Maker: Sarah Clarke

Panel number: 284

Petition sheet number: 337

Person honouring: Emma Honour

Relationship to maker: Great-great-great-grandmother

Emma signed both the 1892 and 1893 suffrage petitions. Her sister, Annie Shepherd also signed in 1893 in Wellington.

Emma Shepherd was born in 1845 in London, England, daughter of Mary Chitson and Joseph Shepherd, a bath-chair proprietor.

Emma married Walter Henry Honour, a widowed shoemaker, in London in 1870; in 1871 they were living in Kensington with Emma’s sister and two-week-old Emma Ann(e).

The family emigrated to America soon after, with son Walter being born in 1873 in upstate New York. However, they found the climate unsuitable and returned to London in March 1875.

In June 1875 Emma and family embarked on a 78-day voyage to Wellington aboard the clipper Rodney, one of the last sailing ships built for the colonial passenger trade to Australasia. The family, now including seven children, lived in a freehold property with entrances on Majoribanks and Stafford Streets, Mount Victoria, Wellington.

Walter worked as a bootmaker from home. Family information records that he ‘came under some religious or temperance influence which made him a bigot and he told the sons that if they would not keep his rules of no drink, no cards, and no bright modern music [then] they could get out, which they did’.

Emma, Walter and the younger children moved to Tawa Flat in early 1895. There, Walter was arrested for shooting a neighbour’s 'vicious’ horse, but he was backed up by other settlers and the case was dismissed.

Emma died in October 1910, aged 65, and was buried in Porirua cemetery. Her descendants include the Honour, Janes, Riddick, and Nichols families.

Panel materials: Recycled fabrics from Vinnies, some embroidery thread I had at home, and special fabric paper to print photos on.