Katie PicklesKatie Pickles

Katie Pickles is Professor of History at the University of Canterbury and current Royal Society of New Zealand Te Apārangi James Cook Research Fellow, University of Canterbury

The secret that influenced Kate Sheppard’s suffrage mission

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The family of pioneering New Zealand suffragist Kate Sheppard kept an important secret – one that possibly explains a lot about her life, her beliefs and her motivation. Kate Sheppard’s secret involved her father, Andrew Wilson Malcolm, and what happened to him after she was born. An extensive and painstaking quest by her great great … Read more

A mufti day is enormous fun. But time to give it a new name

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Let’s disentangle the prized day of casual clothing from its colonial connotations, writes historian Katie Pickles. As another school year starts up around the country, getting into uniforms is compulsory for most pupils. It’s only the occasional mufti day that brings the chance to ditch the conformity. But little do most mufti day organisers and … Read more

Introducing Mrs Cook: in search of history’s ‘other half’

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Tuia 250 commemorations have pressed the mute button on sexual intimacy as part of the colonial encounter. The focus is on first encounters of a public and asexual kind, writes Katie Pickles. Who knew Captain Cook had a wife? The tales told agree that after a brief intense and romantic courtship twenty-one year old Elizabeth … Read more

How come little NZ was the first country where women won the right to vote?

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Why did a global first happen in a small and isolated corner of the South Pacific? Historian Katie Pickles has the essential primer One hundred and 25 years ago today, Aotearoa New Zealand became the first country in the world to grant all women the right to vote. The event was part of an ongoing international … Read more