On This Day

28 July 1893

A petition organized by Kate Sheppard, demanding women's suffrage, is delivered to New Zealand's parliament, signed by over 25,000 women, a fifth of the adult European female population. Two weeks later, pro-suffrage MP Sir John Hall presented the massive rolled-up sheets - carried into the House of Representatives in a wheelbarrow. On 8 September, the Electoral Bill passed the Legislative Council by a narrow 20-to-18 margin, and on 19 September, Governor Lord Glasgow signed the Electoral Act into law, making New Zealand the first self-governing country in the world where women won the right to vote in parliamentary elections.

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