Marking 126 years since the ultimate suffrage victory was achieved it seems only appropriate that I should present a few concluding thoughts, or points of interest for future use. On 19 September 1893, despite attempts from anti-suffrage factions to still the passage of the amended Electoral Bill, Governor Glasgow gave his assent and New Zealand women became the first in the world to be enfranchised in a self-governing country. The moment was marked in papers across the country. In Hawke's Bay, however, neither the Hawke's Bay Herald nor the Daily Telegraph made any significant mention of the momentous achievement. Credit: Star, 19 September 1893, p.2, https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/TS18930919.2.14 Such inattention from Napier's major papers entirely belied the extent to which suffrage agitation had shaped local society in the preceding years. With domestic and public space politicised to a remarkable degree, the impact the suffrage campaign had had on society at large was pronounced. In terms of continuous engagement, the final totals for signatories traced onto the supporting documents provide far greater insight than I gave them credit for earlier on. Non-matches emerged as equally important avenues of inquiry. The women traced on all four documents proved a fruitful avenue of inquiry, and the diversity of occupations identified among the women located on the electoral rolls were significant. Rather than undermining the significance of 1892, the number of women located there served to foreground the magnitude of 1893. Napier society of the early 1890s was, ultimately, a progressive one. Both the Anglican Bishop Stuart and Presbyterian Minister David Sidey had stood as prominent supporters, Napier Girls' High School and Hukarere Māori School for Girls had provided room for the formulation of supportive sentiment. Women involved in charitable welfare provision had proved particularly influential. Women from all facets of Napier society had engaged with the suffrage agenda. The occupational diversity of the women included in the sample utilised in the present analysis illustrates this point. The research has also shed light on the nature of Napier society itself. With Harriet Cobb, Ella Dick and others engaging with the public sphere in particularly salient ways and in positions which enabled them to advertise their support for the suffrage campaign, it is clear that Napier's female population was by no means confined to the domestic sphere. The mapping exercise undertaken as part of the research process has also highlighted the complex construction of Napier's suffrage campaign. Providing visual evidence of the utilisation of multiple canvassing techniques, the manner in which the Napier petition sheets were constructed has been better illuminated. This research tool has, therefore, allowed for a deeper assessment of the performance of politics at this local level, highlighting the extent to which suffrage ideology permeated both public and domestic spheres. Use of these digital tools has allowed for an examination of the performance of women's political activism as a spatial phenomenon, shedding light on the manner in which it played out in this local context, and highlighting the extent to which the interconnectedness of Napier society influenced its success. The utility of the mapping exercise in highlighting these elements serves as a powerful indication of the benefits inherent in extending examination of the 1893 petition sheets beyond purely biographical analyses. Uncovering explicit links between Māori institutions and the broader suffrage agenda has set this analysis further apart from previous local studies. While Thomlinson's Dunedin highlighted the role of organised labour, Labrum's Whanganui illustrated the importance of relations between WCTU and non-WCTU affiliated activists, and Smith's Gore demonstrated the extent to which suffrage debate filtered through into popular discourse through the press, none provided scope to assess this interaction between Māori and Pākehā supporters. Extending Upton's foundation, this research has successfully enriched our knowledge of this aspect of the suffrage narrative. Actively engaged in the wider community, many of the women behind the ultimate success of the suffrage campaign in Napier did not enter politics as naive as some male antagonists would have had contemporary society believe. Engagement with school, church and charitable organisations, evidenced by the work of the Hawke's Bay Children's Home, ensured that Napier's female population was both politically attentive and experienced by 1893. The role of the family as a political entity which shaped public engagement has emerged with great strength in the present analysis, with several signatories signing alongside mothers, daughters, sisters, aunts, nieces and cousins. Evidence of family activism, Mrs W.L. Rees and her daughters signing sheet 426. Women's political activism was heavily dependent on the existence of established networks. Upton succeeded in demonstrating the significance of explicitly political organisations like the WCTU and Napier Women's Franchise League (WFL), and schools and churches within the Napier context. Such institutions played a critical role in shaping the success of the suffrage movement in Napier and wider Hawke's Bay.
The influence of these groups was, however, facilitated by familial, professional, religious and charitable connections which became highly significant politically during the 1890s. Politics was present wherever women engaged with public space. It was also present wherever women engaged with one another be that on the street, in church, at school, in photographic studios and other main street businesses, at WCTU or WFL meetings, or at the dinner table. Overall, the success of the suffrage campaign depended on the connectedness of the collective.
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