Maker: Cecile Brugnoli

Panel number: 181

Petition Sheet Number: 221

Person honouring: Mary Ann Prisk

Relationship to makers: I wanted to show the connection between strangers: The impact the signatories had on future events on the other side of the world.

Mary Ann Prisk (nee Beer) emigrated from Cornwall on 4 December 1876 on the ‘Rangitiki’. 

She married Paul Prisk in 1877. Paul and Mary Ann had one child, Maria Knight Prisk, who sadly lived for only 9 months. Paul, a miner and labourer, was born in 1856 and died 1888 aged 34. He is buried at Linwood Cemetery in Christchurch. 

In January 1894, the Christchurch Star reported that Mary Ann Prisk was the subject of a court case in which a boy was charged with throwing stones at her house and damaging the door. Mary Ann was then living at Colombo St. North and had been harassed by a number of young boys. Mary Ann died on 13 January 1898 aged 46, just five years after signing the Petition. She is buried at Barbadoes Cemetery, Christchurch.

Panel materials: Recycled materials. Old linen sheet of my paternal grandmother. The lace appliques were collected by my mother, and came from both my grandmothers. The embroidery thread donated to my sewing group by the widower of a lady who did a lot of embroidery. The buttons collected probably from old shirts of my dad. I chose the bordeaux colour to write her name as on the petition her signature started with this colour and the green for the suffrage related words. I decided to add a reference to my background, as I am an immigrant, as were most women who signed the petition. I mentioned both years when New Zealand and France enshrined women’s vote into the law. I used NZ and French flag colours. I wanted to illustrate the indirect link between Mary Ann’s signature and the law change in France some 50 years later.