Maker: Margaret Fawcett

Panel number: 175

Petition Sheet Number: 211

Person honouring: Grace Griffiths

Relationship to makers: No relation but the name is my grandmothers

When Grace Griffith signed the suffrage petition in 1893 she was living in Kirwee, a small rural settlement in inland Canterbury. Her position was described as Ladies’ Nurse and she was living with her husband who was a storekeeper. She was also the mother of several adult children from her two marriages. 

Grace was born Grace Southcombe in 1837 in Devon, England. She was the daughter of an agricultural labourer. At 14 years old, she was living with her parents and working as a glover. During the 1850s she arrived in NZ and in 1858 married her first husband Peter Ramsay, but by 1860 she was widowed. 

In 1862 she married Theodore Arthur Walsh Griffith, who had arrived from England in 1858. During the 1870s, 80s and 90s Grace and Theodore lived in the early Canterbury settlements of Courtenay and Kirwee. By 1905 Grace and Theodore had moved to Abbersley Road, St Albans, Christchurch and there they stayed for the rest of their married lives. Theodore had become a photographer. Grace died at the end of 1918 aged 81, a great age for those days.

Panel materials: Mixed media.