Margaret Matilda Banton (1862-1945)

Margaret Matilda Banton (1862-1945)

RHSV member, community activist

A woman of action, Margaret Matilda Wright was born in September 1862 at West Derby, Lancashire, England, and died on 20 January 1945 at Mont Park, Victoria, Australia aged 82.

Margaret married William John Banton in Sydney in 1882. William, born in 1859 at Hepburn in Victoria, died on 1 June 1946 at Port Melbourne aged 87.

Margaret and her family moved to Port Melbourne between 1910 and 1915. They lived at 130 Albert Street from this time until 1945 when William died. William and Margaret had four sons and one daughter. William worked at the railways as a platelayer.

Margaret was very involved in her local community and was acknowledged by them. She was a member of the HSV between 1937 and 1945.

In 1917 she was a member of the Department of Public Instruction’s Advisory Committee for the School of Domestic Arts, South Melbourne. She was secretary of Graham Street school for 16 years and first president of the South Melbourne School of Domestic Arts, the future J H Boyd Domestic College, as well as a member of the council of the college. She was actively associated with the local Holy Trinity Church. In 1929, she was mentioned as the prime mover at the bazaar in connection with the funds of Holy Trinity, with reports that the effort was a marked success.

In August 1934, the local paper, the Emerald Hill Record, noted that a pleasant evening had been held at the Anzac Memorial Hall, Port Melbourne as a birthday social for Mr and Mrs Banton senior, of Albert Street. The Mayor Cr Quinn and the Mayoress, and Cr Southward were present, together with Mr N D Wilson, President of the South Melbourne RSL, members of the Port Melbourne and South Melbourne branches, together with the South Melbourne Branch of the Women Folk and the RSL Ladies’ Port Melbourne Auxiliary, who all combined to make the evening most enjoyable. The Mayor presented Mr and Mrs Banton with an electric reading lamp and tea set. In making the presentation, he spoke eulogistically of the fine help rendered by this venerable couple to Diggers, both during the war and repeatedly since.

Margaret was involved in groups that supported servicemen, as her sons had enlisted in the army; she was active in school committees which supported women’s education. She was active in political movements, perhaps through her awareness of her hard working husband. She wanted to participate in many levels of the community and advocated for those who needed a voice or a hand.

Helen Laffin, June 2024

Sources
RHSV archives – membership lists
Victorian electoral rolls
Victorian Death indexes
Port Melbourne Standard, 4 August 1917, 8 September 1917, 23 November 1918, 3 May 1919, 23 August 1919
Emerald Hill Record, 14 January 1928, 21 January 1928, 28 July 1928, 12 March 1932, 4 August 1934
Age, 5 June 1946