Maker: Kirsty Hosie

Panel number: 388

Petition sheet number: 470

Person honouring: Agnes McKinnon

Relationship to maker: Great-great-grandmother

Agnes McKinnon was 53 when she signed sheet 470 of the suffrage petition in Harrison Street, Wanganui. 

Agnes Wood was born in 1841 near Doon, Scotland to parents Jane Flint and William Wood. After her father died when she was five, her mother married David Morrison and they had five more children.

In 1856, the family sailed to New Zealand on the Heroes of Alma. They walked up the coast to Wanganui before eventually settling in the Rangitikei. 

Agnes worked looking after children while living with their families. In 1862 she married William Ashworth in the Rutland Stockade, Wanganui. He was a sergeant in the 57th Regiment of Foot; in 1865, William was killed during the ‘Māori Wars’ in Taranaki, leaving Agnes with two small sons. 

In 1866, Agnes remarried to Hugh McKinnon in Wanganui. Though they had 10 children, only eight survived past infancy – including my great-grandmother. It seems that Hugh was a hard man and the McKinnon marriage was not an easy one. While he did work, money was always in short supply and Hugh disappeared from the family in the early 1900s. 

Agnes faced many difficulties and hardships throughout her life but her children were everything to her. They returned her love and supported her, both financially and in many other ways. The Ashworth boys and the McKinnon family were always close.

Agnes died in 1918 aged 77 and was buried at the Aramoho Cemetery, Wanganui. 

Panel materials: Cotton and calico fabrics, lace, embroidery thread. All fabric was from my stash of fabrics and embroidery threads I have collected over the years – except for the calico I bought to print onto using my inkjet printer.