Maker: Kerri Miedema

Panel number: 294

Petition sheet number: 347

Person honouring: Jane Sloan

Relationship to maker: Great-great-grandmother

Jane Ross McKenzie was born in 1835 in Aberdeen, Scotland.

She married William Sloan in November 1871 in New Zealand; they had four sons and two daughters.

In Invercargill William purchased the Crystal Palace (an iron and glass structure inspired by London’s Crystal Palace) from a man who had brought it from London via Melbourne and planned to convert it into a draper’s shop. When those plans didn’t work out he sold it to William. In 1875, William converted it into a theatre, which was described as “the most interesting, famous building in Invercargill”.

In 1903 it was converted into the Sloan boot emporium. The building was demolished in the mid-1980s. William had many other business interests including property, land, a sawmill, and coal mines, but following a severe economic downturn, and becoming caught up in the Bank of Glasgow fraud, he was declared bankrupt in 1887.

Jane and William had had staff in their home, including a nursemaid, but all that went after the bankruptcy. However, they were allowed to keep their furniture for having been such good citizens.

Jane died in January 1916 at the home of her sister-in-law in Beaumont St. She was buried in the Sloan plot at Eastern cemetery.

Panel materials: Background is from an old sheet, edge lace from my grandmother’s home. Jane’s signature is framed in lace from a tray cloth. The words are embroidered using machine embroidery thread. The boots and Scotland are made from fabrics my mother had left over from a quilting project to honour 100 years of women’s suffrage. The buttons were from my collection. The photograph was printed onto a transfer, heat applied to cotton sheeting, backed with batting, and machined into place. Ribbons are in suffrage colours, except for the rosette made from McKenzie tartan.