Marie Mildred Clay
Marie Clay was an influential literacy researcher and educationalist whose pioneering Reading Recovery programme changed the experience of learning to read for many children in many countries.
Category Archives: Activism
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Muriel Carrick Moody
Muriel Moody’s reputation rests primarily on her ceramic sculptures and some bronzes cast in the 1980s. Her work was original and distinctive, usually based on the human figure.
Kate Milligan Edger
Kate Milligan Edger was the first woman in New Zealand to gain a university degree
Frances Jane Ross
Frances Ross is remembered as a pioneer in women’s education and an outstanding teacher who combined knowledge and dignity with a sense of fun.
Helen Connon
Helen Connon played a pioneering role in the education of New Zealand women.
Christina Kirk Henderson
Her mother’s mission work led Christina to take an active role in the Presbyterian Women’s Missionary Union of New Zealand. She served as secretary (1917–20) and president (1930–32), but her main contribution was her editorship, from 1923 until 1946, of Harvest Field, the union’s magazine.
Nellie Euphemia Coad
Throughout her teaching career Nellie Coad was concerned about educational opportunities for women.
Sarah Dougherty
Sarah Dougherty was typical of many women of her time. That this small, auburn-haired woman had great physical and mental strength is borne out by her survival to a great age. Self-taught, a ‘well-informed woman,’ extraordinarily independent, she endured hardship, risk and isolation.
Elsie Violet Locke
Elsie Locke was a writer, environmentalist, historian, peace activist, one-time communist, and a battler for women’s rights. She is best known as a writer for children, though her writing encompassed adult non-fiction, journalism, pamphlets and poetry. Her writing and campaigning made a major contribution to New Zealand’s social, cultural and political life over many decades.
Elizabeth Caradus
Her interests in women and temperance led Caradus to the first meetings of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, established in Auckland in 1885. She quickly became a key member of the WCTU and the Auckland branch of the Women’s Franchise League, formed in 1892. Throughout the franchise campaign, and later, in the Auckland branch of the National Council of Women of New Zealand, Elizabeth Caradus was a leading figure. However, she rarely took a prominent office, perhaps because of financial restraints or business or family commitments. Caradus differed from most of the suffragist leaders in that she was of working-class origins and upbringing and had a large family to care for. Although she became treasurer of the WFL in 1893, she turned down the post of president of the Auckland branch of the WCTU. However, she frequently spoke publicly, moved resolutions and took part in deputations.