Maker: Hilary Stace

Panel number: 514

Petition sheet number: Unknown

Person honouring: Mary Anne Müller

Relationship to maker: Connection to my family’s history in Nelson and Marlborough

Mary Anne was born in London in 1820 and died in Blenheim in 1901. In 1850 Mary arrived in Nelson with her two younger children, having left a violent marriage in England. After her husband died she married Stephen Müller, a widowed doctor with four children and they moved to Blenheim where they were joined by Mary’s eldest son. 

Using the pen name ‘Fémmina’, she contributed articles on women’s rights to the Nelson Examiner. Her concerns included the right to vote and the lack of property rights for women. Her 1869 pamphlet, 'An appeal to the men of New Zealand’ is considered to be the first publication calling for women’s suffrage in New Zealand.

Although her name is not recorded on the surviving panels of the suffrage petition it is likely she signed it, for in 1898 she wrote to Kate Sheppard “Old & failing, it is cheering to watch the efforts of the younger and abler women striving bravely to succeed in obtaining rights so long unjustly withheld”.

As a result of choosing Mary for my panel I found she was my great-great-great aunt. In his written memories of childhood in the 1880s and 1890s, my great-uncle Tim Rogers recalled family discussions of women’s suffrage and his aunt Mary’s advocacy for women to have more say in running the country and making laws. When I was a child we often visited Uncle Tim. I find it exciting that I knew someone who knew Mary Müller; this project has revealed that link.

Panel materials: The digital photograph was ironed onto an old pillowcase. The colours are those of suffrage, the materials were left over from a sewing project and the beads belonged to my mother. The paua were from a worn out garment and to acknowledge her sea journey.