Maker: Melanie Richardson

Panel number: 285

Petition sheet number: 338

People honouring: Mrs E. S. Baird, Edith Baird, Edith Alma Baird

Relationship to maker: Great-great-grandfather’s sister [Edith Alma]

Mrs ES Baird and her daughter Edith Mary both signed the petition; Edith Alma was on the 1893 electoral roll in the neighbouring electorate.

Elizabeth Stephen Baird was born in April 1843 and died in August 1926, aged 83. She and her husband Rev James Baird lived at The Manse, Winton. Mrs Baird was a member of New Zealand Women’s Christian Temperance Union and organised a home for single pregnant women in Invercargill. She wrote assertive, informative, and factual letters to the editor of the Southland Times.

Elizabeth and James had seven children, five of whom became doctors. (See The Bairds of Winton compiled by Elizabeth Waddington and Susan MacLean.)

Edith Mary Baird, born in 1879, was their youngest daughter. She married James Gilmour of Roxburgh in 1910 and died in 1954.

Edith Alma Baird, born in 1870, was one of 14 children born to Maraea/Maria Lee and John James Burrow Baird. She is on the 1893 and 1896 electoral rolls for Wallace and employed in domestic duties.

In 1899 Edith married Thomas Charles Johnston and had two daughters. She died in July 1945.

Panel materials: New ribbon, machine-embroidered and hand-sewn with polyester thread. Muka (stripped flax/harakeke) gifted to me many years ago from Akaroa region. Hessian and quilt batting/wadding. 485 wild-caught unprotected goose feathers from Kopane, Manawatu. 423 wild-caught mallard duck feathers from Waimate, South Canterbury. An old embroidered hanky from a family collection. A hand-embroidered panel stitched with various threads and new quilters’ fabric with existing markings. 60 kowhai seeds and 9 acacia brush wattle seeds from Porirua region. English Leicester fleece wool.