Ellen Ballance (; 1846 – 14 June 1935) was a New Zealand suffragist and community leader. She was a vice-president of the Women's Progressive Society, an international suffrage organisation based in London, and the inaugural president of the Wanganui Women's Franchise League in 1893.

Early life and family

Ballance was born in

Wellington Wellington ( mi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara or ) is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the second-largest city in New Zealand by metr ...

and was the daughter of merchant David Anderson and his wife Ann Thompson. She had five brothers and three sisters. On 19 May 1870, she married

John Ballance John Ballance (27 March 1839 – 27 April 1893) was an Irish-born New Zealand politician who was the 14th premier of New Zealand, from January 1891 to April 1893, the founder of the Liberal Party (the country's first organised political part ...

, then a newspaper editor. She was his second wife. In 1886 they adopted her four-year-old niece, Florence, and re-christened her Kathleen.

Political involvement and activism

Ballance was a prominent figure in the suffrage movement in New Zealand, and a vice-president of the Women's Progressive Society, an international suffrage organisation based in London. She shared her husband's political interests and became highly regarded in political circles in Wellington. After the

1890 New Zealand general election The 1890 New Zealand general election was one of New Zealand's most significant. It marked the beginning of party politics in New Zealand with the formation of the Liberal Government, which was to enact major welfare, labour and electoral reforms ...

, Ballance's husband became the 14th Premier of New Zealand. He was a supporter of women's suffrage; his successor later said that it had been Ballance who converted her husband to the cause. With his election and the new government, suffragist

Kate Sheppard Katherine Wilson Sheppard ( Catherine Wilson Malcolm; 10 March 1848 – 13 July 1934) was the most prominent member of the women's suffrage movement in New Zealand and the country's most famous suffragist. Born in Liverpool, England, she emi ...

and women's groups renewed efforts to get the vote for women. In 1891, Ballance wrote to Sheppard to say that she would do everything in her power to "further the cause". Ballance regularly attended Parliament to listen to debates. On one occasion in 1891 she caused a stir in the House when, after an anti-suffrage MP declared that women did not want the vote, she handed around a petition in the Ladies' Gallery. 68 women signed the petition to assure the House that they did in fact want the vote. She also collected signatures for the 1891 women's suffrage petition. In April 1893 Ballance's husband died suddenly and she moved to live in his former constituency of

Wanganui Whanganui (; ), also spelled Wanganui, is a city in the Manawatū-Whanganui region of New Zealand. The city is located on the west coast of the North Island at the mouth of the Whanganui River, New Zealand's longest navigable waterway. Whang ...

, where she was the inaugural president of the Wanganui Women's Franchise League, founded in June 1893. The League had close links to the

National Council of Women of New Zealand , logo = National Council of Women of New Zealand logo.png , logo_size = 100px , logo_alt = , logo_caption = , image = , image_size = , alt = , capt ...

and provided a forum for the discussion of issues of concern to women in Wanganui. The League's initial priorities under Ballance's leadership were collecting signatures for the women's suffrage petition (which went from 200 signatures locally to 2,600 signatures within a month of the League's foundation), and engaging with Parliament and local politicians. Later that year, the Electoral Act 1893 gave New Zealand women the right to vote. Ballance also donated her husband's library to the League. Ballance lived in Wanganui for the rest of her life, and remained active in community organisations, including the

Anglican church Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of the ...

, the Wanganui Orphanage and the

Plunket Society The Royal New Zealand Plunket Trust provides a range of free services aimed at improving the development, health and wellbeing of children under the age of five within New Zealand, where it is commonly known simply as Plunket. Its mission is "t ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ballance, Ellen 1846 births 1935 deaths New Zealand suffragists New Zealand women activists New Zealand activists People from Wellington City Spouses of prime ministers of New Zealand