9 minute read
A WOMEN’S PLACE
WORDS: CAITLIN SYKES / IMAGERY: MARCEL TROMP
Dedicated to women who fought for the right to vote, an Auckland historic place is a reminder of the ongoing fight for women’s voices to be heard
“I’ve been a fighter for justice my whole life,” begins a conversation with artist Jan Morrison. “There were massive issues, particularly in the ’70s and ’80s –human rights, women’s rights, save the planet – so from my late teenage years I was on marches, wearing the t-shirts, drawing illustrations for Greenpeace.”
So in the early 1990s, when she heard a call for proposals for projects celebrating the centenary of New Zealand women winning the fight for the vote, it was natural for her to put in a bid.
“I couldn’t pass it up. It was just so exciting. I really, really wanted to get it, but I never thought for a minute I would. And they accepted my proposal.”
The proposal was for a tile mural, which today sits between central Auckland’s High and Kitchener Streets. It depicts people and imagery associated with the suffrage campaigns that ultimately led, on 19 September 1893, to New Zealand becoming the first self-governing country in which all women had the right to vote in parliamentary elections.
The artwork was unveiled in the space known as Khartoum Place on 20 September 1993, with the lower part of the space renamed in 2016 as Te Hā o Hine Place (a name gifted by Ngāti Whātua that can be interpreted to mean ‘pay heed to the dignity of women’). And almost 30 years on, the Auckland Women’s Suffrage Memorial was last year recognised as a Category 1 historic place.
Funded by the Suffrage Centennial Year Trust and Auckland City Council, the mural was created collaboratively by Jan and artist Claudia Pond Eyley specifically for its site, where it travels across several façades of a fountain and a stairway that runs between the two streets.
While Jan didn’t know Claudia personally at the time, she was familiar with her work as a prominent feminist artist and, sensing their artistic styles were also compatible, asked her to join the project. “I admired her enormously,” says Jan.
For her part, Claudia recalls being excited by the project and its large scale. Adding to the excitement was a personal connection to Amey Daldy, one of the suffragists ultimately depicted in the artwork. President of the Auckland Women’s Franchise League in 1893 (and later of the National Council of Women of New Zealand), Amey was a leading figure in the local and national suffrage campaigns. She was the second wife of William Daldy, who was the business partner of Claudia’s great-great-grandfather.
And there is a further family connection in another panel of the mural, Claudia says. It features a group of women on bicycles – a crucial mode of transport for campaigners as they gathered signatures to petition parliament – who bear the faces of Claudia’s great-grandmother and her friends and cousins. A central aspect to the mural is its depiction of the ‘monster petition’ that suffragist Kate Sheppard famously pasted together and rolled around a broom handle before it was submitted to the House of Representatives in 1893. The mural also prominently depicts the iconic white camellias that suffragists presented to their supporters, and elements such as the now-extinct huia representing the past, and woven harakeke representing the weaving together of Māori and Pākehā cultures.
Comprising 2000 tiles, the mural was under construction right up until its unveiling by then Governor-General Dame Catherine Tizard (further panels were later added).
As Claudia noted in her diary on the day: “The New Zealand Air Force hung a huge cargo parachute across Khartoum Place and was organised with knots to drop upon the cutting of the ceremonial ribbon. The city council sent along the water fountain keeper to fill and set the fountains in motion while I rushed around wiping off the marker pen numbers on the tiles.”
Her entry went on to detail how, following an address at the Auckland Town Hall by then president of Ireland Mary Robinson, a Navy band led a procession of 300 women, many in period dress, down Queen Street to the site of the mural. There was a pōwhiri and speeches, and after the mural was revealed “the crowd cheered, everyone hugged and kissed”.
The celebrations, however, did not last and in a case of life imitating art, the mural’s own history has been characterised by fight.
As noted in its Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga listing report, the memorial has come under threat due to redevelopment a number of times since 2005, with the National Council of Women of New Zealand (NCWNZ) and other prominent campaigners leading a decade-long fight to save it. Their cause received significant public support and ultimately led to the site being given the highest available protection in the Auckland Unitary Plan in 2015.
Following a nomination by NCWNZ’s Auckland branch more than a decade earlier, the memorial was entered on the New Zealand Heritage List/Rārangi Kōrero as a Category 1 historic place in October 2022.
Jan has consistently fought efforts to remove and re-site the mural – as have Claudia and many others.
Joy Williams is immediate past-president of NCWNZ’s Auckland branch. She also acknowledges the efforts of longtime member Margaret Wilson, who led NCWNZ’s campaign to protect the memorial alongside former branch president Michelle Wright, as well as former Auckland councillor Cathy
Casey, and many others, for ultimately gaining such protection and recognition for the site. (Cathy Casey and historian Megan Hutchison have now written a book on the memorial.)
NCWNZ was formed in 1896 as many suffragists continued to push for further women’s rights reform beyond suffrage and into the 20th century; what the memorial represents still holds deep significance for the group’s members, says Joy.
During her three years as president, Joy oversaw the suffrage commemorations held by NCW Auckland each September at the memorial, which she describes as a place where like-minded women and their supporters can meet.
The event features the student winner of NCW Auckland’s annual speech competition, alongside other speakers, creating “a space for young women to express themselves”, she says. This year’s speech competition entries will be inspired by the Nelson Mandela quote: “Overcoming poverty is not an act of charity, it is an act of justice”. A whanaunga of suffragist Meri Te Tai Mangakāhia (Te Rarawa), whose name features on the memorial, will be a guest speaker as the artwork turns 30 years old.
Alexandra Foster, a heritage assessment advisor in the Auckland office of Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga, carried out research for the memorial’s Category 1 listing. There’s no ‘minimum age’ for a place to be entered on the List, she notes, but it must meet certain thresholds related to its significance.
As with the Kate Sheppard National Memorial in Christchurch, the Auckland memorial was created for the suffrage centenary in
1993, when the achievement of women winning the right to vote was nationally commemorated for the first time.
“It took 100 years for us to publicly create spaces that recognised that achievement, and how those spaces were created really reflects how strong that community was and is,” Alexandra says.
“The subsequent efforts of the community surrounding the Auckland memorial to preserve this place – and the wider support they received – show how important this place is to the people who use it regularly, as well as the wider community that has embraced it.
“Personally, I was a child in the ’90s when the memorial was created, and I’ve never known it not to be there and always enjoyed walking through it. So I really appreciated the opportunity to research and learn about the entire history of the place for the listing assessment, and uncovering the extent of its importance, especially as it became clear how valued the place is by its community.”
The fight to protect the memorial resonates in a wider landscape where, nationally, there are few memorials to women. In Auckland another suffrage memorial, created for a building in New Lynn, was lost after it was removed during building work and never returned.
For Joy, who was born in the year the mural was unveiled, the story of the suffragists’ struggle continues to resonate through the historic place.
“It’s important to acknowledge that women weren’t given the vote; they campaigned for it, and they fought for it. That’s why the memorial and Te Hā o Hine Place are important and it’s important that they remain protected – as a reminder of that fight.”
THE WOMEN FEATURED ON THE AUCKLAND WOMEN’S SUFFRAGE MEMORIAL
Amey Daldy (1829-1920)
A president of the Auckland Women’s Franchise League (AWFL) who was later instrumental in forming the National Council of Women of New Zealand (NCWNZ) and was its president in 1898.
Anne Ward (1825-96)
Inaugural president of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU).
Lizzie Rattray (1855-1931)
A journalist and elected AWFL member who was among the suffragists who presented the 1893 petition to the House of Representatives.
Elizabeth Yates (1849-1918)
The British Empire’s first female mayor, elected as mayor of Onehunga Borough in November 1893 – the first election in which women voted.
Annie Schnackenberg (1835-1905)
A founding member and president of WCTU (1891-97) and a founding member of NCWNZ.
Matilda Allsopp and Fanny Brown
Two of the first seven women enrolled to vote in New Zealand.
Ada Wells (1863-1933)
A suffragist and first national secretary of NCWNZ.
A portion of the mural depicts a flower wreath that also includes the names of these leading suffragists:
Elizabeth Caradus (1832-1912)
A working-class suffragist and a leading figure in the Auckland movement, described as a key member of WCTU and treasurer of AWFL.
Meri Te Tai Mangakāhia (1868-1920) (Te Rarawa)
A suffragist and the first woman recorded to address Te Kotahitanga Parliament, she requested not only that Māori women be given the vote but that they also be eligible to sit in the Māori parliament.
