Maker: Amy Baker

Panel number: 188

Petition Sheet Number: 227

Person honouring: Jennie Lovell-Smith

Relationship to makers: great-great-grandmother

This is the signature of Jennie (Mary Jane) Smith (born Cumberworth), later Lovell-Smith, 1848-1924. Jennie is a derivative of Jane.

Jennie Cumberworth arrived in New Zealand in 1859 with her parents and three younger siblings. Her mother died about a year later and Jennie assumed a mothering role for her younger sisters and brother. Her father was a teacher and Jennie became his assistant, teaching first at the Wesleyan Day School in Christchurch, and then at the Colombo Road School, later called Sydenham. 

In 1874 she married William Sidney Smith, and over the next twenty years had 10 children. She was a long-time friend of Kate Sheppard (who lived with the Lovell-Smiths for a number of years). Jennie became active in the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), and was one of the helpers in the suffrage campaign. From 1895-1903 she was business manager of The White Ribbon.Other positions of responsibility she took within the WCTU were as superintendent of the Hygiene Department and superintendent of the Legal and Parliamentary Department. She was very interested in natural healing methods, following the practices advocated by Professor Kirk of Edinburgh in his eleven-volume Papers on Health, and became involved in the Plunket Society. 

None of of Jennie and Will’s five daughters ever married, but they contributed to the rights and welfare of women and New Zealanders through their own work and community involvement throughout their lives. Their portraits have been included on this panel to honour this contribution, and to ensure their legacy in the future.

More information on Jennie and the Lovell-Smith family can be found on Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, and in “Plain Living, High Thinking”, by Margaret Lovell-Smith (1994) which also describes the family’s contributions to the Christchurch community.

https://ngataonga.org.nz/collections/catalogue/catalogue-item?record_id=217716

Panel materials: Base fabric is an unfinished tray cloth, started by my grandmother (granddaughter of Jennie Lovell-Smith). The floral fabric is a scarf obtained from an op-shop. The white silk under the main portrait is a remnant from the making of my wedding dress. The tatted lace around the neck of the main portrait is lace that came from Midway house, the home of Jennie and Will Lovell-Smith, Kate Sheppard, and latterly, the five daughters of Jennie and Will.Threads all from current stash.