Regarded as New Zealand's unofficial poet laureate, relentless fighter for women , penal reform , home rule for Scotland and Ireland , animal rights , prohibition , Jessie Mackay, 1864-1938, above, prompted the following poem by Helena Henderson, another Kiwi activist , mentioned recently in this blog, when she died.
The daughter of Scottish parents , her father a shepherd, Mackay was taught at home until 14, when she went to Christchurch to train as a schoolteacher, serving in small rural schools until 1898, when she was forced to leave teaching due to illness and take up journalism .
The New Zealand Dictionary of Biography states she wrote a fortnightly column for the Otago Witness ,which she did for 30 years, and in 1906 was appointed lady editor of the Canterbury Times .
As a freelance writer she contributed to the NZ Women's Christian Temperance Union ; British feminist journals such as Jus Suffragii,Votes for Women and the Common Cause .
She and her sister Georgina kept a vegetarian house . Jessie refused to wear feathers and furs, condemned the fur trade and hunting , opposed animal experiments and vivisection .
In her poems she defended the Maoris and said the Maori Wars had been caused by Pakeha greed .
In 1921 she set out for England, Ireland, Scotland and the Continent, attended the Irish Race Congress in Paris as a NZ representative of the Society for Self-Determination for Ireland.
Other issues she campaigned for included the need for women in parliament, better pay for women and the need for women in the police force.
Some of her poems were run in the Sydney Bulletin and she corresponded with Australian writer and critic Nettie Palmer who ,with husband, Vance, were influential figures in literary circles.
