Rachelina Hepburn Armitage (; 22 April 1873 – 14 May 1955) was a New Zealand welfare worker and community leader. Armitage was born as Rachelina Hepburn Stewart in

Dunedin Dunedin ( ; mi, Ōtepoti) is the second-largest city in the South Island of New Zealand (after Christchurch), and the principal city of the Otago region. Its name comes from , the Scottish Gaelic name for Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. Th ...

, New Zealand on 22 April 1873. She was the daughter of prominent lawyer

William Downie Stewart Sr William Downie Stewart (15 May 1842 – 25 November 1898) was a 19th-century New Zealand politician and a lawyer. Early life Stewart was born in Blair Drummond near Stirling in Scotland. His parents were Alexander Stewart and Mary (née Downie ...

. She attended

Otago Girls' High School , motto_translation = The Right Education Makes The Heart As Strong As Oak , type = State , grades = 9 - 13 , grades_label = Years , gender = Girls-only , established = ; years ago , address = 41 Tennyson Street ...

from 1885 to 1892, and in 1893 was enrolled in

Somerville College Somerville College, a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England, was founded in 1879 as Somerville Hall, one of its first two women's colleges. Among its alumnae have been Margaret Thatcher, Indira Gandhi, Dorothy Hodgkin, ...

Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

, where she studied modern history. In 1896 she became the first New Zealand woman BA to complete a degree at Oxford.Thomson, J. (ed.) (1998) ''Southern people: A dictionary of Otago-Southland biography.'' Dunedin: Longacre Press. p. 484. She remained in England, becoming part of the Women's University Settlements Scheme, an organisation aimed at improving the education and welfare of working-class women and children in London. She stayed in the United Kingdom until the death of her father in 1899. In 1903, she married George Whitefield Armitage, an accountant from

South Otago South Otago lies in the south east of the South Island of New Zealand. As the name suggests, it forms the southernmost part of the geographical region of Otago. The exact definition of the area designated as South Otago is imprecise, as the area is ...

. The couple moved to

South Canterbury South Canterbury is the area of the Canterbury Region of the South Island of New Zealand bounded by the Rangitata River in the north and the Waitaki River (the border with the Otago Region) to the south. The Pacific Ocean and ridge of the South ...

where they settled at

Temuka Temuka is a town on New Zealand's Canterbury Plains, 15 kilometres north of Timaru and 142 km south of Christchurch. It is located at the centre of a rich sheep and dairy farming region, for which it is a service town. It lies on the north ...

and had two sons. Armitage continued her community work, founding a local branch of the New Zealand Federation of Women's Institutes. She also became a leading campaigner for 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 ...

in rural Canterbury, an organisation which had been founded by family friend

Truby King Sir Frederic Truby King (1 April 1858 – 10 February 1938), generally known as Truby King, was a New Zealand health reformer and Director of Child Welfare. He is best known as the founder of the Plunket Society. Early life King was born in ...

, and was Temuka branch president from 1914 to 1928, as well as being a national committee member in 1928. After the death of George Armitage in 1943, she helped her sister Mary take care of her ailing brother,

William Downie Stewart Jr William Downie Stewart (29 July 1878 – 29 September 1949) was a New Zealand Finance Minister, Mayor of Dunedin and writer. Early life Stewart was born in Dunedin in 1878. His father was William Downie Stewart, a lawyer and politician. His m ...

, who suffered from crippling rheumatoid arthritis. Armitage died on 14 May 1955 in Dunedin.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Armitage, Rachel 1873 births 1955 deaths New Zealand social workers People from Dunedin Alumni of Somerville College, Oxford