Kate Sheppard Memorial, Christchurch

On September 19, 1893 New Zealand became the first independent country in the world to recognize women's right to vote. On September 19, 1993 The Kate Sheppard Memorial was unveiled to honor the life of one of the country's leading campaigners for women's suffrage, Kate Sheppard.

Sheppard organized multiple petitions to Parliament for granting women the right the right to vote. She wrote a pamphlet called "Ten reasons why the women of New Zealand should vote to support the campaign". Despite the defeat of suffrage bills in Parliament in 1888, 1891 and 1892, she continued the campaign. Her petition in 1893 received 32,000 signatures. The success finally came in the Electoral Act 1893 giving New Zealand women the right to vote.

The memorial is a life-sized bronze relief of Kate Sheppard and five other women leaders. The sculpture is in the form of a triptych. Sheppard and the women are in the center panel. Panels on each side depict scenes of women's lives at the end of the 19th century. The entire piece is 16 feet wide and six feet, seven inches high.

The women shown in the center panel beside Sheppard are: Helen Nicci, a suffrage activist; Ada Wells, a fighter for girls' education; Harriet Morison, an agitator for working women; Meri Mangakahia of Dei Tai Tokerau, petitioner of the Maori Parliament for women's rights; and Amey Daldy, of the Auckland Woman's Christian Temperance Union.

The memorial was designed by New Zealand artist Margriet Windhausen and it is located in the Kate Sheppard National Memorial Reserve. The reserve is by the Avon River near the corner of Worcester Street and Oxford Terrace.