Women's Christian Temperance Union New Zealand facts for kids
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| Abbreviation | WCTU NZ |
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| Founded | 1885 |
| Founded at | Wellington, New Zealand |
| Type | Umbrella organisation |
| Legal status | Charitable trust |
| Focus | temperance, protection of women and children |
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President
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Annette Paterson (2012–present) |
The Women's Christian Temperance Union of New Zealand (WCTU NZ) is a special group that helps women and children. It is one of the oldest women's organizations in New Zealand that has been active without stopping. The group started in 1885 when Mary Clement Leavitt visited New Zealand. She was a missionary for the Woman's Christian Temperance Union around the world.
The WCTU NZ was an early part of the World Woman's Christian Temperance Union. It also helped start the National Council of Women of New Zealand. Men can join the WCTU NZ as honorary members, which means they support the group's work.
Contents
What the WCTU NZ Aims to Do
The WCTU NZ works to make communities healthier and safer. They do this by encouraging people to live healthy lives. They also focus on protecting women and children.
The White Ribbon Badge
The official symbol of the WCTU is a white ribbon. This ribbon stands for "purity of purpose." It shows how Christian women around the world are connected by their shared goals. The white ribbon was first used by the American WCTU when it started. Since 1877, it has been worn as a bow pinned over the heart. In New Zealand's early years, the white ribbon was sometimes worn with the blue ribbon of the Gospel Temperance movement.
Important Sayings
The WCTU groups around the world follow these important sayings: Educate! Agitate! Legislate! These words show their focus on teaching people, speaking up for what's right, and working to change laws.
Noontide Prayer
Members of the WCTU everywhere were asked to spend an hour praying and thinking each day at noon. This helped them feel connected as an international group. It was a tradition they could do in their own language and Christian faith. Many groups used a popular song called "Beautiful Isle of Somewhere" to sing "Beautiful Hour of Noontide."
New Zealand is one of the first places in the world to experience noon each day. Because of this, the WCTU NZ was very keen on supporting this prayer effort. They believed that prayers were always rising from somewhere around the world.
How the WCTU NZ is Organized
When Mary C. Leavitt came to New Zealand, she brought the WCTU's rules for how the group should be set up. This showed how unique this women's organization was. Many local groups used this structure. For example, when Leavitt helped start the Auckland WCTU in 1885, it began with five main areas of work. These included things like temperance literature, health, laws, education, and helping in prisons. More areas were added as the group grew.
The national WCTU rules listed many different areas of work that local groups could choose from. These included:
- Heredity (how traits are passed down)
- Hygiene (cleanliness and health)
- Scientific Instruction (teaching about health)
- Sunday-School Work (working with children in church schools)
- Juvenile Work (working with young people)
- Temperance Literature (sharing information about healthy living)
- Influencing the Press (sharing their message in newspapers)
- Evangelistic Work (sharing their faith)
- Prisons and Police Stations (helping people in these places)
- Railroad Work (helping people who worked on trains)
- Soldiers and Sailors (helping military personnel)
- Unfermented Wine (promoting non-alcoholic drinks)
- Young Women's Work (activities for young women)
- Drawing-room Meetings (meetings in homes)
- Kitchen Gardens (teaching about growing food)
- Flower Missions (sharing flowers with people)
- Provincial and County Fairs (having a presence at local events)
- Legislation and Petitions (working to change laws)
- Work among Maoris (working with Māori communities)
- Impure Literature (addressing harmful publications)
Anne Ward, the first national president, made sure that some of these work areas were set up at the national level. This helped the different local groups work together. Some of these areas were: Evangelistic Work, Legislation and Petitions (which later included voting rights), Social Purity, Hygiene, Influencing the Press, Unfermented Wine, Juvenile Work, Gaol Work (prison work), and Young Women's Work.
New Zealand and the World's WCTU
Mary C. Leavitt also brought a special petition called the Polyglot Petition for Home Protection to New Zealand. This petition gathered signatures from many countries. Several early WCTU NZ presidents helped collect 4,004 signatures from New Zealand.
In 1895, Kate Sheppard went to a World's WCTU meeting in London. There, she was encouraged to start the National Council of Women of New Zealand. A New Zealander named Anderson Hughes-Drew also worked as a missionary for the World's WCTU, traveling around the globe. Margaret Jackson, a WCTU NZ President, was even elected president of the World WCTU from 2001 to 2004.
Early Work in New Zealand
The first WCTU groups in New Zealand worked to change old laws that they felt were harmful, especially to men.
Teaching Children and Youth About Healthy Choices
Children were sometimes sent to places where adults bought harmful substances, or they might work in related businesses. Because of this, the WCTU NZ worked early on to change school lessons. They wanted schools to teach children about healthy choices and the effects of harmful substances like tobacco.
In 1887, the WCTU NZ asked the Minister for Education to make this teaching a required part of school. They paid for books, charts, songs, and lessons to help schools teach these topics. In the early years, the WCTU NZ encouraged local groups to start a "Cradle Roll." This involved parties for children and encouraged mothers to promise to teach their children about healthy living and purity. The WCTU NZ also worked with other groups to create youth-led Loyal Temperance Legions, which had their own leaders.
Community Welfare Work
Many communities already had Christian women helping those in need. The WCTU NZ helped organize these efforts in a more structured way. WCTU NZ groups set up hospitals, safe places for women, homes for sailors, hostels for girls, orphanages, free kindergartens, and places for infant care at big events. They also created non-alcoholic refreshment rooms, homes or education centers for working children, and "prison gate" homes to help people after prison. They also did missionary work in Māori communities.
Even after women gained the right to vote, the WCTU NZ continued to fight for women's full rights as citizens. This included the right for women to run for public office and to have equal guardianship of their children. They also worked against gambling and protested against government-licensed lotteries, which they believed harmed working-class people.
Petitions for Women's Right to Vote
The WCTU NZ played a huge role in helping women gain the right to vote in New Zealand. They organized many petitions, which are formal requests signed by many people.
- 1885: A group led by Mrs. G. Clark of Christchurch asked Sir Julius Vogel to create a bill for women's voting rights. They also gathered 18,537 signatures to stop women from working in places that sold harmful substances.
- 1886: Two petitions for women's voting rights, signed by 350 women, were sent to Parliament. This was led by WCTU NZ president Anne Ward.
- 1887: They organized a petition with over 8,000 signatures against women working in bars. They also protested a bill that left women out of voting rights. This petition was signed by the WCTU NZ president (Anne Ward), secretary (Susan Brett), treasurer (Mrs. C.A. Baker), and Mrs. G. Clark.
- 1888: Two petitions for women's voting rights with 780 signatures were presented by Emma E. Packe, who was then the WCTU NZ President.
- 1891: Eight petitions for women's voting rights with 10,085 signatures were collected. This effort was led by WCTU NZ president Catherine Fulton and Kate Sheppard.
- 1892: Groups like the Political Franchise Leagues and WCTU NZ leaders gathered petitions with 20,274 signatures to support a new voting bill.
- 1893: Political Franchise Leagues and WCTU NZ groups spent about four months gathering thirteen petitions for women's voting rights. These were signed by 31,872 women aged twenty-one and over. More than 500 individual pages were glued together to make a single roll measuring 270 meters long. This huge roll was wheeled into Parliament in a wheelbarrow! Sir John Hall unrolled it and said it was the largest petition ever presented to any Parliament in Australasia.
The White Ribbon Journal
Local newspapers and other journals often wrote about the WCTU. Local groups also wrote regular columns in papers like the Wanganui Chronicle and New Zealand Herald. In May 1895, the WCTU started publishing its own journal called The White Ribbon. Kate Sheppard was the first editor. The longest-serving editor was Nellie Peryman, from 1913 to 1945. In 1965, the journal changed its name to The New Zealand White Ribbon Digest and stopped being published in 2011. Now, the official WCTU NZ publication is a newsletter called the White Ribbon Bulletin. Like the older journals, it is kept in the National Library of New Zealand.
Founding Leaders and Groups
By the time of the first national meeting in Wellington in 1886, there were fifteen local groups. They all followed the same WCTU rules.
Founding Groups Started by Mary C. Leavitt (and their local presidents)
- 6 August 1884 (restarted 22 June 1885), Invercargill: Eliza Ann Palmer Brown (then Roberta Annie Swayne Hinton)
- 4 February 1885, Auckland: Ann Parkes Brame
- 5 May 1885, Dunedin: Catherine Fulton
- 5 May 1885, Port Chalmers: Mary Ann Roebuck Monson
- 15 May 1885, Christchurch: Emma Eliza De Winton Packe
- 28 May 1885, Rangiora: Grace Roberts Rowse (also president of Petone WCTU after 1901)
- 11 June 1885, Napier: Mrs. T. G. Paterson
- 16 June 1885, Oamaru: Agnes Hunter Train Todd
Founding Groups Started by Anne Ward
- 3 September 1885 – Wellington
- 16 September 1885 – Nelson
- 5 October 1885 – Wanganui
- 27 October 1885 – New Plymouth
- 29 October 1885 – Hawera
- 31 October 1885 – Patea
- January 1886 – Ashburton
Groups Formed Between 1887 and 1895
- 1887 - Roslyn
- 1888 - West Taieri (Outram), Lyttelton
- 1889 - Timaru (Mosgiel, North East Valley)
- 1891 - Palmerston
- 1892 - Kaiapoi, Fielding, Marton, Blenheim, West Coast (Hokitika)
- 1893 - Levin
- 1894 - Hastings
WCTU NZ National Presidents
- Anne Ward of Wellington, 1886–1887
- Emma E. de Winton Packe of Christchurch, 1887–1889
- Catherine Valpy Fulton of Dunedin, 1890–1892
- Annie Jane Allen Schnackenberg of Auckland, 1892–1900
- Lily May Kirk Atkinson of Wellington, 1901–1905
- Fanny Buttery Cole of Christchurch, 1906–1913
- Rachel Hull Don of Dunedin, 1914–1926
- Priscilla Kennedy Crabb of Palmerston North, Acting President while Rachel Don traveled abroad from April 1920 - March 1921
- Elizabeth Best Taylor, OBE., JP. of Christchurch, 1926–1935
- Jessie Ann McKenzie Hiett of Dunedin, 1935–1945
- Cybele Ethyl Kirk, JP. of Wellington, 1946–1949
- Catherine M. McLay of Rotorua, 1949–1951
- Constance Toomer of Nelson, 1951–58, 1966–68
- Mrs. A.T. Richards, JP. of Auckland, 1959–1961
- Mrs. F.A. Rankin of Nelson, 1961–1965
- Constance Toomer's second term, 1966–1968
- Catherine Polglase of Nelson, 1969–1990
- Margaret Jackson of Cambridge, 1991–1995 (also World WCTU president, 2001–2004)
- Clara Smith, 1996
- Alma Laurenson, 1997–1998
- Annette Paterson, 1999–2003; 2012–present
- Molly Aitchison, 2004–2009
- Ruth Hillsdon, 2010–2011
- Annette Paterson's second term, 2012–present
Recent Activities
Even though fewer people are members now, the WCTU NZ still holds yearly meetings. They also send people to the World WCTU conventions. Margaret Jackson, a former WCTU NZ president, was even elected president of the World Union from 2001 to 2004.
The WCTU continues to value its history and its important role in helping women gain the right to vote in New Zealand. In 2017, the WCTU NZ took part in a "Be Healthy – Live Smoke-free!" coloring competition with WCTU-Australia. This competition was open to children in both Australia and New Zealand.
