Maker: Win McMinn

Panel number: 481

Petition sheet number: Unknown

Person honouring: Harriet Jackson

Relationship to maker: Grandmother

My maternal grandmother died when my mother was just 12 years old (my grandfather died in WW1). Although I never met her, her strength of character, determination, and independence epitomised her life.

Harriet Sheriff Dods emigrated to New Zealand from Haddington, Scotland around the age of 18 with her younger sister and father. Her mother had died earlier in childbirth. They settled near Gisborne where she met and married Ewan Jackson, a farmer who had come from the Isle of Man. They were sheep farmers at Hangaroa, Gisborne, where Harriet had four children. 

In 1911 they sold the farm and after a holiday in Scotland, where my mother was born, they returned to farm sheep in inland Taranaki. The farm was steep hill country and some had yet to be cleared of bush. Hence the hills and native trees on my panel.

Ewan volunteered for World War 1 in 1916 and was killed on the Western Front in 1917. Harriet continued to run the farm until 1921, when she sold it and moved into Stratford with the children. Three years later she died from breast cancer.

The three older children remained in New Zealand, but my aunt and mother – the two youngest, aged 12 and 15 – were sent back to the UK to finish their education.

I’m not sure if Harriet signed the [1893] petition. She may have been a signatory on a sheet from the Gisborne area that went missing – this area has a very few existing signatories.

Harriet was certainly a strong, independent woman who was thrown into difficult decision-making situations that were beyond her control. She drove a car in the early 1900s, which was unusual for a woman, and managed a large sheep farm after her husband died. 

The very old embroidered tray cloth on my panel may have come from Harriet as it was in my mother’s possession. The pink ribbon represents the breast cancer foundation and the small running stitches under Harriet’s name represent the 47 women who signed a page.

Panel materials: All materials were recycled except the ribbon: wool suiting, cotton, an old embroidered tray cloth, linen, embroidery anglaise, calico, ribbon.