See our display of books celebrating International Women's Day on 8 March

1. International
Women’s
Day

2. Women in the House
Janet McCallum
Published in 1993, this book presents together for the first time
the lives of all 36 women MPS who had served since New Zealand
women won the vote.
Full of detail from their personal circumstances to the public
challenges, goals and strategies; revealing strands common to all
women – as well as striking differences.
The book gives invaluable insights into basic female and male
atitudes, unveiling the particular and essential contribution
women made to politics.
Looking for Mrs Cowie
The Life and Times of a Colonial Bishop’s Wife
Beverley Reeves
Eliza Jane Webber, a surgeon’s daughter, married William Garden
Cowie who had recently been consecrated Bishop of Auckland, NZ
in 1869. Arriving in Auckland 3rd
February 1870, she remained at
Bishopscourt in Parnell for the rest of her life, dying there in 1902.
She was well-known for her social and welfare work among the
less fortunate in Auckland, playing a leading role in many
benevolent institutions and initiatives. Her work with distressed
women and children was particularly significant in the context of
that period in Auckland’s history.

3. Bastardy Records for Wiltshire
Volume 3 1835 to 1893
Caine, Devizes, Salisbury & Tilbury
Rosemary Church
Mary Alexander Park - Portrait of the Artist
G Stuart Park
Mary Alexander Park (1850-1920) was born
in Scotland and lived in Tasmania, New
Zealand and Scotland. She first exhibited at
the Otago Art Society in 1876 and became
well known as a portrait painter. Based in
Europe for twenty years, she spent time at
L’Academie Julian in Paris, before returning
to Dunedin.
A Woman’s Work is Never Done
A History of Housework in the
British Isles 1650-1950
Caroline Davidson

4. Celebration of Women in Early Childhood
Edited by Helen May & Jill Mitchell
Centre of Early Childhood
Hamilton Teachers College
Hamilton, New Zealand
The Floating Brothel: The extraordinary true Story of an 18th
century ship and its cargo of female convicts. - Sian Rees
A seafaring tale with a twist – the voyage of a shipload of ‘disorderly girls’
and the men who transported them, fell for them, and sold them. This tells
of the plight of the female convicts aboard the Lady Julian 1789. The
women, most of them petty criminals, were destined for New South Wales
to provide its hordes of lonely men with sexual favours as well as progeny.
The even more incredible story of their journey is expertly told by an
historian with roots in the boat building business and a true love of the sea.

5. Abandoned Women
Lucy Frost
From the crowded tenements of Edinburgh to the
Female Factory nestling in the shadow of Mt
Wellington, dozens of Scottish women convicts were
exiled to Van Diemen's Land with their young children.
This is a rich and evocative account of the lives of
women at the bottom of society 200 years ago.
A Scottish Mother
Dunedin Family History Group Publication
A collection of family stories/biographies of Scottish mothers who
came to New Zealand.
Families included : Brownlee (nee Pendreigh), Coutts (nee McKay),
Craig (nee Neil), Crerar (nee Pethig), Duff (nee Key), Gillies (nee
Gardner), Gollan (nee Henderson), Greig (nee Smart), Hunt (nee
Robertson), Jackson (nee McDonell), Key (nee Dick), Lourie (nee
Robertson), McNaught (nee Thompson), Miller (nee Archer), Mitchell
(nee Maben), Morrison (nee Key), Munroe (nee Ross), Old (nee
Robertson), Pethig (nee Robertson), Rankin (nee McClymont), Smith
(nee Sneddon), Swallow (nee Harrison), Teague (nee Key),Thomson
(nee Torrance), Watt (nee Erasmuson), Wedderspoon (nee Robertson),
Wilkie (nee Johnston), Wilson (nee Gardner), Wilson (nee Key),Woods
(nee MacDonald).

6. A Fence Around The Cuckoo
Ruth Park
This first volume of Ruth Park’s autobiography
is an account of her isolated childhood in the
rainforests of New Zealand, her convent
education which encouraged her love of words
and writing, and the bitter years of the
Depression. She then entered the rough-and-
tumble world of journalism and began a
reluctant correspondence with a young
Australian writer. In 1942, Park moved to
Sydney and married that writer, D’Arcy Niland.
There she would write The Harp in the South,
the first of her classic Australian novels. A
Fence Around the Cuckoo is the story of one of
Australia’s best storytellers and how she learnt
her craft.
Home Away From Home
Manying Ip
Life Stories of Chinese Women in New Zealand

7. Silver Wings
New Zealand Women Aviators
Shirley Laine
Silver Wings tells the story of New Zealand’s
women flyers, from 1920s, when a woman’s
place was deemed to be on the ground
(preferably in the home), until the present day,
when women fly every type of aircraft
and are involved in aviation sport of all kinds.
The Suffragists
Women Who Worked for the Vote
Claudia Orange
Essays from the
Dictionary of New Zealand Biography
Petticoat Pioneers
South Island Women of the Colonial Era
Book Three
Barbara Harper
Includes 40 biographies of pioneering women,
some pioneer recipes, bibliography, index

8. Angel in God’s Office – My Wartime Diaries
Neva Clarke McKenna
The experience of one ‘ordinary’ New Zealand girl
and how the war changed her life forever as she
worked close to the New Zealand men in Italy, close
to the killing, the wounding and the surviving.
Neva’s experiences were unique and she writes of
them with appealing naturalness, honesty, humour
and warmth
Alone in the Sky
Jean Batten
Based on "My Life" published by Harrap in 1938, but
revised and lengthened. This is the story of Jean
Batten's early life and of all her famous flights. Jean
Batten, one of the great names in aviation history, was
born in New Zealand in 1909 & qualified for a flying
licence at the London Aero Club in 1930 and went on
to fly immense distances in record times in the most
basic aeroplanes.
-

9. Our Generation
Zubeida Jaffer
This is Zubeida Jaffer’s personal life story, seamlessly woven into the story of the struggle for democracy in South Africa.
This autobiographical account spans 15 years, starting in 1980 when Zubeida was a young reporter, to post-1994 and
the TRC hearings, where she testified.
This story is shaped around the relationship of Zubeida and her daughter, Ruschka, which makes it a unique struggle
account. Political experiences are interspersed with talk about babies, her passionate love for her husband in hiding and
the torment of a relationship unravelling. She bravely talks about never having time for herself because of the heavy
demands made on activists.
She also writes about her problematic relationship with Islam, the religion she was brought up in, but also the religion
she questioned for its sexist rules. The title has its climax in Zubeida’s testimony to the Truth and Reconciliation
Commission and her final break down. Her story is driven by an impulse towards joy – in the end she triumphs as an
individual, a woman, a freedom fighter, a writer and a mother.
1820 Settler Women
Stanley G Shuttleworth
South African Biographies
Includes stories of the following women
Jane Ayliff nee Dold, Amelia Bailie, Ann Maria Barnes nee Dugmore, Mary Biggar, Anna Maria Bowker, Sarah Buckley,
Mary Cawood, Elizabeth Cock, Rhoda Collett, Ann Grant Damant, Maria Dugmore, Hannah Ford, Hannah Keeton,
1820 Settler Gardner Women, Ann Godlonton, Eliza Goldswain, Ann Handfield, Jane Hoole, Ester James, Ellen Kent,
Frances Matthews, Elizabeth Parkin, Kate and Sophia Pigot,
1820 Scottish Party, Ann Shaw, Sarah Shone, Jane Southey, Sophia Stirk, Susannah Rollip, Grace and Maria Weeks,
Phoebe Whitehead, Susan Garbutt Wood

10. Under Northland Skies: Forty Women of Northland
Florence Keene
"Have you ever heard of a woman who lived in a kauri tree?
This book gives an account of how Rose Shepherd did just that
with thirteen children for fourteen years!
Many, like Mary Davis, began their pioneering days with a terrifying journey
across the seas in a sailing ship that was completely at the mercy of the
winds. Imagine being battened down below decks for days while the
storms raged around them” – From the flyleaf.
A Cargo of Women: Susannah Watson
& The Convicts of the Princess Royal - Babette Smith
Intrigued to discover a convict ancestor in her family tree, Babette
Smith decided to investigate her life and the lives of the 99 women
who were transported with her on the ship Princess Royal in 1829.
Piece by piece she reveals the story of her ancestor the indomitable
Susannah Watson who, trapped in the crowded filthy slums of
Nottingham, stole because she could not bear to see her children
starving'. Seperated forever from her husband and four children,
she was transported to Australia for 14 years.
She endured the convict system at its worst, yet emerged triumphant
to die in her bed aged 83 singing Rock of Ages'.

11. Petticoat Pioneers
North Island Women of the Colonial Era
Miriam Macgregor
Includes 54 biographies of pioneering women, some pioneer
recipes, bibliography, index Signed by the author.
New Zealand Dental Service Gazette : 1941-1944
Includes appointments, transfers and resignations
Check the catalogue for other years covered up to 1983