Makers: Zoe Tull, Sally Pascall, Jane Flippence, Alice Spinner, Gemma Pascall, Lilly Flippence (5 generations)

Panel number: 226

Petition sheet number: 279

Person honouring: E. [Elisa] Millichamp

Relationship to makers: None

Eliza Emma Thorp was born in Yorkshire, England in September 1856, the third daughter of Mary Burton and Thomas Thorp. Her father was a carpenter.

When Eliza was 17 the family migrated to New Zealand on the Carisbrooke Castle. They arrived at Lyttelton in September 1874. Eliza’s seven siblings – three sisters and four brothers – also travelled to Canterbury.

Eliza married John Millichamp in 1877 in Temuka. They moved to Ashburton in 1880 and set up Millichamp’s Nursery in 1886. They grew strawberries, cherries, and rhubarb for sale at first but soon planted trees between the rows.

Eliza made a non-intoxicating herbal beer, which they sold locally. In 1890 they advertised fruit trees, roses, shrubs, old fruit trees re-grafted, and ‘gardens laid out’.

Tinwald was the family home when Eliza signed the 1893 suffrage petition and enrolled to vote in the following elections. She had also signed the 1892 petition.

After John died in 1912, Eliza married a man 14 years her junior – James Reilly, a labourer – in 1913.

Eliza Reilly died in September 1947 and was buried at Ashburton cemetery, beside John. She was 91.

Eliza’s sister Ann White also signed the suffrage petition (sheet 236).

Panel materials: Except for buttons and charms, all materials came from our stash. Old bed sheet, left-over cotton fabric, wool, felt, ribbons, cotton threads of various thicknesses, wire, and beads were used. We used pelmet vilene to made the garden fork; an old doll’s straw hat was taken to pieces and remade to the required size and shape.