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Harriet Russell Morison (1862 – 19 August 1925) was a New Zealand tailor, trade unionist, suffragist and public servant.
New Zealand's first union of female workers, the Tailoresses' Union of New Zealand, held its inaugural meeting at the Dunedin Choral Hall on 11 July 1889. Morison attended, and became vice-president. She "threw her whole energy" into the organisation of the union, and took over the position of secretary in 1890, which she held until 1896. In February 1891 she went to Wellington to bolster the union branch there, and later that year she conducted a similar mission to Auckland. In 1892 she spent 26 weeks in Auckland rebuilding the local branch, which had been close to collapse. She was largely responsible for the union negotiating a minimum weekly wage of 7s 6d for clothing workers.
Morison also campaigned for
Early life
Morison was born inMagherafelt
Magherafelt (, mˠaxəɾʲəˈfʲiːlt̪ˠə is a small town and civil parish in County Londonderry, Northern Ireland. It had a population of 8,805 at the 2011 Census. It is the biggest town in the south of the county and is the social, econo ...
, County Londonderry, Ireland in 1862. She came to New Zealand with her parents in 1867 or 1874 and settled in Dunedin. Her father, James Morison, was a master tailor, and her first occupation was as a tailor
A tailor is a person who makes or alters clothing, particularly in men's clothing. The Oxford English Dictionary dates the term to the thirteenth century.
History
Although clothing construction goes back to prehistory, there is evidence of ...
ess.
Trade unionist
New Zealand's first union of female workers, the Tailoresses' Union of New Zealand, held its inaugural meeting at the Dunedin Choral Hall on 11 July 1889. Morison attended, and became vice-president. She "threw her whole energy" into the organisation of the union, and took over the position of secretary in 1890, which she held until 1896. In February 1891 she went to Wellington to bolster the union branch there, and later that year she conducted a similar mission to Auckland. In 1892 she spent 26 weeks in Auckland rebuilding the local branch, which had been close to collapse. She was largely responsible for the union negotiating a minimum weekly wage of 7s 6d for clothing workers.
Morison also campaigned for women's suffrage
Women's suffrage is the right of women to vote in elections. Beginning in the start of the 18th century, some people sought to change voting laws to allow women to vote. Liberal political parties would go on to grant women the right to vot ...
, which she considered a natural part of egalitarian Christian principles. She organised ambulance classes for women, and was a foundation member of the Women's Christian Temperance Union
The Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) is an international temperance organization, originating among women in the United States Prohibition movement. It was among the first organizations of women devoted to social reform with a program ...
. In 1892, she led a women's movement against Henry Fish
Henry Smith Fish (15 July 1838 – 23 September 1897) was a 19th-century New Zealand politician. For a time, he was a member of the Liberal Party. He was Mayor of Dunedin for a total of six years. Smith is remembered as one of the staunch opp ...
's bid for the mayoralty of Dunedin. Fish was a Parliamentary spokesman for the liquor trade and opposed to suffrage. With her friend Helen Nicol
Helen Nicol (later Fox; May 9, 1920 – July 25, 2021) was a Canadian-American baseball pitcher who played from through in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL). Listed at , , Nicol batted and threw right-handed. She was ...
, she founded the Dunedin Franchise League, which was independent of the temperance movement. Once suffrage was achieved, the League continued as a charitable organisation for women.
In 1896, Morison was dismissed from her post of union secretary. Part of her job was to raise funds for the union, but two picnics she organised in 1895 were unsuccessful due to the weather, and for a carnival in 1896 she failed to keep proper books. There was a suggestion that she had mismanaged or perhaps misappropriated funds, although there was no evidence for this and it may have been an example of infighting.
Later life
For 14 years, Morison was an official visitor to theSeacliff Lunatic Asylum
Seacliff Lunatic Asylum (often Seacliff Asylum, later Seacliff Mental Hospital) was a psychiatric hospital in Seacliff, New Zealand. When built in the late 19th century, it was the largest building in the country, noted for its scale and extrava ...
near Dunedin. ''The New Zealand Herald
''The New Zealand Herald'' is a daily newspaper published in Auckland, New Zealand, owned by New Zealand Media and Entertainment, and considered a newspaper of record for New Zealand. It has the largest newspaper circulation of all newspaper ...
'' obituary describes her as having "a keen personal interest in the welfare of the mentally afflicted". She was active in the Bible Christian Church
The Bible Christian Church was a Methodist denomination founded by William O’Bryan, a Wesleyan Methodist local preacher, on 18 October 1815 in North Cornwall. The first society, consisting of just 22 members, met at Lake Farm in Shebbea ...
, as a lay preacher (one of the first female preachers in New Zealand) and as a chairwoman of the Unitarian Church Committee.
In 1906 she became a factory inspector for the Department of Labour in the South Island – the first female inspector in the country – and two years later she moved to Auckland to run a new Women's Branch of the Department. She retired in 1921 when she was made redundant, and after a period of failing health died at her home in New Lynn in 1925.
Morison is one of six figures honoured in the Kate Sheppard National Memorial in Christchurch, which was unveiled in 1993 on the 100th anniversary of suffrage in New Zealand.
See also
*List of suffragists and suffragettes
This list of suffragists and suffragettes includes noted individuals active in the worldwide women's suffrage movement who have campaigned or strongly advocated for women's suffrage, the organisations which they formed or joined, and the public ...
*Timeline of women's suffrage
Women's suffrage – the right of women to vote – has been achieved at various times in countries throughout the world. In many nations, women's suffrage was granted before universal suffrage, so women and men from certain classes or races w ...
*Women's suffrage in New Zealand
Women's suffrage in New Zealand was an important political issue in the late nineteenth century. In early colonial New Zealand, as in European societies, women were excluded from any involvement in politics. Public opinion began to change i ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Morison, Harriet Russell 1862 births 1925 deaths New Zealand trade unionists New Zealand suffragists People from Magherafelt Irish emigrants to New Zealand (before 1923)