Dobson, Emily (1842–1934)

Australian philanthropist. Born Emily Lempriere on October 10, 1842, at Port Arthur, Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania); died on June 5, 1934, in Hobart; daughter of Thomas James (a public servant and artist) and Charlotte (Smith) Lempriere; married Henry Dobson (a lawyer, politician, member of the Tasmanian Legislative Assembly, 1891, and premier, 1892–94), on February 4, 1868; children: two sons and three daughters.

Emily Dobson became involved in philanthropy after her marriage to Henry Dobson, whose wealth afforded her both leisure and unlimited resources. One of her earliest campaigns was for improved sanitation (1891). Following a typhoid epidemic, she organized a petition drive for an improved sewage system and formed the Women's Sanitation Association to educate women on sanitary procedures and to instigate house-to-house visits. During the depression of the 1890s, when her husband was premier of Tasmania, she worked with the Benevolent Society and several church groups to organize a soup kitchen, which supplied up to 1,000 meals a day. In 1892, she was a founding president of the Ministering Children's League and later worked with the Society for the Protection of Children. The Society helped secure an Infant Life Protection Act in 1907, permitting inspection without notice of homes where infants were being tended for payment.

Dobson was also committed to women's social and legal rights. As a founding member of the Tasmanian National Council of Women in 1899, and as president from 1906 to 1934, she traveled at her own expense to the quinquennial conferences and was accepted as the leader of the Australian delegation for 20 years. Dobson supported numerous other causes and organizations as well, including free kindergartens, improved treatment for the blind and deaf, temperance, the Art Society, and the Girl Guides. In 1919, The Tasmanian Nation Council of Women honored her by establishing the Emily Dobson Philanthropic Prize Competition for welfare organizations.