Maker: Elena Salmond

Panel number: 104

Petition Sheet Number: 107

Person honouring: Sarah Salmond

Relationship to makers: Great-grandmother

Sarah Cockburn was born in 1864, in Berwickshire, Scotland, youngest child of farm worker John Cockburn and his wife, Elizabeth Liddle. 

The family emigrated in 1872, joining the oldest son, George, in New Zealand. The Cockburns arrived in Dunedin in 1873, then departed by bullock cart for Cromwell, where George was farming. They moved to Queenstown, where Sarah received her only formal education, leaving school at eleven to look after her father because her mother, a midwife, was frequently away.

At fifteen, Sarah began keeping house for her brothers George and David, farming in the Rees valley, the first female settler there. The quiet and clear skies led Sarah and George to study astronomy. 

At eighteen, Sarah became governess to three children on a remote sheep station. In Queenstown, she met John Salmond, a young Scottish carpenter. They married in 1886 and in 1887, Mary, their first child, was born. 

Sarah was a member of Queenstown’s Presbyterian Church for over seventy years, and three of her children became leaders of New Zealand Presbyterianism. In 1874, American scientists visited Queenstown to observe a transit of Venus and Sarah lobbied to have a plaque erected on the observation site, which eventually occurred in 1953. Sarah remained fascinated by astronomy. 

During her last illness she took to hospital with her: the Bible, and a book on astronomy. She died in 1956, aged 92, John having died in 1940. Sarah’s two eldest sons died young, but she was survived by her six remaining children.

Panel materials: Acrylic Paint, metallic pens, silver thread.