(1875-1949)
Pioneer of the Australian peace movement. Intellectual and writer, Eleanor M. Moore was an underestimated pioneer of the Australian peace movement. Born on March 10, 1875, in Lance-field, Victoria, the young Eleanor completed her education at the Presbyterian Ladies’ College in the center of Melbourne. Inspired by the work of the influential Reverend Charles Strong, Moore dedicated her life to the Church of Australia and to the fight against militarism from the Boer War to World War II. An absolute pacifist, more liberal and humanitarian than her Melbourne companions, Moore became an attentive observer of the political events of the new century. During World War I her involvement in the women’s antiwar movement was finally recognized. Moore was elected international secretary of the Sisterhood of International Peace (SIP), which had been founded in 1915. A leading advocate of the anticonscrip-tion movement, Moore’s fight as a peace worker did not win her popularity. Most Australians were not only voluble patriots and imperialists, they were hostile toward the aims of the pacifists. An internationalist and fervent supporter of women’s suffrage, Moore attended the International Congress of Women held by the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) in Zurich (May 12-17, 1919). When SIP reconstituted itself as the Australian section of the WILPF, Moore accentuated her personal campaign for peace and emerged as an untiring orator during the numerous meetings of the late 1930s. With courage she refused to join the United Front Against Fascism. She was personally irritated by the peace propaganda of the Communist party of Australia and disappointed by the failure of the World Disarmament Movement after 1932. A supporter of the concept of collective security, she was skeptical about the efficiency of the League of Nations. During the last ten years of her life, until her death on October 1, 1949, Moore’s loyalty to the pacifist cause remained intact. In her autobiographical volume, The Quest For Peace (1949), she described the long fight for international friendship seen from an Australian point of view. Unfortunately, this topic was published when the clouds of the cold war undermined the public sympathy for the national peace movement.
