Maker: Denise Rogers

Panel number: 12

Petition Sheet Number: 1

Person honouring: Sarah Witts Hewinson

Relationship to makers: My paternal great-grandmother

Sarah Witts Hewinson was born Sarah Smith in Cheshire in 1848 in England. She married Eli Witts-Hewinson in 1870. Eli, Sarah and their first three children (Sarah (Jnr), Mary and William) sailed from London on the 26th September, 1873 aboard “The Star of India”. A journey of 97 days via the Cape of Good Hope with over 300 passengers in very uncomfortable conditions. They landed at Lyttelton on the 1st January, 1874 to start a new life in Christchurch. Sarah would go on to have eight more children; Bertha, Emma, Frances, Eli (Jnr), Lilly, Amelia, Louisa and Henry. My paternal grandmother was Lilly Maude (later Davenport) born 1882. 

Sarah signed the New Zealand Suffrage Petition of 1893, five signatures below Kate Sheppard. I believe Sarah must have been a fairly open-minded lady as she allowed her daughter, Emma to attend weekly classes at The Art School in Christchurch (as an extension of her four year Trainee Teacher Programme).  

Sarah Witts Hewinson died in Christchurch on the 20th September 1943, aged 95 years, exactly 50 years after the Suffrage Bill passed into law. All 11 of her children had survived her, including my grandmother Lilly. 

FOOTNOTE: The family name was originally Witts-Hewinson with a hyphen but it is variously shown as Witts Hewinson or simply Hewinson over time. As Sarah signed the Petition as S.W. Hewinson I assume she was using only ‘Hewinson’ as a surname. 

Panel materials: Recycled materials including an old sheet which had an embroidered top border, 2 old circular embroidered doilies, photographic paper for transferring onto fabric.