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General Background

 * In her life time she was thoroughly in conservative women’s organisations and she sponsored legislation connected to the  public health of women and children. Florence was also apart of the Western Australian Legislative Assembly (1949) and was a Liberal Party member (1936-56). She was the first woman to get a full Cabinet rank in Australian parliament.


 * She was the daughter of Johnson Wilson, a storekeeper, and Annie Thompson. Along with her family her religion was of the Church of England.


 * (1876-1965)

Personal Life
Florence’s  first marriage, on the 26 January 1895  Swanston St, Melbourne, Victoria to David Sykes Boyd (born 1872). David was a wool buyer and the son of Thomas and Sarah Anne Sykes. Her second marriage was seven years later, on the 15 December 1902, in  St Matthias’ Church (Church of England), Poplar, London England. This marriage was to  Arthur Cardell-Oliver (born Cardiff, Wales, 14 April 1876) who was a medical practitioner and the son of John and Elizabeth Tredwin Bevan. Together they had two sons. Between 1933 (before she was a part of parliament) and 1936 she also visited the Soviet Union, the Baltic States, Germany, Spain and Italy.

Women Activism
Florence was the first woman to get a full Cabinet rank in Australian parliament, and was thoroughly involved in conservative women’s organisations. Through this she made certain acts where she sponsored the legislation connecting to the public health of women and children. In 1935, an invite given by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, was present at a congress in Istanbul of the International Suffrage Alliance of Women that represents the women in the Australian Federation of Women Voters. Cardell-Oliver was also was the first woman to be suspended from the Legislative Assembly, which happened in 1942.

Parliament
During World War I Florence was the president of the Western Australian Nationalist Women's Movement and of the Albany branch of the Women's Service Guilds. Through this she travelled throughout Australia addressing recruitment meetings. After this time her husband shortly had died and she decided to move Western Australia and to become the vice-president of the State branch of the Nationalist Party. In 1934 she published her own novel, titled "Empire Unity or Red Asiatic Domination?" This outlined the economic measures that she thought would stop communism at the time.

In 1934 she was severely defeated by John Curtin for the seat of Fremantle in the House of Representatives, though she returned in February 1936 to the Western Australian Legislative Assembly as the Nationalist member for Subiaco. Through this process she defeated two other endorsed Nationalists and the Labor sitting member on preferences. From (1936-56) Florence was a Liberal Party member and was elected on the 15th February 1936 but retired in 1956.

In 1936 she was a member Select Committee on the Betting Control Bill. Two years later alos became a member of the Select Committee on the Educational System in 1938. Florence was a political women and did much work with what she believed in. In 1939 she organized a campaign to go against free birth-control clinics. On 3 September 1941, she went against against her own party, though unsuccessfully moved for the abolition of the death penalty.

On 1 April 1947 she was met with an honorary minister in the McLarty-Watts Liberal-Country Party government and on 5 January 1948 Florence became the honorary minister for supply and shipping. She retained these portfolios until the government was defeated in February 1953. Influenced by her experiences with undernourished children in London, she sponsored the Free Milk and Nutritional Council, and, as minister, introduced a free-milk scheme for Western Australian schoolchildren. Cardell-Oliver brought the State to the forefront of anti-tuberculosis campaigns by legislating for compulsory chest X-ray examinations. She later retired from her place as a Liberal Party

She was, as well, a delegate to the British Commonwealth League, London.

Titles

 * Hon Minister for Supply and Shipping 5 January 1948–7 October 1949
 * Hon Minister 1 April 1947–5 January 1948
 * Western Australian Minister for Health, Supply and Shipping in (1949)


 * The oldest person in Western Australia to attain full cabinet rank (1949)


 * Minister for Health, Supply and Shipping 7 October 1949–3 February 1953
 * Commander of the British Empire  (1951)