Tour Christchurch with Kate Sheppard - Historic Guided Tour

You are invited to attend the “living history” which commemorates the work achieved by Kate Sheppard and the NZ Women's Christian Temperance Union to ensure that New Zealand became the first country in the world where women were able to vote.

Kate Sheppard Tours in in association with the Christchurch Heritage Festival
offer a experience steeped in our local history.

Women getting the vote in New Zealand was a hard-won struggle. Kate’s story gives us courage and energy for our 21st century issues.

Explore Christchurch with a guided tour that includes important sites to the historically significant work undertaken by Kate Sheppard and others, who successfully campaigned to ensure New Zealand become the first country in the world to gain voting rights for women.

Hear an illustrated talk by local historian Margaret Lovell-Smith, an author who specialises in women's history, on what life was like for women in Kate Sheppard’s era.

Listen the “Votes for Women” piano suite especially composed for New Zealand 1993 Suffrage Centennial by Rosemary Stott Miller. Performed by Katherine Jones. https://www.sounz.org.nz/contributors/1177

Take part in a re-enactment of an 1893 women’s WCTU meeting about votes for women, and empowering women to take action.

Kate’s actual speeches are incorporated into the event, presented by our contemporary “Kate Sheppard”
Then board a bus for a commentated guided tour of the city to hear about 27 significant sites associated with Kate Sheppard and the Franchise movement.

Enjoy a complimentary cup of tea or coffee on the verandah of Te Whare Waiutuutu Kate Sheppard House, with the opportunity to explore and also take a walk in Kate's beautiful spring garden.

You can lay a flower on Kate Sheppard's grave under the camellia trees in historic Addington cemetery.

The juxtaposition of the sitting New Zealand government in 1893 and the jostling that ensued to achieve this franchise is played out with a contemporary Richard (Dick) Seddon".

Our commentator, Erin McGifford, leads the participants along the trail of buildings, some still present, some lost, and people associated with these sites and our significant local history. Erin, a retired librarian, was the researcher for the Judith Devaliant Kate Shepard book published in 1992, and for the women who commissioned and fund-raised for the Kate Sheppard Memorial Mural, built in 1993".

You will receive a souvenir programme that includes the history and highlights of the tour.

Bring your lunch - tea and coffee available before the programme starts to enjoy a hot drink and browse the memorabilia on display

Participants are warmly invited to wear period costume

Meet at the WEA, 59 Gloucester Street, Central City, Christchurch

Tickets $33.00

This event is being organised by the Kate Sheppard Tour Group, we are a small working group, however encourage the support of others. If you would like to further the commitment to ensuring the world leading work championed by the Suffragette's is known by our community and especially younger women who benefit from this ethos we would like to hear from you. We also recognise that important aspirations of Kate, such as pay parity, are yet to be realised.
Email: katesheppardtours@gmail.com