2] and a son was born in 1883.[1] The couple and their two children moved to Melbourne in 1895, and in 1897 established Myrnong Private Hospital atSt. Kilda. Her husband died in 1903 and thereafter she went toWestern Australia where she met and married her second husband, Albert Elliot Goodisson in 1904. They lived inGeraldton until Albert Goodisson went toBatavia in September 1913 to receive treatment for an illness, he died 4 February 1914[3] leaving little to his wife, she borrowed money from her friendIvy Brookes and returned to Melbourne.
She was involved in patriotic causes duringWorld War I, however her finances did not improve, and she took another loan from Brookes to establish a library atElwood in Melbourne. Debts and ill health forced itsliquidation in 1924. Goodisson moved to Sydney to be with her daughter, Evelyn, in 1926.[1] She joined theWomen's Reform League and withRuby Rich,Marion Louisa Piddington andAnna Roberts founded the Racial Improvement Society, which later (1928) became theRacial Hygiene Association of New South Wales.[4][5][6] The association was involved in promotingsex education, preventing and eradicatingvenereal disease and increasing the public awareness ofeugenics.[1] Goodisson served as general secretary for the association. She advocated the selective breeding of future generations for the elimination ofhereditary disease, and defects and campaigned unsuccessfully for the segregation andsterilization of the mentally deficient and for the introduction of pre-marital health examinations.[1] Although Goodisson campaigned for her association's eugenics goals, her main interests were incontraception and politics.[6] The likely catalyst for her campaign interests was her husband's death from general paralysis and derangement (general paralysis of the insane) a symptom of TertiarySyphilis.
In 1932 Goodisson unsuccessfully stood for the seat of Newcastle as the Social Reform Party’s candidate.[6] In 1933 the association established a birth control clinic in Sydney which Goodisson described as the first in Australia; however, Piddington had established a birth control clinic in Melbourne two years earlier.[6] The clinic served married women, providingdiaphragms so that unwanted pregnancies would not be terminated by illegalabortions. The activities of the clinic were controversial; it received government subsidies only to have them withdrawn. Piddington's Melbourne clinic was forced to close in 1943 when the rubber used to make diaphragms was needed forwar efforts; the Sydney clinic remained open.[6] Goodisson remained active in the association until her death in 1947; however the organisation's activities were greatly reduced during the war and did not regain momentum until the 1960s.[6] In 1960 the association was renamed theFamily Planning Association of Australia.[7]
Goodisson was also an active member of theNational Council of Women of New South Wales, theTravellers' Aid Society, the Good Film League of New South Wales, and the Sydney Health Week and Mental Hygiene Council.
