Flora Wickens

Biographical information provided by Stefanie Lash for the He Tohu exhibition:

Flora Wickens moved to New Zealand in 1874 at the age of 15, with her elder sister Clara. She was an assisted immigrant, coming to New Zealand to work as a domestic servant. Flora was born in 1858 in Speldhurst, Kent, the same year her father died. The girls lived with their grandparents until their mother remarried, to Walter Moseley, a baker. Once in New Zealand, Flora settled in Invercargill, setting up a department store with her half-sister Laura Moseley under the name Misses Wickens & Moseley. Laura has signed the Women’s Suffrage Petition directly under Flora. Flora died in Invercargill in 1912, aged 54.