Maker: Robyn Ashley

Panel number: 262

Petition sheet number: 320

People honouring: M. [Mary] Pattie and her sisters

Relationship to maker: Daughter-in-law’s family

Six of the Fulton sisters from Bohally in Blenheim signed the suffrage petition (sheet 320), including Mary.

Their parents, Christina McRae McCallum and Charles McDiarmid Fulton, were both born in Scotland and arrived in New Zealand in the early 1850s. They settled in the Wairau Valley and purchased a 75-acre block, described as a wilderness of scrub and matagouri. They transformed it into one of the most prosperous flax-milling farms on the plains. 

Their first child, Mary McRae Fulton, was born in 1858 and is thought to be the first European child born in the Wairau Valley. Her parents had 13 children, only three of whom married.

In 1877, Mary married David Pattie, who was 15 years older. As with her parents, Mary and David had a large family [12 children].

Mary signed the 1893 petition as Mary Pattie, along with five of her sisters: Annie, Catherine, Christina, Eliza, and Jessie. The younger two, Margaret and Williamina were under 21 years so were ineligible.

Mary continued to be enrolled to vote in Blenheim from 1893. She died in 1935, aged 77, and was buried at Omaka cemetery.

Six of Mary’s sisters had stayed on the farm after their mother’s death in 1920 and successfully ran the farm with the help of their two unmarried brothers. The youngest sister Williamina (Min) had a nursing career and was the Matron of Wairau Hospital in 1905–21. 

In 1959 Jessie, the last surviving sister, surrendered her interests in Bohally to the Education Department; it is now the site of Marlborough Girls College and Bohally Intermediate School.

Panel materials: Embroidery cottons and two photos printed on calico.