Maker: Shirley Allan

Panel number: 192

Petition Sheet Number: 231

Person honouring: Emily Manchester

Relationship to makers: None. 

Emily Manchester (nee Bowles) was born in 1851 in Deal, Kent, England, and came to New Zealand with her family when she was six, arriving in Lyttelton on the ship Mystery, and then moving to Timaru. 

In 1869 Emily married Henry Manchester, the son of a railway labourer from Lincolnshire. Emily’s widowed mother married Henry’s older brother William. Henry and Emily had six sons and three daughters, but only six lived to adulthood. The family survived a house fire in 1880. Henry worked in the family store, Manchester and Goldsmith’s, in Waimate, and they lived on Innes St. Emily died in 1930, aged 78.

Panel materials: All fabrics and threads were reused or from old embroidery projects left by my grandmother.