women's suffrage and electoral reform in Britain and the USA, This included speaking in 1893 conferences at Chicago World's Fair. She returned to find women's suffrage won in 1894 South Australia but did not live to see this in her native Scotland, where the vote was granted, for some women only, in 1918. In 1897 she became Australia's first female political candidate when she stood (unsuccessfully) for the Federal Convention held in Adelaide. (The first women candidates for the South Australia Assembly ran in the 1918 general election, in Adelaide and Sturt). Spence spoke at her 80th birthday in 1905:'I am a new woman, and I know it. I mean I am an awakened woman . . . awakened into a sense of capacity and responsibility, not merely to the family and household, but to the state: to be wise, not for her own selfish interests, but that the world may be glad that she had been born.' Spence travelled and lectured both at home and abroad for what she called Effective Voting, also known as Proportional Representation. During her North American tour, she contributed a comprehensive essay to a seminal book on electoral reform published by Sandford Fleming in Canada. She helped organize a trial of STV in city elections in Tasmania in 1896, it was not permanently adopted until shortly after her death. STV (sometimes known as the Hare-Spence voting system or the Hare-Clark electoral system) has been in use in Tasmania elections since that time. Support of the arts She was an early advocate of the work of Australian artist Margaret Preston and purchased her 1905 still-life "Onions". In 1911 Preston received a commission to paint a portrait of Spence, now held by the Art Gallery of South Australia, from a citizens' committee of Adelaide. Death She died at her home in Queen Street, Norwood, on Sunday 3 April 1910, at the age of 84. According to her wishes, her remains were buried in the General Cemetery, Brighton, South Australia alongside the grave of her brother J. B. Spence. Recognition On her 80th birthday, in 1905, a public gathering was held and South Australia's chief justice, Sir Samuel James Way said that Spence was "the most distinguished woman they had in Australia". There are numerous memorials to Spence around the Adelaide city centre, including: a bronze statue in Light Square the Catherine Helen Spence building in the