On July 28th, 1893 a suffrage petition signed by 'Mary J. Carpenter and 25,519 Others' was submitted to the New Zealand Parliament. Less than two months later on September 19th, 1893, Lord Glasgow, governer of New Zealand during the time period, signed a new Electoral Act into law. With the signing of this act, New Zealand was the first self-governing country in the world that enacted women's right to vote in elections. This was a huge step in the world wide women suffrage movement, although most other democracies, such as Britain and the United States, did not give women the right to vote until after World War 1.

The passing of the Electoral Act was made possible by the years of effort from suffrage campaigners in the country that were led by Kate Sheppard who also founded the Women's Christian Temperance Union two years before becoming the leader of the suffrage movement in New Zealand. A series of massive petitions written with the act of calling Parliament to grant women's right to vote took three years to compile together before they were able to submit the entirety of the New Zealand Women Suffrage Petition that had 25,520 signatures in total on it. The peitition stetches more than 270 meters long and is on display at the National Library of New Zealand in Wellington.

After New Zealand granted women the right to vote, the British Colony of South Australia was the next to follow, granting full suffrage in 1894. The start of the 20th Century saw the effect of these great advances in the suffrage movement spread to many other countries around the world and sparked the passing of many laws in support of women's suffrage.

Works Cited:

“Kate Sheppard.” Biography.com, A&E Networks Television, 2 Apr. 2014, www.biography.com/activist/kate-sheppard.

“Suffrage Petition, 1893.” New Zealand Government, 13 Mar. 2018, nzhistory.govt.nz/politics/womens-suffrage/petition.

“Women and the Vote.” New Zealand Government, 20 Dec. 2018, nzhistory.govt.nz/politics/womens-suffrage.

Women's Suffrage Movement - Facts and Information on Women's Rights. www.historynet.com/womens-suffrage-movement.