In July 1884, an unassuming announcement in the Hawke's Bay Herald detailed the opening of a photographic studio in Port Ahuriri. The new business owners, Harriet and Joseph Cobb, had arrived in Napier on 5 January, having landed in Wellington with their children aboard the Lady Jocelyn on New Year's Day. Shortly after their arrival in Hawke's Bay, Harriet set about establishing herself within the local business network.
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"So one fine morning of September, 1893, the women of New Zealand woke up and found themselves enfranchised. The privilege was theirs, given freely and spontaneously in the easiest and most unexpected manner in the world by male politicians...No franchise leagues had fought the fight year after year." Such was William Pember Reeves' assessment of one of the most significant political moments in New Zealand's history.
Representing years of work and social agitation, the 30'000 signatures unfurled on the floor of Parliament by Sir John Hall in 1893 amounted to a statement of political intention which was impossible for politicians to ignore (despite their best efforts in previous years).
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