The signature beside a famous Timaru surname
c.1853–1944
Women’s suffrage
Political participation
Craigie Avenue, the Botanic Gardens chimes and the Robert Burns statue all lead readers towards James Craigie.
Kate Craigie’s clearest surviving public mark is smaller but entirely her own. Her name appears on New Zealand’s 1893 women’s suffrage petition.
Catherine Orr was born about 1853 in County Donegal, Ireland. She emigrated to Canterbury aboard the Edwin Fox in 1873 and married painter and decorator James Craigie in Timaru on 28 September 1875. They had eight children, one of whom died in infancy.
By 1893 the family was living in Bank Street. Kate signed sheet 274 of the suffrage petition as Mrs Kate Craigie. Her signature placed her among the thousands of women who publicly asked Parliament to recognise women as voters.
It is tempting to imagine conversations between Kate and James about voting and politics, particularly because he later became mayor, a Member of Parliament and a member of the Legislative Council. No surviving letter or diary has yet been found to tell us what they discussed.
Kate’s signature is enough. It demonstrates that she chose to associate her name and address with the campaign.
As James’s public career grew, the family moved to Craigielea at Kingsdown. Kate lived there until her death on 7 December 1944. She and James are buried together at Timaru Cemetery.
In 1994, their descendants planted a tree on Craigie Avenue in memory of James and Kate. The tree gives the couple a shared place in Timaru’s landscape, but their contributions should still be distinguished. James’s career produced buildings, gifts and public records. Kate’s surviving political act is her suffrage signature.
That distinction makes her story more useful, not less. Kate did not need to hold office or have a monument of her own to participate in political change. She put her name to a national demand and helped show that women in Timaru wanted a voice.
Read the WuHoo story: Meet James Craigie: The Man, the Wife and the Children Behind the Name
Sources
NZHistory: Mrs Kate Craigie
Supports her identity, migration, marriage, children, Bank Street address, suffrage signature, death and burial.
Aoraki Heritage Collection: James and Kate Craigie tree
Records the tree planted by their descendants in 1994.