Mrs Peryman - Votes for Women

Ellen Jane 'Nellie' Peryman, [suffrage campaigner and editor of the New Zealand Women's Christian Temperance Union newspaper, "The White Ribbon"] is interviewed about the campaign for suffrage in the 1890s. She voted in the election of 1893 when New Zealand women were first able to vote. She says she is voting 'in this general election too.' This would be the 1943 general election which also coincided with the 50th suffrage anniversary.]

She was a teacher at Petone School at the time, in the Hutt electorate. She was involved in gathering signatures on the large suffrage petition.

She gives some detail about the difficulties of the suffrage campaign, including the difficulties in persuading some women to sign the petition. She says Mrs [Kate] Sheppard who was leading the campaign, would never have tolerated any violence.

She says women were often reluctant to go to the polling booths because they were 'rather lively' places on election day, although the conditions at Petone were 'very decent.'

The interview with Mrs Peryman is followed by a dramatisation of debate in Parliament around women's suffrage.