Maker: Danielle Dun

Panel number: 208

Petition sheet number: 251

Person honouring: R. E. Lawn

Relationship to maker: None

Rachel Elizabeth Lawn was raised by a very determined mother and was involved in the Methodist church and the prohibition movement. She was well known and highly respected in Reefton and Greymouth.   

Rachel Hart was born in Plymouth, England in 1860 to Dinah Nathan and Nathaniel Hart, Jewish shopkeepers from Kent. 

The Hart family arrived in New Zealand in 1865 on the Zealandia, but Nathaniel deserted them and never returned. Dinah and the three children moved to Greymouth and Dinah married Charles Hansen, a Danish sail maker.  

In 1882 Rachel married James Lawn, a Cornish goldminer. They lived firstly in Tasmania, then Greymouth, then Black’s Point near Reefton. Rachel and her mother were active Methodists, and very involved in the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU).  

Rachel, her mother Dinah, and Rachel’s brother’s wife Ida Hart all signed the suffrage petition. In 1906 Rachel attended the national WCTU convention in Greymouth as the delegate for Reefton – she was photographed alongside Kate Sheppard.  

Rachel and James Lawn’s family grew to nine surviving children with four sons all fighting in World War 1. Sadly, Benjamin was killed in action on the Somme in 1916; it is believed Rachel never recovered from the shock.

She died from a stroke in 1917, aged 57. Rachel was buried in Lyttelton cemetery. Her headstone, which also commemorated her son Benjamin, was destroyed in the 2011 Christchurch earthquakes.

Panel materials: Acrylic paint, embroidery cotton, and transfer paper. All materials I already had.