Career
Although returning to England briefly at one stage, by 1912 John was the general secretary of the Australian Board of Missions, based in Sydney. The couple moved again in the 1920s, this time to Street Kilda in Melbourne, where Edith was appointed as a Justice of the Peace in the Victorian Children"s Court. She also joined the Victorian Women Citizens" Movement and became its president, also standing for election for the federal seat of Fawkner in 1925, although she withdrew from the race prior to polling day.
Jones" increasing activism and expertise in Indigenous matters was recognised in 1929, when she gave evidence to a royal commission on the status and conditions of Indigenous people in Australia.
In her evidence, she argued for federal control of Indigenous affairs, and advocated for greater legal recognition of the rights of Indigenous women. She was exceptionally critical of the prevailing race policy of the time, noting that Indigenous people were being exploited as a result of "the stealing of their women and the supplying to them of intoxicants in order to facilitate these thefts", and testified that a matron at a mission near Alice Springs had alleged that "I cannot keep these little children in the compound, they are enticed out by the white men, and more half-castes are then being born".
She died in 1952 in Kent.
