Makers: Diana Roband and Linda McAdams

Panel number: 472

Petition sheet number: Unknown

Person honouring: Emma Whitworth

Relationship to makers: Great-great-grandmother

Emma Sampson was born in Lancashire, England in 1838. By the age of nine she was working in a cotton mill. Before she was 20 she had adopted nursing as her life’s work.

In 1861 she married Joseph Whitworth. On 26 November 1864, Emma and Joseph left Hull, England, aboard the ship Bombay and bound for a new life in New Zealand. After many months at sea, through dangerous and treacherous conditions, the disabled ship was towed into Auckland Harbour by the navy vessel HMS Curacao.

On arriving in New Zealand, with many of the other emigrants from the ship, Emma and Joseph settled 30 miles from Auckland at Williamson’s Clearing. It was later renamed Bombay in recognition of the vessel that had brought them all safely to New Zealand.

Emma and Joseph had two children: Samson Whitworth, born 27 September 1866 and Elizabeth Hannah Whitworth, born 13 June 1870.

Emma was kept busy by attending midwifery calls over a wide area. She travelled by dray, bullock, horseback, or on foot. She once walked 30 miles carrying her 18-month-old son on her back. There were no hospitals and doctors were rare. Emma had no equipment but her capable hands, her experience, and common sense. Her rule was to keep everything scrupulously clean.

In the book Brave Days it is claimed that Emma Whitworth was the first midwife in New Zealand.

Emma devoted over 50 years of service to the women of Auckland. She died in Henderson, at the age of 95, on 22 September 1932.

Panel materials: Our panel was created using unwashed white Homespun.