Jessie Spinks Rooke was a suffragette

Suffragette

"Suffragette" is a term coined by the Daily Mail newspaper as a derogatory label for members of the late 19th and early 20th century movement for women's suffrage in the United Kingdom, in particular members of the Women's Social and Political Union...

 and temperance

Temperance movement

A temperance movement is a social movement urging reduced use of alcoholic beverages. Temperance movements may criticize excessive alcohol use, promote complete abstinence , or pressure the government to enact anti-alcohol legislation or complete prohibition of alcohol.-Temperance movement by...

 reformer in Tasmania

Tasmania

Tasmania is an Australian island and state. It is south of the continent, separated by Bass Strait. The state includes the island of Tasmania—the 26th largest island in the world—and the surrounding islands. The state has a population of 507,626 , of whom almost half reside in the greater Hobart...

, Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

, and one of the first Tasmanian women to gain recognition outside Tasmania.

In 1896 Rooke toured Tasmania with suffrage superintendent Georgina Kermode. They arrange public meetings of women collecting campaign funds, distributing pamphlets and collecting signatures on a petition calling for the vote to be extended to women that was presented to the Tasmanian parliament at the end of 1896.

In 1898 she toured Tasmania again with South Australia

South Australia

South Australia is a state of Australia in the southern central part of the country. It covers some of the most arid parts of the continent; with a total land area of , it is the fourth largest of Australia's six states and two territories.South Australia shares borders with all of the mainland...

n Elizabeth Nicholls, they visited 30 towns collecting signatures on a petition. In 1898 she also became Tasmanian president of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union

Woman's Christian Temperance Union

The Woman's Christian Temperance Union was the first mass organization among women devoted to social reform with a program that "linked the religious and the secular through concerted and far-reaching reform strategies based on applied Christianity." Originally organized on December 23, 1873, in...

(WCTU), becoming the groups Australiasian president in 1903. In 1903 Rooke and the WCTU organised women to vote in the federal election.

Rooke remained president of the WCTU until her death in 1906.