Maker: Jodie McLachlan

Panel number: 39

Petition Sheet Number: 31 

Person honouring: E. B. Miller 

Relationship to makers: No relation 

Elizabeth Brown Archer was a successful cooking teacher. She was born on 28 May 1846 in Dundee, Scotland, the first child of William Brown Archer and Janet Donald. Shortly after her birth the family emigrated to Australia where at least three more children were born before the family came to New Zealand in the 1870s. 

Elizabeth married James Miller in 1868 and they had four children. Elizabeth was a member of the Dunedin Women’s Christian Temperance Union in 1885 when Leavitt House was established to provide educational work for the poorer classes. Elizabeth was superintendent of the girls and organised the publishing of the Economic Cookery Book which contained all the lessons in cooking delivered at the classes. By 1895 the classes at Leavitt House had ceased. Elizabeth subsequently taught cookery at several local institutions.

In November 1896 James died suddenly aged 72. Elizabeth was 50. Elizabeth’s daughter Isabella died in 1899, aged 29, Elizabeth continued to teach at the Technical School in Dunedin. Her son Andrew was admitted to the bar as a barrister and solicitor in 1902, the same year that Elizabeth and her youngest daughter Janet published The New Zealand School Cookery Book. 

In 1910 Andrew died and Elizabeth moved to Auckland with Janet and Janet’s husband. Janet herself died in 1914, leaving a young daughter and in 1917 an article appeared in the Evening Star in Dunedin appealing for help for Elizabeth ‘who is now enfeebled, and just kept from acute distress by the statutory pittance from the Old Age Pension department.’ Her circumstances 'were the subject of a petition to Parliament last year for a compassionate allowance, but no grant was made’. Another appeal was made in 1925. Elizabeth returned to Dunedin where she died on 2 December 1928. She is buried in the Andersons Bay Cemetery.

Panel materials: Tartan cotton fabric; white lace backed with cotton; brown beaded lace; brown, purple, white, and various yarn; yellow cotton; white embroidered fabric backed with green organza: and blue floral backing fabric. I purchased from op shops - black, green and white felt: the rest of the embroidery floss.