Women and the vote

Page 7 – About the suffrage petition

The database on this site is a digitised version of the main suffrage petition submitted to Parliament on 28 July 1893. It contains the names and addresses of about 24,000 women aged 21 years or older. The original petition comprised more than 500 individual sheets, which were signed in various parts of the country. These were glued together to form a single roll that stretched more than 270 m.

The information reproduced on this site is based on a transcript of the original petition produced by volunteers from the Society of Genealogists in 1993 as part of the suffrage centenary commemorations. The Suburb/Town and City/Region fields have been added to provide consistent information about the signatories’ location. Every effort has been made to make these location fields accurate, but some gaps and errors inevitably remain.

Further research is required to discover what happened to the other 1500 or so names that are supposed to be on this petition (see below). We have also found some discrepancies in the petition, including almost identical copies of some sheets (sheets 103 & 109; 180 & 218; 265 & 268; 365 & 387 and 391 & 392 have been discovered so far).

See also: The women's suffrage petition: from document to database (2017, NZHistory Facebook note)

This video from the He Tohu exhibition tells the story of the the Women's Suffrage Petition:

Thirteen petitions

This petition was by far the largest of 13 separate petitions collected by women’s suffrage supporters in 1893. When pro-suffrage MP Sir John Hall presented them to the House of Representatives on 11 August, he noted that they contained the signatures of 31,872 women, almost a quarter of the adult (voting age) European female population of New Zealand.

  • Mary J. Carpenter and 25,519 others
  • Kate Baldwin and 2765 others
  • (Mrs?) Gerald L. Peacock, of Devonport, Auckland: 2301 names
  • Elizabeth M. Eyre Kenny and 601 others (probably collected in Nelson)
  • Caroline Anderson and 393 others
  • Mrs J. Irwin Wilson, of Whangarei: 83 names
  • Marian Kirker and 49 others
  • Clara M. Birch and 40 others
  • Sophia James and 34 others
  • Lizzie F. Rattray, of Auckland: 31 names [see the DNZB’s biography of Lizzie Frost Rattray ]
  • Harriet Win: 23 names
  • F. Nightingale, of Nelson: 16 names
  • Sarah Lurchin and 15 others

Little is known about the 12 smaller petitions, which do not appear to have survived. It is likely that they were compiled in specific regions, which would help explain some notable gaps in the geographical coverage of the Carpenter petition (see table below).

Sources for petition information: Appendix to the Journals of the House of Representatives, 1893, I-1 and I-2; Journals of the House of Representatives, 1893.

Regional breakdown of the petition database

As this table shows, Canterbury and Otago were particularly strongly represented on the main suffrage petition. Areas such as Bay of Plenty, East Coast and Nelson are hugely under-represented, and it is likely that some of the separate, smaller petitions referred to above were compiled in these regions.

Region

Signatories

Northland211
Auckland2142
Coromandel141
Waikato79
King Country2
Bay of Plenty3
East Coast4
Taranaki269
Volcanic Plateau0
Whanganui1119
Manawatū/Horowhenua1270
Hawke’s Bay1763
Wairarapa607
Wellington1260
Nelson1
Marlborough203
West Coast272
Canterbury4432
South Canterbury1312
Otago7471
Southland1430
TOTAL23991

1892 petition

We also have a transcript of the 1892 suffrage petition which has more than 17,000 names, including some from places missing on the 1893 petition. You can download a transcript of this 1892 petition as an Excel file here.

How to cite this page

'About the suffrage petition', URL: https://nzhistory.govt.nz/politics/womens-suffrage/about-the-petition, (Ministry for Culture and Heritage), updated 17-Jul-2023

Community contributions

14 comments have been posted about About the suffrage petition

What do you know?

Kiwi Scribe

Posted: 16 Feb 2024

The reason some were against women voting was the question of economics. Was a married woman going to vote any more differently to her husband? Or to other male family members for that matter?
Thankfully my great-great grandmother and her two daughters all signed the petition and that was then when the trouble began!

Nicholas Briggs

Posted: 06 Mar 2020

Are the images of the 1892 petition available? My great grandmother, Elixa de la Mare (nee Wilson) is shown in the transcription as having signed it twice --

432 244 CHRISTCHURCH SYDENHAM DE LA MARE ELIZA MICRO 6341 1
416 232 CHRISTCHURCH SYDENHAM DE LA MARE ELISA MICRO 6341 1

with different variants of her name.

Sally

Posted: 05 Sep 2018

Hi, where can we find the men's names who signed?

Pene Walsh

Posted: 30 Jul 2018

690 387 GISBORNE NORTH GISBORNE WASH MAY

NB transcription error
Wash' should read WALSH.

Please update
thank you

Anonymous

Posted: 10 Aug 2016

hi Stuart, the petition organisers collected signatures from women who would theoretically have been eligible to vote if not for their gender - that is, like male electors, they had to be 21 or older, 'British subjects' (there was no separate New Zealand citizenship until 1948) and resident in NZ. There were no property restrictions.

Stuart Park

Posted: 28 Jul 2016

Who was eligible to sign? Was there a property rule? In my family are several instances where a married woman is a signatory, but her adult daughters resident at the same address are not. They might have chosen not to, but were they eligible to do so?

Neill Atkinson

Posted: 28 Apr 2016

Hi Sean, yes the petition is very big. According to Archives New Zealand, it 'comprises 546 sheets of paper, all glued together to form one continuous roll, 274 metres long.' This means each sheet would be about 500mm in length and contain around 40 signatures.

Sean

Posted: 25 Apr 2016

Hi, you mention that the 1893 petition stretched 270 m. Is the unit m meter? If so, that would indicate that the document stretched around 3 football fields. Is it really that long, or is 270 a typo for 27... 270 m is just an incredible length for a petition.

Eloise

Posted: 15 Jul 2013

Why was men against women getting the vote? in new zealand

Jayne

Posted: 14 Jan 2013

There is an error in the transcript for the 1892 petition. At entry 4192 it should be Mary Tietjens not Tietzens. She was my great-great grandmother.

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