Maker: Barbara Craig

Panel number: 445

Petition sheet number: Did not sign 1893 petition

Person honouring: Alice Gertrude Roberts

Relationship to maker: Maternal grandmother

Alice Gertrude Jenkin was born in Wigan, Lancashire, England on 11 September 1899. Her family emigrated to New Zealand when she was a child. 

She married Ernest Christian Roberts in Auckland on 9 July 1919 and had three children, Allen, Kathleen, and Fay. They had a tailor’s business on Karangahape Road. In 1930 they bought the house at 16 Jersey Ave in Mt Albert and raised their family there. 

Gertrude was very involved in community work, especially organisations that supported women and families and was an ardent advocate of women’s rights. She was president of the Auckland West Branch of the Country Women’s Institute. She then became president of the Auckland Branch of the National Council of Women and was a committee member of the Society for the Protection of Home and Family in Auckland. She also sat on the Auxiliary of the Carrington Mental Hospital in Point Chevalier, organising outings in support of women inmates.

She joined the peace movement after WW2 and was still joining protest marches at the time of the Vietnam War. Gertrude was active in the Girl Guide movement in Mt Albert.

Gertrude died in 1983, aged 84.

Panel materials: Tailoring fabric scraps gifted to me from a friend; photos, buttons and other fabrics I already had. I sourced a newspaper article written by her from Papers Past.