SAC Old Scholars
SAC Memorabilia 2024,
St Aloysius College Archives
Mary Tenison Woods (née Kitson)
A South Australian lawyer, social activist and the first female lawyer and public notary in South Australia.
Mary Kitson was born in 1893 in the South Australian town of Caltowie. The family moved to Adelaide and Mary attended St Aloysius College from 1906 to 1910, where she was both head prefect and dux of the school.
In 1912, Mary was the only female law student at the University of Adelaide and in 1917, became the first woman to practice law in South Australia. She practised as a barrister for several years before applying to be a public notary, a role that had been restricted to men. A change in the law, which didn’t recognise women as ‘persons’, allowed her to be appointed to the office.
After her marriage to (Julian) Gordon Tenison Woods in 1924, she left the law firm as her partners preferred not to work with a married woman and joined Dorothy Somerville in the first law firm composed solely of female partners.
Divorcing in 1933, she became the sole supporter of her son and became an advocate for child welfare reform.
A long and distinguished career took her eventually to a senior appointment as Chief of the Office of the Status on Women in the Human Right Division of the United Nations from 1950 to 1958. While she occupied this office two major conventions were adopted, which Gayle (2000, p.181) states were key political gains for women:
- the Convention on the Political Rights of Women (1952), the first international law aimed at the granting and protection of women’s full political rights
- the Convention on the Nationality of Married Women (1957), ensuring marriage should not affect the nationality of a wife.
Mary Tenison Woods was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1950 and awarded Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1959. She died 18 October 1971.
By Carol Grantham
St Aloysius College Archivist, 2026
References
Gayle, F. (Ed.). (2000). Making space: women and education at St Aloysius College 1880-2000. St Aloysius College.
Mary Cecil Kitson [Photograph]. (1912, November). Golden Wattle. p. 18.
Mary Kitson [Photograph]. (1917, June). Golden Wattle. p. 41.
O’Brien, A. National Centre of Biography, Australian National University. (1990). Mary Cecil Tenison Woods (1893–1971). Australian Dictionary of Biography. https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/tenison-woods-mary-cecil-8772