Annie Lee Rees (or Lily) was one of the 20 New Zealand women selected to work as teachers for the Boer children living in the concentration camps in South Africa.
Members of the 'Learned Eleventh' – a twenty-strong group of New Zealand teachers selected to work in schools within Boer concentration camps in South Africa.
New Zealand women went to the polls for the first time, just 10 weeks after the Governor signed the Electoral Act 1893, making this country the first in the world to enfranchise all adult women.
These petitions, signed by 9000 women, contributed to the introduction of a Female Suffrage Bill in Parliament. But while this received majority support
in the House of Representatives, it was defeated in the Legislative
Council.
The Act provided for women aged between 25 and 60 to have their names placed on the jury list on the same basis as men – if they so desired. The first female juror, Miss E.R. Kingsford, served at the Auckland Supreme Court in 1943.
New Zealand's first female military personnel were joined within 18 months by members of the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps and the Women's Royal Naval Service.
Governor Lord Glasgow signed a new Electoral Act into law, making New Zealand the first self-governing country in the world to grant all women the right to vote in parliamentary elections.
The Labour Party's Elizabeth McCombs became the first woman Member of Parliament, winning a by-election in the Lyttelton seat caused by the death of her MP husband James McCombs.
