suffrage_petition
Surname: 
Garland
Given names: 
Harriett
Given address: 
Ponsonby
Sheet No: 390
Town/Suburb: 
Ponsonby
City/Region: 
Auckland
Notes: 

Biography contributed by Donna Salmon, her great-great grandaughter

Harriett Threader was born in 1854 in Brentwood, Essex, the daughter of Thomas Threader, hairdresser, and Harriett Threader (nee Girling). As a teenager, she worked as a shop assistant in Brentwood. In 1876, Harriett married Thomas Henry Garland, a grocer. Thomas was the son of a prominent Methodist, Thomas Charles Garland, who ran the City Mission for Sailors at Limehouse in London's East End docklands.

The first four children were born in England, before the family emigrated to New Zealand in 1883. Harriett and Thomas Garland, with their son and three daughters, left Plymouth in March that year, on board the steamship British Queen. They arrived in New Zealand in May, disembarking in Lyttleton.

By 1890 the Garlands had settled in Ponsonby, Auckland. Thomas became a manufacturing grocer, running as a family business one of the four baking powder factories in Ponsonby at the time. When Harriett signed the Suffrage petition in 1893, she and Thomas were living in Lincoln Road, now with seven children. Their youngest child, John, was born three years later, in 1896.

Harriett, like many of the women who signed the suffrage petition, was a Methodist. The Garland family was very active in the Methodist Church. Harriett’s brother-in-law was Rev C.H. Garland, Minister at Pitt Street Methodist Church from 1901 to 1906. Harriett’s eldest son, Thomas Threader Garland, led the Sunday School music at the Pitt Street church in the early 1900s. Later he became a well-known broadcaster in Auckland; he was one of the founders of the ‘Friendly Road’ non-denominational radio church in the 1930s.

Harriett was Auckland Secretary of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) from 1897-99. She was WCTU delegate to the first Auckland meeting of the National Council of Women, in 1899.

Harriett Threader Garland died from diabetes in April 1901, aged 46 years. She is buried at Purewa Cemetery in Auckland.

Sources

The Post Office Directory of Essex / ed. by E. R. Kelly. [1874.]  p36 shows Thomas Threader is a hairdresser on the High Street. http://specialcollections.le.ac.uk/utils/getfile/collection/p16445coll4/id/112378/filename/124926.pdfpage/page/50

Patrick Day. 'Garland, Thomas Threader', Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, first published in 1998. Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/4g6/garland-thomas-threader (accessed 16 August 2018)

‘By 1901 there were no fewer than four baking-powder manufacturers in Ponsonby’ p344 of Carlyon, J., & Morrow, D. (2008). Urban village :The story of Ponsonby, Freemans Bay and St Mary's Bay. Auckland, N.Z.: Random House.

Hames, E. (1970). 100 years in Pitt Street : Centenary history of the Pitt street Methodist Church, Auckland. Auckland, N.Z.: Pitt Street Methodist Church Trustees. http://www.methodist.org.nz/files/docs/wesley%20historical/26(1-4)%20100%20years%20in%20pitt%20street%20.pdf

Mrs Garland is elected as recording secretary for the WCTU, New Zealand Herald, 16 December 1897 https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/NZH18971216.2.37

In this article, Harriett is referred to as corresponding secretary for the WCTU, New Zealand Herald, 7 June 1898 https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/NZH18980607.2.46

Mrs Garland compelled to resign as secretary, due to illness, New Zealand Herald, 15 December 1899 https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/NZH18991215.2.10

WCTU members attend funeral of Mrs Garland, and send a wreath, New Zealand Herald, 27 April 1901 https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/NZH19010427.2.6

Deaths, New Zealand Herald, 22 April 1901 https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/NZH19010422.2.2.2

Group portrait of the National Council of Women of New Zealand 1899. Mrs Garland is on the left of the front row. 'Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, AWNS-18990421-8-1' http://www.aucklandcity.govt.nz/dbtw-wpd/exec/dbtwpub.dll?BU=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.aucklandcity.govt.nz%2Fdbtw-wpd%2FHeritageImages%2Findex.htm&AC=QBE_QUERY&TN=heritageimages&QF0=ID&NP=2&MR=5&RF=HIORecordSearch&QI0=%3D%22AWNS-18990421-8-1%22

 

Click on sheet number to see the 1893 petition sheet this signature appeared on. Digital copies of the sheets supplied by Archives New Zealand.

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