Maker: Marie Russell

Panel number: 340

Petition sheet number: 406

Person honouring: Elizabeth Caradus

Relationship to maker: Great-great-aunt

Elizabeth Russell was born in Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland in April 1832. Along with her parents, Elizabeth Adam and David Russell, and her two brothers, they emigrated to New Zealand on the Jane Gifford, arriving in Auckland in October 1842.

In 1848 she married James Caradus. James set up a rope-walk where hand-wound ropes were made, sought work as a carpenter, and in the goldfields. While he was away, Elizabeth ran a small shop James built in front of their house in Freemans Bay.

The couple had at least 15 children but seven of them died in infancy. In later years Elizabeth and James had a more settled existence, renting out small cottages James built in the Freemans Bay area. They attended the Pitt Street Wesleyan Church and ran the Freemans Bay Mission for many years.

Elizabeth was a founding member, a vice president, and one of the first life members of the Ladies’ Christian Association, which became the third New Zealand branch of the YWCA. She was also a key member or leading figure in groups that included the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, the Auckland branch of the Women’s Franchise League, and the National Council of Women of New Zealand. Elizabeth continued to attend WCTU and YWCA meetings into the 20th century.

Unlike most suffragist leaders, Elizabeth was of working-class origins and upbringing, and had a large family she cared for.

She died in Auckland on 5 November 1912 after a long illness. The quotations on the panel are from Sandra Coney’s biography of Elizabeth Caradus in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography.

Panel materials: The worn sheeting used here was bought for my older daughter’s first separate bed in the mid-1980s. I used embroidery thread from my sewing boxes, and I made string out of flax from my garden. I bought strong vilene to support the string. I was drawn to use string for several reasons: I enjoy string figures, and every culture seems to have string games. I envisaged Elizabeth as a girl amusing her two little brothers with cat’s cradle on their long journey from Scotland. Her husband was a rope-maker, using flax, and I also imagine her in their shop, efficiently tying up paper parcels with string. She must have been an accomplished networker, with many criss-crossing connections, judging from the list of organisations she joined and worked with.