Maker: Jenny Palmer

Panel number: 64

Petition Sheet Number: 58

Person honouring: Isabella McLandress

Relationship to makers: None

Isabella McLandress, born in 1866 in Dunedin, was a University of New Zealand (Otago) graduate in Chemistry. She was the daughter of Isabella and John McLandress, a boot maker who ran the Dundee Boot and Shoe Warehouse on Princes Street, Dunedin. 

Young women of Isabella’s class had little chance of a university education. However, in 1885 she won the Scott Scholarship, which was 20 pounds a year for three years. She received her BA in 1889. Her father became bankrupt that year but she continued studying and in 1890, gained her MA with Third Class Honours in Chemistry. 

During the 1890s she taught in Dunedin where she and her two sisters signed the Petition with their Duncan Street address. After their father’s sudden death in 1896, Isabella left Dunedin to work in the North Island. In 1900 she was at Napier Girls High School, in 1901 at Waipawa District High School, in 1905 at Makairo School, and in 1906 at Masterton District High School.In 1908, her older sister Jessie Henrietta McLandress died. She was a music teacher. Also, in the 1900s their eldest sister, Elizabeth St Clair McLandress and their mother moved to New South Wales in Australia. Elizabeth died there in 1923 and is buried with their mother. In 1918 their brother John’s body was found in Auckland Harbour, a suspected suicide. Sometime after John’s death, Isabella also moved to Australia. By 1933, she was living in Auburn, NSW, and apparently still teaching. She remained in Australia, dying on 8 March 1939.

Panel materials: An old pillowcase, I printed my on labels etc on to fabric.