KATE WILSON SHEPPARD.

White Ribbon, Volume 40, Issue 467, 18 August 1934, Page 9

KATE WILSON SHEPPARD.

LEADER AND HONKER. (An Appreciation by Jessie Mackav.i TiO many people the till** of Mrs. K. IV. Loved-Smith veils the identity of Kate Wilson Sheppard, a name that ram? throughout New Zealand like a trumpet call forty years ago. In this brief retrospect, I, t us for clearness revert to the < Id familiar name throughout linked for ever with the rise of temperance ind feminism in our country. Kate Wilson Malcolm was born in lsla> in ISIS. I'.er father’s bent towards music and metrical expression gave her one tradition: her uncles devotion to the Tree Church, young and poor, hut rich in honour, early be gifted her with love of great causes. Reared and lurated in Scotland, she arrived, with her mother and asters. in New Zealand towards the latter sixties. H< r home henceforth was in Christchurch, where she precntly married Mr. Walter A. Sheppard ' s a < ongregationalist, she was well in the line of active, independent thought, when the first call to the front rime. In the middle ’eighties came Mis. Mary Leavitt to found a branch of the young and zealous Women’s Christian Temperance Union in New Zealand, and soon Mrs. Sheppards harmonious qualities and clarity oi \ision showed her an ideal White Rihlroner. Soon catre ihe definite call for women to free themelves, if they willed to free the world from error. Franchise was the new word and symbol of this civic emancipation. Unsought, the task of leadership was laid upon Mrs. Sheppard. She was then in her youn: l rime of beauty, graeiousness and gallant enthusiasm: vet, as a well-nlaeed wife and mother, already ripe in tiie management of affairs and ftee to meet the struggle ahead. That struggle absorbed her energies and tested her manifold fitness in strategy to the utmost for seven years. It took her to every centre of New Zealand, brought her into contact with every politician of note, and strengthened the bond of cooperation not only between men and women but between all shades of honest patriotism in action. Possessing a golded mean in temperament, she demonstrated how sweet a suffragist could be. Her firm arguments were advanced with a good humoured patience that disarmed prejudice and warded off hostility. Rut if she had the full support of men with the goodwill and vision of John Ra 11anee and Sir John Hall, she had to fight trickery, subterfuge and falsehood from carpet-hag politicians and stagnant opposition from hard-shell Tories. Many a rebuff, not a few betrayals, tried the noble band of women ranged underMrs. Sheppard’s leadership. She was their good comrade and inspirer to fresh effort, however sick at heart herself. The work of women like Lady Stout, herself a Hrltish suffragist, later, Mrs. Hatton, Mrs. Paldy, Mrs. Schnackenherg. and many more must never be forgotten in the franchise story. Let us leave that for a moment to interpolate the rise of a third aspect of consecrated feminism. Temperance and suffrage wore both launched before the modest 1 eginnlngs of feministic journalism pointed a new offensive on the flanks of ancient darkness. Most fitly it was horn of both. The men who led against alcohol —may their names be written in gold!—had already founded the “Prohihi tionist,” forerunner of the “Vanguard” In this paper a page for women, arranged and paid for by th«

Christchurch Onion, was inaugurated on June 6. 1891. edited by an Esperanto student signing herself “Penelope.” In this way did Mrs. Sheppard Itecome the pioneer feminist journalist of New Zealand. I lie grund old formula: "For (iod, Home and Humanity” headed this first regular page ,>f women’s work in temperance and other branches of betterment as. just four years later, it headed the first issue of our own “White Ribbon” in 1895. Again Mrs. Sheppard’s capabilities and taste marked her obviously for the first editor; her able associate being Miss Lucy LovellSmith. whose sister-in-law, Mrs. Jennie Lovell-Smith. rendered signal service as Union Treasurer. In 1K93 Franchise was won: not a call to rest, hut a jubilant summons to become trained and consecrated citizens. Societies of women to study public questions and influence higher nationhood sprang up like mushrooms over the country. In such a soil the rising idea of women’s national councils germinated rapidly. The first National Council of New Zealand women was held in Christchurch in IS9H. Mrs. Sheppard was President and took a large part in Council activities till its suspension for financial reasons in the first decade of our century. AI tout the middle of ♦hat decade. Mrs. Sheppard took a deserved holiday in travel. Miss L. Lovell-Smith left to full editorship of the “White Ribbon.” Both then and in subsequent travels, Mrs. Sheppard’s feme ~v the pioneer leader of successful national worldsuffrage brought her into happy relations with the great feminists of Britain and America. A fuller story returned with her to inspire a new order of feminist energy. Seventeen years ago the National Council was revived, and again she became the first President of it. The result of these kittle-years is reflected in the noblest pages of our Statute Book, and in the higher social conditions which endear our county ; 0 lovers of true progress. Where Mrs. Sheppard no longer openly headed these new campaigns ot righteousness, her wise and tactful private counsel long permeated the work of younger leaders. There could hardly be set a time when Mrs. Sheppard grew- old. She was indeed one who defied time to wither tin* youthfulness of a spirit responding to all things bright and good. But she who had never sought l laee or power, gladly withdrew from the world at last into the peace of life's mellowing eventide. Sorrow had not passed her by. Ik 1 reft of her onlv son, later of her only grandchild, and widowed, sht. as Mrs. W. S. Lovell-Smith. found new- home ties and devoted care which surrounded her. past her second widewhood. to the winter day last month when she laid down the burden of her eighty-six years, peacefully as a child drops to slumber. The story of work like hers is a heritage t.» New Zealand, above all to New Zealand women. Most fitly in the women’s newspaper which took its first imprint from her careful hand and loyal heart do we mourn her passing, but rejoice that her life lH*held such fruition. There came the crown of all her franchise labours last year, when she saw the first woman enter our Parliament. Elizabeth Reid McCombs- woman cradled in temperance, feministic, and humanistic tradition, and living for that grand, transcending formula of ours. “For C,od. Home and Humanity.” This was the last happy sequence of the many already met in the long life of this sunny Britomarte of ours, and now she is enfolded in the Eternal Peace that waits for all such champions as Kate Wilson Sheppard.