Year 7 · Social Sciences · 2 minutes
1893: Women win the vote
A giant petition, a new law, and a long road to Parliament.
Key terms
- suffrage
- The right to vote in elections.
- petition
- A letter to Parliament signed by many people, asking for a change.
- Electoral Act
- The 1893 law, signed by Governor Lord Glasgow, that let women vote in national elections.
- Parliament
- The group of elected members who make the laws of the country.
- wāhine Māori
- Māori women, thousands of whom cast their votes in the 1893 election.
- Te Kotahitanga
- The Māori parliament, where Meri Te Tai Mangakāhia asked for women to vote and sit as members.
Transcript
Who gets a say in how a country is run? In eighteen ninety three, Aotearoa New Zealand gave a surprising answer. It became the first self governing country where women could vote in national elections.
Before then, women could not vote for Parliament. They worked on farms, in shops and in factories, and they paid taxes. But every law was made by men, chosen only by men.
Campaigners refused to accept that. Their best known leader was Kate Sheppard. Their tool was the petition: a letter to Parliament, signed by thousands of people.
In eighteen ninety three, sheets of signatures poured in from all over the country. Kate Sheppard glued them end to end, and rolled them around a broom handle. The finished petition was more than two hundred and seventy metres long, and signed by over twenty five thousand women. That's longer than two and a half rugby fields!
Parliament passed the new law, and on the nineteenth of September, Governor Lord Glasgow signed the Electoral Act. Ten weeks later, women across the country voted for the very first time.
Wāhine Māori were part of this story too. That same year, Meri Te Tai Mangakāhia spoke to Te Kotahitanga, the Māori parliament, and asked for women to vote and sit as members. And in the election, thousands of Māori women cast their votes.
But winning the vote was only the beginning. Women could not stand for Parliament until nineteen nineteen. And it took until nineteen thirty three for Elizabeth McCombs to become the first woman elected as an MP.
So remember: campaigners like Kate Sheppard built a giant petition. In eighteen ninety three, women in New Zealand won the vote. And the fight to stand for Parliament took decades more.
Sources
Every fact in the video, and where it comes from.
- 1nzhistory.govt.nz/politics/womens-suffrage
- On 19 September 1893 the Governor, Lord Glasgow, signed the Electoral Act; New Zealand became the first self-governing country in which women could vote in parliamentary elections.
- 2digitalnz.org/stories/619d9b57f7cc42002b0b5c1f
- Women first voted in the general election of 28 November 1893, about ten weeks after the Act was signed.
- 3nzhistory.govt.nz/page/about-suffrage-petition
- Kate Sheppard led the Women's Christian Temperance Union franchise campaign; returned petition sheets were pasted end to end and rolled around a broom handle.
- The largest 1893 petition (the roll Kate Sheppard assembled) was more than 270 m long and carried about 25,519 signatures; all 13 petitions of 1893 together held 31,872 signatures.
- 4nzhistory.govt.nz/people/meri-te-tai-mangakahia
- Meri Te Tai Mangakāhia addressed Te Kotahitanga (the Māori parliament) in May 1893, asking that women be allowed to vote for and sit as members.
- 5nzhistory.govt.nz/women-together/theme/maori
- About 4000 Māori women voted in the 1893 election (estimate).
- 6nzhistory.govt.nz/page/women-can-stand-parliament
- Women's Parliamentary Rights Act 1919 allowed women to stand for the House of Representatives.
- 7nzhistory.govt.nz/politics/womens-suffrage/suffrage-milestones
- Elizabeth McCombs became New Zealand's first woman MP, winning the Lyttelton by-election in September 1933.
- 8passport.world.rugby/laws-of-the-game/law-1-the-ground
- A rugby field of play is up to 100 m between try lines, so 270 m is more than two and a half fields.
- 9nzhistory.govt.nz/politics/womens-suffrage/brief-history
- Before 1893 women could not vote in parliamentary elections (some women ratepayers could already vote in local-body elections).
Image and sound credits
- Kate Sheppard, c.1905 — H. H. Clifford (Canterbury Museum), public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
- Meri Te Tai Mangakāhia, c.1890 — FW Mason, Napier, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
- Elizabeth McCombs, c.1933 — unknown photographer, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
- Gathering at Pāpāwai, 1897 — Ruby Keedwell photograph albums, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
- David Boyle, 7th Earl of Glasgow — unknown photographer, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
- 1893 Women's Suffrage Petition sheets 2, 13, 21, 25, 26, 27 — Archives New Zealand, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
- Map data: Natural Earth (public domain)
- Music: generated with ACE-Step
- Voice: Gemini TTS
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